Mr. Speaker, we obviously agree on one very important issue, which is the way in which the federal government has unilaterally cut significant amounts from health care transfers over the years. We could cite chapter and verse the number of steps the federal government has taken. It began with the Mulroney Conservatives in the late 1980s and was carried on by the Liberal government when it was elected in 1993.
It got to the point where cash transfers for health care were to drop to a miniscule amount, even zero, unless action was taken. Through a lot of pressure we managed to stabilize that system of funding. However we are still in the terribly difficult position of having such an imbalance federally and provincially in terms of Canada's most fundamental program, our medicare system.
We part company with respect to the role of the federal government in transforming and restructuring our health care system. We believe there has to be a national presence, national standards, national funding and national programs in order to have one system that responds to the needs of all Canadians from one end of the country to the other.
We do not in any way support the concept advocated by the Alliance for 13 separate provincial health care systems. That kind of patchwork system, that kind of mixed response to very fundamental issues is detrimental to Canadians. It is contrary to the vision our forefathers and foremothers had of health care.
We believe that through provincial-federal co-operation we can restructure medicare. We can move our system from a costly institutional medical model to one that is preventive, holistic and rooted in the community. Through incentives from the federal government, through funding, through standards and through programs, we can shape our health care system to respond to the needs of families in their homes and communities. We can adapt and innovate medicare so it goes beyond the institutional model and looks at meeting the needs of people wherever they live in whatever region.
I suppose we have to simply agree to disagree on this one. We know that the Bloc has a fundamental issue around its own political requirements and the separatist agenda.
Let us be clear. If we are truly serious about a national vision for health care and transforming the idea that Tommy Douglas had so many years ago into something that is relevant for today, we have to do it on a national basis with more than just funding. We have to do it with some leadership from the federal government. We have to do it on a co-operative basis. We have to do it together so that we have one health care system that meets the needs of all Canadians, regardless of how much they make, where they live and whatever their background.