Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a couple of comments and then finish with a question for the member. The member started by talking about health care, the term that is in the motion. Then she went on to mention drugs and home care and spoke in much of her speech about prevention and so on.
As members know, home care and pharmacare are not within the purview and jurisdiction of the federal government. These are not items that the federal government can withdraw or somehow police.
The definition of health care that we are talking about in regard to the motion is unclear. We should be talking about those elements of health care which are under the purview of the Canada Health Act and which are medically necessary. I think the motion is flawed in that regard.
Second, I notice that the member was shifting her definition of private, for profit care in terms of what she was referring to. In one instance she was referring to private, for profit care being the situation wherein a Canadian or a resident would go to some health care provider and pay that doctor for the services rendered. It is two tier. She talked about two tier, where, instead of getting it through the hospital and having it covered under the health card, someone actually paid. That is private, for profit care as most Canadians would understand it.
Then the member started to talk about private, for profit care--and confuse everybody--in the sense that it would provide the service and bill the public health system an amount which would include its return on investment. So the private, for profit scenario is one where the patient would pay and the other is where the public health system would pay. Those are two different aspects on which she was not clear.
My question for the member is with regard to the motion. If she agrees that the motion has to deal with items for which the federal government under the Canada Health Act has responsibility, and the motion says that these are items which the government “has allowed to grow since 1993”, could she give the House some examples of the specific matters, specific services or health care elements, which, under the Canada Health Act, under federal jurisdiction, we have allowed to grow?