Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her very reasoned approach and I appreciate a lot of the things she said. I would like to elaborate that the federal funding was never 50% on health care. We paid 50% of certain costs in the past, but there was never a total of 50%. If members want to see the exact calculations, some do not have the figures at their fingertips, they are on the finance website. Depending on which of the health care items we put forward, it could be 33%, 37% or 40% today.
I am glad the member brought forward the point about human resource strategy because there are elements of that in our deals with the provinces. I am glad she brought up patents because I have been fighting that battle with her colleague and I am quite supportive of changes, although the regulations we proposed are not the status quo. The regulations that exist now are the status quo and we want to change them.
Hopefully the member will support the Prime Minister's effort to ensure that the discussion with aboriginal people took place before the main discussion on health care because that was an important item that had to be looked at. It was looked at and progress was made. The Premier of Alberta suggested that to keep the system funded and sustainable there needs to be some sort of mix of both private and public or the system will bankrupt. I would like her to comment on the premier's views.