Mr. Speaker, my colleague makes a very good point with regard to the amount of private funding in the health care system now. Actually a little over 31% right now is private. Yet we do not have a NAFTA challenge. We do not have naysayers saying that it will destroy the system if there is any privatization of our system. Our system is 30% there already. That truly is false and it truly is trying to fearmonger and add phobias.
However, all of that is falling on deaf ears because Canadians are so much further ahead. What Canadians really care about is having a system that is there for them when they are ill. We have to realize that this becomes the focus. There is no question about that. So when we are asked questions about alternate delivery and following the mandate, that is what has to happen. We have to stop the adversarial roles. We have to draw clear distinctions between the role of the federal government and how it supports the health care system in Canada and the role of the provincial governments in delivering health care services to their constituents. We have to realize what that role is.
When we respect those roles, then we will be much more able to collectively do what Canadians expect us to do. As we realize, the same people support the federal government and the provincial governments with the same tax dollars. It comes from the same pocket. It is the same money.
Taxpayers do not like the differences we have had, the adversarial conditions that have been set up in Canada. Canadians want health care when they need it. This is what we had better focus on.