Madam Speaker, I thank the member from Vancouver Island for a number of her comments. Health care is something that we are all seized with because there are two things happening in our society that are clashing and in fact threaten to rupture all of our social programs. That is why we have been consumed by this issue, because it matters so much in a blood and guts and life and death situation for so many Canadians.
Our aging population and our increasingly expensive medical technologies are putting such a demand on the health care system and our social programs that they threaten to rupture them. With the amount of money we actually have to pay for them it is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet those demands.
We have to ensure, as she quite rightly said, that we improve the accountability of the system to ensure that we get the best value for the taxpayers' dollars. I remind her that there is only one payer: the hard-working Canadians who pay taxes.
How do we accomplish that? What the government has tried to do and is doing is to come out with the bill, an element of which is how we will work with the provinces to put in that accountability so that we do get the best dollar value for Canadians. I encourage her to put forward her comments and her input to the Minister of Health. I am sure he will appreciate that.
On the issue of private health care delivery, I want to remind the member of one salient fact. The Canada Health Act talks about us having a public payer system. It does not say anything about the delivery mechanism. In fact, as she knows, the vast majority of health care delivery in Canada is private. Physicians, physiotherapists and pharmacists are all private, for profit deliverers, so that is not the issue.
Here is what we are all trying to do. Here is what the Minister of Health is trying to do. We are all trying to work with the provinces because they are the managers of health care. As a federal government, as the member for the Bloc correctly said, we do not have the jurisdiction to manage health care, but we are working and want to and will work with every single province and every single minister of health to ensure that every Canadian has high quality access to health care. It is one of the most difficult things we have to do, but it is one of the most pressing.
I want to ask the member just one question. Tommy Douglas made it very clear that he did not have a problem with and in fact supported private, for profit deliverers giving health care. What does she say about that when Tommy Douglas, the father of the NDP, said that he would support this in the mix of trying to ensure that Canadians get timely access to quality health care in our country?