Yes, it is.
According to Mr. Romanow, in the best case scenario, we are going to contribute 25% of the costs of the health care system. That is what the Romanow report says.
This means that the provinces will still have to bear 75% of the costs. Are we to conclude that this would have been the case if the federal government had shouldered its responsibilities, and had not made such cavalier and shameless cuts? There was no constitutional conference on the cuts to transfer payments and no vote in this House; Canadians and Quebeckers were not asked what they thought about all this.
There was a program review and then, in its authoritarian and centralist manner, the federal government made its cuts. That is the reality.
The Government of Quebec, one of the best to occupy the government benches of the National Assembly, has set its priorities. No other government, since the quiet revolution in Quebec, has invested as much in health as the Parti Quebecois.
Just this weekend, the Premier of Quebec, the head of the government, said, “We will create a health fund if the federal government re-establishes the transfer payments, as everyone in Canada and Quebec has been asking”. The Premier of Quebec, the head of government, has promised that all of the funds received from Ottawa would go into a fund earmarked for health care.
Could the Government of Quebec be any clearer in making major commitments to the effect that health care has been set as the top priority? As long as the Bloc Quebecois is here in this House, we will never accept that the provinces should be held accountable to Ottawa, to federal bureaucrats. We will never accept that. That is no doubt the difference between those of us on this side of the House and the members opposite.
The Romanow report inferred—quite unfairly, by the way—that there are no mechanisms for accountability. In Quebec, the health budget is $17 billion. There are accountability mechanisms. Obviously, there are elections and question period in the National Assembly. There are also health reports tabled by the regional health authorities. There is the National Assembly's social affairs committee.
There is a commissioner responsible for all citizens' complaints regarding services in health care institutions. Health reports are released, providing a classification, or ranking, of how health care institutions fulfill their obligations.
But, most importantly, Minister Legault announced a health care plan two weeks ago. He told Quebeckers that, in the next few years, if they wanted a good health care system, if, from the cradle to home care, Quebeckers wanted access to all the services they needed, an additional $1.8 billion would be needed. The Minister of Health did what the Coalition québécoise en santé asked him to do and indicated how this money would be spent.
We learned that $160 million would be invested in family physician groups. Another $177 million would ensure the provision of comparable services and extend the hours of the 147 CLSCs in Quebec, which we are so proud of because they provide access to health care. The CLSC provide access and front-line services. They operate in every community. English-speaking Canadians come to study the way the CLSCs operate to find out how we managed to set up such a network.
However, the CLSCs are not open 24 hours a day, something the public has been complaining about, and rightly so. The availability of some services in the CLSCs has also been a concern. According to the health minister, for the CLSC network alone, an additional $177 million is needed.
For home care services for seniors losing their autonomy, $133 million will be set aside. Also, $152 million will be earmarked for adding beds in long-term care centres. Medical and hospital services will need $162 million.
So, those who are watching us now realize that we have an action plan. The Government of Quebec has taken its responsibilities. It has invested as much in health care as it can afford. It has set some priorities. It is willing to work with all of the stakeholders who know the network, make the decisions and are held accountable.
What comes next? We have to ask the federal government to reinvest in health care. If fact, at the premiers' conference in Halifax, all the premiers asked for federal funding to be increased by at least $5 billion a year. The federal contribution must increase from 14%, as it stands now, to 18%.
The Romanow report recommends 25%. That is good news. But let us not kid ourselves. We need to properly identify the responsibility centers. The federal government simply cannot tell the provinces how to deliver the services and to whom to report.
The Bloc Quebecois will be keeping a very close eye on this issue. I will now to defer to my colleague from Drummond.