Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I was looking for the table with the federal government's five points for health.
My colleague is perfectly correct. The federal government is saying, “Health care is our priority”. However, what are its health care responsibilities? It administers veterans' hospitals. There are perhaps a dozen of them in Canada; I do not know the number by heart. It also administers hospitals on reserves and that is all.
Health Canada has 5,000, 6,000 or 10,000 employees—I do not know exactly—and it only is responsible for 22 hospitals. However, the federal government says, “Health is our priority”.
Other than ensuring the universality of care and the five national principles of health care, the federal government has a responsibility with regard to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and public health in general.
Yet, when we are told in a trembling voice that we are “sensitive to the reality facing Canadians”, as the Prime Minister would say, and that “health is our priority”, we could politely respond, “give us our money and mind your own business. Your priority is collecting taxes and you should give this money back to us”.
Who administers the waiting rooms? Who administers the hospitals? Who administers long term care? It is not the federal government; it is the provinces. Now we are told that there will be discussions with the provinces to resolve the problem in health care.
The only thing that the federal government needs to discuss is transferring money for health care, that is all. It should stop making speeches and saying, “We will ensure shorter hospital wait times”. This is none of its business. I say this very politely. In more parliamentary terms, this is not part of its jurisdiction. This is an area of provincial jurisdiction.
Consequently, to respond to my colleague, we want to create committees. We want discussions but about what? Waiting lists? Operating rooms? The number of doctors in the regions? I am sorry. The federal government should mind its own business. What we are asking the government to do is re-establish adequate funding to allow the provinces and territories to provide adequate health care to the public.
I think that this is not very hard to understand.