Madam Speaker, before I get to the member's final comment, I want to address the facts about what we need in a health care system. I agree that we have an aging population and we will have some serious problems if we do not deal with it, so I would encourage the government to actually develop a strategy that includes the social determinants of health and looks at health care in a much broader way than is currently done in looking primarily at acute care and primary care. We really need to encourage the system to be innovative and creative and to look at prevention. What we really want to do is stop people from getting into the health care system. When we look at things like the social determinants of health, that goes a long way toward that strategy.
With regard to Tommy Douglas, a number of years have gone by since Tommy Douglas and the party of the time took great strides in making sure that Canada had a national health care system. As they were making a transition from no medicare into something that was difficult for many people to get their heads around, he was making statements in the context of that day and age. I think that if we go out to the public in this day and age, we will hear the public clearly saying that it wants publicly delivered and publicly funded health care. Some 40-odd years later, that is what I think Canadians want.
I would encourage the Minister of Health to include in the Canada Health Act something to actually prevent for profit delivery. It currently does not.