The member opposite is yelling, but where would he be in terms of a health care system? I turn to the new Conservative Party's policy. The Conservative Party of Canada believes that “all Canadians should have reasonable access to quality health care regardless of their ability to pay”.
What does reasonable mean? That party does not talk about the Canada Health Act. It does not talk about having universal health care as we do. Those members play with words.
The Conservative Party of Canada believes spending decisions and setting priorities within the health care funding envelope should be left with the provinces. If that were to happen, I know what the problem would be in Prince Edward Island. We would not have the equivalent health care in our province as they do in the rest of the country. We do not happen to have the oil revenues that the province of Alberta has and which, of course, it can use.
However, thank goodness we have a federal government that believes in equality across this country and that manages its finances properly, because we are able to have similar health care as long as the province manages its finances appropriately.
Let us look for a moment to the future. I would think the hon. member from Edmonton would probably keep this good throne speech under her pillow at night so that she has good dreams. Let me turn to the throne speech for a minute and tell the House what we committed ourselves to.
The government's commitment to health care rests on one fundamental tenet: that all Canadians have timely access to quality care regardless of income or geography. Access when they need it sounds very different from the Conservative policy statement. The government is committed to this goal. The word is universal, not reasonable. We are talking about universal, high quality, publicly funded health care consistent with the principles of medicare as set out in the Canada Health Act.
The length of waiting times for the most important diagnoses and treatments is a litmus test of our health care system. These waiting lines, the Governor General went on to say, must be reduced.
The speech goes on. The Liberal government will work with its provincial and territorial partners on the necessary reforms and long term sustainability of the health system, and it will support the health council in the development of information on which waiting objectives can be set and by which Canadians can judge progress toward them.
In looking at the health council, the minister for public health was in P.E.I. last week and had a round table, a very good round table, not looking at just the dollars, but looking at a number of other areas; for example, looking at research and spending dollars in that area.
There were people from the Atlantic Veterinarian College, that good institution in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, that does such good work and is recognized around the world. We talked about how in the world we live now there is the hosting of diseases in animals and the veterinarian institutions need to come together with the general health institutions so that we can be ahead of the game in terms of preventing diseases. So we are looking at trying to make progress there.
A very important point was made by Ann Robertson, who works with C.H.A.N.C.E.S. Inc. in Charlottetown, on early childhood development, that the best places to make investments in health care is in early childhood and this government has been doing that for its full term in office because we are looking at prevention, as well as maintaining and expanding the health care system.
There was a good point, and I want to emphasize this because this is the way this government operates, that we need to look at the whole person, the body, the spirit, in terms of our health care strategy.
The bottom line is that we are there for Canadians and we will be there in the future. Health care is a priority for me, for all Prince Edward Islanders and it is certainly a priority for the Government of Canada.
The motion put forward is misinformation because we need to look at the whole system, the cash, the tax points and the other programs, because that is the way we are dealing with health care, in a responsible fashion.