Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and his searing commentary on the failure of the government in agriculture. One would hope that the minister or one of his associates will stand up and actually answer the questions that my colleague has put forth.
I would like to ask my colleague a simple question. Regardless of what happens, the gorilla at the dinner table is really the health care issue. Unless we are able to get our health care expenditures under control, regardless of what else we do, that pressure will put an unsustainable demand upon budgets no matter who happens to be in power, federally or provincially.
The government has failed to deal with this, and has chronically failed to deal with this. It appears to be behaving like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand. The consequence of this is the pain and suffering that patients endure in Canada. They will have to suffer from longer waiting lists as time passes.
The pressure on top of this is our aging population. Right now we have four workers for every person who is retired. In the next 15 years that will contract down to 2.5 workers for every person who is retired. We have this massive pressure of a contracting workforce and increasing demands.
I would like to ask my colleague this. Why does he think the government is not at least grappling with this most pressing issue that it has, and why has it failed to do so?