Mr. Speaker, in 1967, Liberal Prime Minister Pearson enacted national medicare. In 1984, Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau strengthened it with the Canada Health Act. In 2004, Liberal Prime Minister Martin and the premiers negotiated a 10-year accord establishing a new federal-provincial collaboration to enable structural changes needed to sustain medicare. Today, March 31, 2014, that health accord ends and marks the unravelling of medicare.
It began in 2006, when the current Conservative Prime Minister abandoned the elements of the health accord, refused to meet with premiers on health care, and unilaterally amended the funding formula for health transfers.
On April 1, funding will revert to a per-capita formula for health transfers, ignoring regional demographics, the concept of equalization, and relegating a federal leadership role in health care to that of a cheque writer, with no insight, no accountability, and no commitment to the collaborative changes needed to ensure that all—