Mr. Chair, I believe that the wait times across the country in different areas of health care have become almost the litmus test for health care. Even though people may not have been in direct contact with health care recently, when they look at the waiting times they believe that health care may not be available for them when they need it.
There is a high degree of satisfaction with our health care system among Canadians, particularly among those who have been in touch with the system, because it was there for them.
However there is a real problem with wait times. The Prime Minister recognized that in the last election and made it a national issue. With the assistance and cooperation of the first ministers from across the country, we signed an agreement in mid-September of this year which will provide $41 billion in additional money over the next 10 years for health care. It was agreed that all the provinces would establish evidence-based benchmarks and multi-year targets to achieve those benchmarks, and would have comparable indicators to arrive at those wait times and to reduce them.
The Prime Minister selected four areas on which all the first ministers agreed: sight restoration, joint replacement, cardiac and diagnostic. If some provinces felt that their priority lay in some other area or that they had wait times that were more problematic in other areas, there was flexibility in the four that they could choose. These four were not etched in stone.
It is important that all jurisdictions report by March 31, 2007 significant reductions in wait times across the country. It is important that we re-inject that sense of public confidence into our public health care system. Regardless of the difficulties we may be having now with our health care system we must remember that 40 years ago we rejected the private system where a person's wallet was checked before the person's pulse.
It is important that we maintain, strengthen and enhance our public health care system, an institution that is cherished, loved and supported by Canada, so that health care is available for all of us. It defines our sense of shared values to look after each other as Canadians.