Mr. Speaker, almost one year after the government took power, the Wait Time Alliance released its report card on the medical wait times commitments made in the first ministers agreement. The Alliance gave the government an incomplete grade for failing to create one pan-Canadian wait times strategy.
The Prime Minister's own election platform in 2006 promised to implement this strategy as one of his five priorities. Yet, here we are, we have no strategy, no benchmarks and no guarantees.
Even worse, the Minister of Health recently stated that he could foresee no deadline and insisted that it would take as long as it takes.
The government's lack of concern on this file is threatening medicare itself. Dr. Colin McMillan, president of the CMA, stated that:
—incomplete information and reporting greatly undermines the public’s confidence in their political leaders to sustain positive action on wait times.
Opponents of universal medicare are using these delays to justify the creation of a two tier health system. Surgeons at private clinics in Quebec are already billing medicare and patients at the same time. Shame.
Is this the government's hidden agenda after all?