Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take the floor on the question of privilege which has been submitted to the House and accepted by the Speaker concerning not only our 10 percenters but also our householders. Today the House of Commons is therefore seized of this matter. Although some think it undemocratic to do this, such in fact is democracy.
There is a problem, and we, the hon. members on each side of the House, are in the process of presenting and arguing our points of view.
Earlier, I was listening to the hon. Liberal member saying that he did not understand how the NDP could have joined forces with the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party. We have come to the point where the Liberals think only of themselves. A proposal has been made to the Liberals so that the House of Commons might continue to sit. So long as the House is in session, things can be provided for Canadians. Our aim is not in fact to support the Liberals but to work in the interest of Canadians. We want to be here, in the House, to pass bills and budgets that will help Canadians.
This was done last spring, when $1.5 billion was allocated toward reducing student debt. The NDP was proud of this. Similarly, $1.5 billion will be granted for affordable housing. This fall, however, after the tabling of the Gomery report, when the NDP wanted to have a productive Parliament, the Liberals were asked if they were prepared to save our public health care system. It was sad to hear the Prime Minister reply that he was prepared to grant the provinces new money, while preventing private-sector physicians from benefiting from it. But as for the $41 billion that was allocated last spring, given that this is federal money, he was not prepared to require the provinces to spend that money only on the public health care system. It is simple: the Liberals favour a private health care system. When the Liberals say that money from the federal government can be given to the private health care system in Canada, and that they cannot backtrack on the $41 billion, they are telling us they want a private system. They are turning a blind eye to this issue. That is what is really happening, and it is dangerous.
Just recently, the Liberal Party of Quebec announced in the National Assembly that it wants a parallel private health care system. This shows that the Liberals want a private health care system in Canada. They want their friends, the large insurance companies, to be able to sell insurance like companies do in the United States, because people will have to get their own insurance and pay for it.
I gave an example the other week. Imagine that, today, we have two heath care systems in Canada: a private system and a public one. Canadians fought so hard for a public health care system. The NDP is proud to say that, 50 years ago, Tommy Douglas at the time forced the government to establish a public health care system across Canada. We believe that, rich or poor, those who are sick should be able to receive the same services. What kind of idea is that: the rich could be treated the same day, while the poor would have to wait for six months? That is unacceptable here, in Canada, one the most wonderful countries in the world. The Liberals have decided to turn a blind eye on this.
To be productive, while waiting for an election after the second Gomery report was tabled, the Liberal government could have taken position and said that it had an agreement with the NDP. But why should the NDP have to continue supporting a Parliament that is not working, and a government that has been caught red-handed taking money from the taxpayers to give it to its political party in Quebec and would have us believe that it did not know what was going on? As the story goes, the Prime Minister of Canada, who was finance minister at the time, the President of the Treasury Board, who was from Quebec and handled the sponsorships, and the Minister of Public Works, who was a minister from Quebec, none of them knew that money was going into the Liberal coffers.
I am sorry but the people back home do not buy that.