Mr. Chairman, I know the hon. member has a passion for health care and for seeing people well and for finding answers for sustainable health care.
As stated in our policy, “ensuring timely, quality and sustainable health care is available to every Canadian regardless of financial means” is part of our policy. We are looking for answers so that Canadians can receive value. Value is something we mentioned. We want to talk about Canadian values tonight. It is value in health care delivery that we are actually interested in pursuing.
On the issue of sustainable funding, we would add another principle to the Canada Health Act and that is sustained funding. We would ensure that the federal government cannot unilaterally withdraw funding from the provinces and leave them hanging out to dry in the delivery of the services.
We believe that sustainable and predictable funding so that health care budgeting is possible is really important. In the management of health care it is finding value, and that is effectiveness and cost effectiveness. That is something we need to pursue. It is something we are interested in pursuing, giving Canadians a choice in services they receive and making sure that they get value.
That is something in which the federal government can play a positive role. Nearly $1 billion in health care research funding is available to us. The federal government, rather than telling the provinces what they should and should not deliver, should be providing a leadership role in making sure that if there is another way of doing business, another way of delivering effective care to Canadians that it will put research dollars into checking it out. It must make sure that Canadians are getting cost effectiveness and value for their health care dollars.