Mr. Chairman, as the parliamentary secretary will know, we in fact responded in our first mandate in office to a desire from the provinces to have more flexibility in investing in the areas they thought were important. The problem with that, of course, is that then we leave ourselves open to this attack that we are not funding the things that they thought we were supposed to be funding or that we have somehow restricted them. I do not think that is very fair.
I think that if there were more honesty and accountability and perhaps tied funding, as we have done with the equipment funding, Canadians would actually be able to track those dollars and see the benefits of their federal spending as well as of the provincial spending.
We do have to make sure that we have some flexibility in what is important. With the drug committee we have been to the Vancouver east side. There they are asking for different kinds of treatment in health interventions which would not necessarily be appropriate for my community or other communities across the country.
We have to make sure that the provinces have flexibility, but I do think we are going to have to look at tying some moneys to specific needs, as we did with the medical equipment fund and as I think we are going to have to do with treatment dollars, so that there is no excuse and Canadians looking for those services can find them in their own provinces.
That is another thing I am sure the parliamentary secretary has heard from constituents in his riding and other places. We need to separate the myth from the reality. All kinds of people have come to see me about health care but they have not had an intervention lately. By and large, the people who are having issues and who are receiving health care are extremely satisfied with the level of care, with the innovation that is taking place at the local level. By and large, they are extremely pleased.
Of course there are some people who have had difficult situations and they need to be addressed, but the people who seem to be most concerned or fearful that it has all gone to hell in a handbasket or that we need to introduce a private health care system are people who have not actually had any interaction with the health care system and in fact have bought into some of the myths.
I think the parliamentary secretary has hit on an important issue and that we perhaps very much do need to look at reconstructing those dollars and at tying the money to the services that Canadians have told us are important.