Mr. Speaker, it is always amusing to hear a Liberal member talk about funding for health care when it was the Liberal Party that cut health care by $25 billion between 1994 and 1999.
The new Government of Canada has made it very clear that the $41 billion for health care is a fundamental investment that it is willing to stand behind and support. It is making a tangible difference. I raised examples that patient wait time reductions were working across the country, from coast to coast. I know the Minister of Health is doing everything he can to work with his provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure that the government's goals for patient wait times guarantee can be realized.
I will read the statistics of the hospital in Barrie in the last year, which I find most impressive, and the government has only been in power for about a year. If we break down what funding in the budget means for local hospitals, for my local hospital it is $3.14 million for 2006-07. That funding has allowed the hospital to perform 606 additional cancer, cataract and joint replacement surgeries and an additional 1,880 MRI hours.
The investment that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health have put into health care is making a tangible difference in communities. It is in stark contrast to the days in the 1990s when hospitals and provincial health ministers were continually scared and in trepidation of the cuts the Liberals may inflict on health care systems.
We can ignore the $25 billion, but the growth in wait times was a direct cause of the cuts inflicted by the former finance minister at the time. It is unfortunate that it happened, but this government is doing everything we can to ensure that the health care system has the funding it deserves, and we are seeing that happen today.