Mr. Chairman, I keep hearing from the hon. member that there was a promise to do everything on a 50:50 basis. In 1970, when medicare began, the promise was only for hospital and physician services.
Following 1970, provinces began to add on a basket of services outside of the hospital, such as home care, long term care, palliative care and community care. They have added on a whole other basket of services outside of physician services.
This is what we are talking about when we say that it is like comparing apples and oranges. If we divide the amount of money the federal government is funding into that whole new large basket, which is not part of the Canada Health Act and not part of the agreement, then obviously we would come up with the kind of skewed numbers that the member has talked about.
The member should consider that if the provinces want the federal government to fund some of the services that it is not required to fund, such as hospital and physician services, then negotiations may have to be opened up. The federal government will not just drop money into an open hole in the ground. It will have to decide how it can form a partnership with the provinces in order to fund some of the new and many ancillary services that have been added on since 1970.