Mr. Speaker, those are encouraging words from the government. The NDP will be watching very carefully to make sure that those words are backed up by action.
This is a far more serious and widespread problem than the government has admitted to date. Health Canada's most recent annual report to Parliament on the Canada Health Act uncovered a number of disturbing trends. It noted that private MRI clinics in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan are charging user fees for patients today; hospitals are avoiding the ban on charging for drugs by routing the sick through outpatient clinics that do charge; the portability requirements of the Canada Health Act, which allow Canadians to access care anywhere across the country, are routinely ignored; and Prince Edward Island still has refused to provide medically necessary reproductive health services to women in P.E.I.
From pharmacare to mental health to meeting the needs of our aging population, it is time to renew medicare for the 21st century. Will the Liberal government commit to fulfill its responsibility to protect and enhance our public health care system under the Canada Health Act?