The justice minister said “hear, hear”. He is a good friend of mine. I agree on a lot of things he is doing. I support the justice minister with respect to some of his legislation, and he knows that. However, on some of these issues, we do not see eye to eye. The Prime Minister cannot sing and dance at the same time, or maybe he can.
Nevertheless, it is a question of a lack credibility on behalf of the Prime Minister and his government, which causes Canadians, and us as well, not to trust him and the government. The Prime Minister seems to do things according to his agenda.
I could go on and on and talk about how and what the Prime Minister said a year ago, or back in 2004 when he sent a letter to the then Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, in co-operation with the other two leaders of the opposition, the leader of the Bloc Québécois and the leader of the NDP. That was okay then, when he asked the Governor General to do what in essence was being asked in 2010, but today it is not.
I read the concern of one of my constituents into the record the other day, Mr. Frandsen, and I will repeat it today. He said:
If the Prime Minister can behave and do what he is doing while having a minority government, can you imagine what he will do if he had a majority government?
That is scary.
I want to go on and talk about some of the issues. In the throne speech, he talked about health. Every election, every year that I have been here since 1993, the most important and number one issue has been health care, and we see this debate unfold in the United States. Finally, it has decided to allow the insurance companies to sell more policies. It is all about insurance policies. Not in Canada.
The number one issue by the government has been looked at with closed eyes. It has done nothing for health care. In fact, when the former health minister of Ontario moved to federal politics, he was appointed health minister. He is today's industry minister. When he was asked a question in this hon. House a couple of years ago about what he would do about health care, his answer was that the government would continue the funding. What was he referring to? It was the funding agreement that was signed by the Martin government after the recommendations of the Romanow report. Mr. Romanow went on television with Peter Mansbridge and said that the Liberals not only met the report's expectations, they exceeded them. I believe it was $58 billion over 10 years. The provinces want to start talking about this now because it ends in 2014.
The government and the Prime Minister are avoiding everything. They unfortunately have done nothing, zero on health care. That is a shame because if we do not have a healthy country, we do not have a healthy tomorrow.
One thing I am pleased to inform the House of, and I was made aware of this the other day when somebody gave me the clipping, was that Sarah Palin, the new neo-con of the United States, confirmed that she and her family received health care in Canada. Sarah Palin, of all people. This tells us that we do indeed have a good system, if anything a much better system than what the United States has.
On health care, which is a very important issue, the government has been silent. Why? I want to read a quote by an individual. This gentleman was asked, on CBC TV, about what he thought of a private, parallel health system in Canada. The response was,“Well I think it would be a good idea”. Who said that? The Prime Minister.
Another senior minister in his cabinet, the current Minister of Immigration, said to the Calgary Herald, “I do support the idea of private health care”.
The Conservatives have a minority government. We know Preston Manning and Mike Harris have had forums on private health care. God help this country. God help us all if ever they get a majority government. That is what they think of health care.
The Conservatives talk about income trusts. Aside from the damage they did to the seniors who planned for their golden days and today have to adjust downwards, they also weakened Canadian industries. They said in their budget that they would make it easier for foreign governments to invest. The difference now is that with their policy, Canadian companies can no longer, like foreign companies, use the interest deductibility factor when investing. In other words, foreign companies can borrow money, come and buy Canadian companies and write off the interest. Canadian companies that used to be able to do it can no longer do it. That puts us at a disadvantage.
I really value the words of what Mr. Frandsen said, that if the Prime Minister and the government ever had a majority government, it would be a scary thing.