Mr. Speaker, I am interested in the member's comments on the wait time guarantees which she described as wait time guarantees for medically necessary services.
The member will know that as a consequence of the health accord, which was developed in consultation with the provinces, additional moneys will go to the provinces over the next number of years. The provinces also agreed to benchmarks in certain areas but the member represented this as medically necessary services. The budget has no new money for that but it was one of the government's five priorities. This whole project of guaranteeing wait times means that the Government of Canada will be on the hook for transferring patients between provinces and maybe even to the United States or elsewhere to get these services. There is an enormous cost to this. I wonder where exactly the money is.
What assurances would she be prepared to give on behalf of the government that provinces and those health institutions within the provinces will not simply reduce or abandon their efforts in these critical areas knowing that the federal government will simply pick up the tab anyway?