Yes, the previous government.
We saw an example of exactly what could happen when the SARS crisis hit Canada. We saw that dithering cost not only billions of dollars but 44 lives. That was due, to a large degree, to ineffective leadership by the Liberal government. We could discuss for the entire day the disaster that happened because of the inaction of the Liberal government. We are not talking dollars, we are talking lives.
Let us go on to wait times. Why is it so important that we have a wait times guarantee? It is important to understand that some of the commissions studied it and recommended it. The Mazankowski report recommended it as did the Kirby report. It is a very important concept. People have to understand that if a government is prepared to say that it will provide necessary services as a public system and then the public does not have the opportunity to access those services, something is wrong.
The Supreme Court decision in the Chaoulli case in 2005 said that medically necessary services must be provided by the state in a timely fashion. If we are not going to do that, then we are saying that we are prepared to allow individuals to die on those wait lists before we provide the services. That is not compassionate, nor is it the way we should run our health system and it does not reflect Canadian values.
It is interesting to look at what happened in the last election. On December 2, the Conservatives announced the care guarantee saying that we would guarantee care to Canadians.
What was really interesting about that and why I bring this up, is the Liberal government, when it was embarrassed and knew it had to come out with something on health care, on January 3 said that a care guarantee was needed. That was after 13 years of saying no, that it was not going to do what needed to be done in health care. I am upset because of the partisanship and shallowness of the motion. We must stop playing politics with health care if we are to sustain it over the next 30 or 40 years.
We have to get down to work in the best interests of Canadians. We have to put the patient first. We must stop all this rhetoric and nonsense. A care guarantee absolutely must take place.
There is much that can be done with the dollars we have put into health care. It is not that Canadians do not want to support the system. It is not that there is not enough funding in the system. There is a significant amount of funding in the system.
The health committee wanted to look at care guarantee and wait times in order to make a recommendation to the minister with regard to wait times. We brought in a good number of witnesses last spring to look at what is happening in the provinces. We have to look at the provincial jurisdiction, understanding that it is the provinces that deliver on health care, and then determine what we can do from the federal perspective to assist them in dealing with the situation.
What are the provinces doing? There are some wonderful examples. One is the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario which appeared before the committee and described how it was improving access for patients. There is a joint approach between cardiac care and a system of services. Decision making is being improved through the way the data and experiences are being put together. A significant amount of research is being done. As well, there is an early warning system.
The one that struck me the most was the Alberta bone and joint transplant project. This is a pilot project led by Dr. Cy Frank from Alberta. It reduced the wait times from 47 weeks to 4.7 weeks within one year for joint and hip replacements. That is a wonderful statistic. The first thing that ran through my mind was the cost, but it actually cost us zero. They put $20 million into the project. Most of that money was for the extra joints and hips. The most astounding fact is not one more doctor was needed in order to provide that service and to reduce the wait times by 90%. It is astounding when a public system can actually do that.
The question that begs to be asked is why that cannot be done for every procedure in every province right across the country.
Dr. Cy Frank was in my office about a week ago and I asked him what else has happened. A significant amount of these projects are on their way in every province. Other provinces are modelling what has happened. This is the kind of innovation that we need in the public system. If we are going to sustain it, we have to stop the rhetoric and start working with the provinces that have the jurisdiction to accomplish what needs to take place to sustain the health care system over the next 40 years.
Because of the baby boomer bubble, an intense weight will be put on this system starting in about 10 years and increasing toward 2040 and beyond. It will take every Canadian working as hard as he or she possibly can to sustain the health care system as we know it today. We do not have time for rhetoric. We have to get serious about solving the problems and fixing what is out there.
My hon. colleague talked about the funding. There was the $5.5 billion in the 2004 accord and none of that money has been cut. It is all going out there. This year alone there is $1.2 billion for reducing wait times, focusing on health human resources. When we talk about health human resources, the minister actually added another $18.3 million last week to a specific project to deal with those immigrants in Canada who might be driving taxis right now, but who need to receive medical credentials. They need to be brought into the mainstream of the health care system to use their abilities in the best possible way for the benefit of Canadians. The goal with the $18.3 billion is to increase the number of doctors by 1,000, nurses by 800 and other health care professionals by 500. Those are the kinds of things that are actually happening.
That is not all. There is another project. It is the mandate of the federal government to deal with first nations. The first initiative is a care guarantee for first nations. After a woman's first pregnancy appointment, she will be cared for within four weeks of that visit.
I come from the province of Alberta where there are regional health authorities. Before coming to the Parliament, I worked for a regional health authority for 20 years.
The care guarantee is such in my riding that if an individual has a back problem and needs back surgery, he can go to Edmonton, which is not too far away. He may be on a wait list for six to eight months, or maybe even a year. Or he could go north to Grand Prairie to a smaller hospital and have that surgery within two weeks. Those are the kinds of examples.
The concept is that the individual needs the option to get the care as fast as he possibly can to add credibility and competitiveness within the system. That needs to transplant itself right across this country, in every province, in every area, so that we can use the dollars in the most effective way possible for the benefit of all Canadians. That is where we need to go. The rhetoric has to stop. We have to fix health care and we will do it.