Mr. Speaker, the beauty of the Romanow report is that it recognizes the reality of all of our experiences wherever we live in this country. It makes a point of ensuring that we adopt a system that allows for flexibility to meet the needs in each of our provinces and to help provincial governments meet the needs of their citizens.
The Bloc is all hot under the collar about the fact that Romanow is recommending two things: first, that the federal government increase its share of transfer payments in cash to the provinces to get us up to a minimum of 25% with a built in escalator clause so it grows as the economy and population grows. That is something I thought we were all in agreement about, yet the Bloc seems to have problems with it. That is something all provinces have asked for.
The second thing that the Bloc seems to have a problem with is the funding for innovating, upgrading and renewing our health care system so that it becomes community based, holistic, more cost effective, and based on prevention not on illness, community driven not institutionally based and so on. There are some wonderful recommendations on how to do that with flexibility for the provinces so that if they have a complete home care program in place they can take that money and put it to another part of the health care system. The Bloc seems to have a problem with that.
I fail to understand how something that ensures stability of funding and moves our system to a progressive innovative approach is negative and wrong. I would suggest the Bloc revisit the Romanow commission report and participate with Canadians and in fact citizens in its own province to use this opportunity and not lose this chance we have.