Mr. Speaker, when I became a member of Parliament and joined the health committee in January 1994, the first presentation came from Health Canada officials. They outlined how 75% of health spending was on remedial or fixing the problem and only 25% was prevention. Their conclusion was the system was unsustainable.
Therefore, I do not think it is a surprise by the situation in which we find ourselves. We have had some false starts on things like the National Forum on Health. It came to the conclusion that there was enough money in the system, but it was not being spent properly. Subsequently, all that work was reversed and it said that more money was needed. However, we still have not seen the results.
I applaud the member for bringing forward the motion. It is an important area, particularly with regard to addressing what the member would describe as maybe frustration with Health Canada.
However, people are living longer these days. It is not so much that they are living healthier lifestyles, but that the technology of medicine and pharmaceuticals have allowed people to overcome a lot of the things that they could not in the past. Therefore, there are some conflicting approaches to a healthy lifestyle.
I am a big believer in terms of an investment in prevention. Does the member feel that perhaps now is the time to take a little tougher stand with Health Canada, which seems not to have come to that same conclusion, and to ensure that words of parliamentarians are not only heard but acted upon?