Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the convoluted history lessons given by my hon. colleague opposite. Of course, we are talking about health today and about playing catch-up because the past 13 years were very hard, especially on the provinces. Health is an area of provincial jurisdiction that the previous government deprived of federal subsidies. Yet the previous government had inherited measures from a responsible finance minister in the person of Michael Wilson, who, as hon. members will recall, brought free trade and the GST to Canada. Of course, the party opposite was opposed to these two measures. However, they restored Canada to a sound financial position like the one it enjoys today.
Unfortunately, instead of managing this money wisely and investing it in social programs as our new government is doing, the members opposite made draconian cuts in social programs, especially education and health, at the expense of the provinces and, in my riding, at the expense of the people at the hospital in Armagh. This hospital was closed because of the drastic cuts to the health sector. It was truly unacceptable. It was time Canadians woke up and did what they did in January, when they told the members of the former government, “Sit on the opposition benches for a while to take time out and gain a new perspective”.
I have a hard time understanding how someone who claims to champion social measures can be opposed to our government's recent announcement of a pilot project concerning wait times guarantees for prenatal care, as part of health services for first nations. We want to test the delivery of prenatal care using wait times guarantees as a benchmark. When wait times guarantees are not honoured, first nations women will be given access to other types of care. This is a tangible measure.
Does my colleague opposite agree with this measure? Does he agree that aboriginal women should have top-quality prenatal care and that, if they are not able to receive such care in their own community, they should be able to go elsewhere to receive care?