Mr. Chair, that is a great question, and I appreciate that, but whether there are provincial or federal jurisdictional issues, I think we need to be aware of them and we also need to need to work on them.
At the same time that I wrote a letter to our health minister many months ago when this issue first came forward, I also wrote a letter to the health minister of Alberta. I got responses. Do I have issues with some of the responses? Sure I do, and I have talked to our federal health minister about those issues many times. We have raised it at every opportunity, and I am becoming more satisfied with the answers I am hearing. With respect to why some of this is not happening where it needs to, we are going to have to work with that.
One thing I am proud of is that over the last number of years this government has continued to put money into research for the neurosciences, and it has continued to fund the provinces through the Canada Health Act. We have not cut that funding; we have flagged it for a percentage increase every year. So when the decision is made to move forward, the provinces will have the resources, the time and the money to be able to do that.
It is a long and complicated process, and a lot of MS sufferers do not have that kind of time. We will be keeping the pressure on to make sure things are done right but that they are done as fast as they possibly can be.