Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Essex, for her impassioned speech. It reminds me of something that goes back to 1997. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you were a mere child then, but I do recall the election of 1997. The Liberals stood up on their hind legs and said that they would bring in pharmacare and they would have it in place by January of 1998. We know where we are now.
That brings me to my concerns about what is in this agreement with respect to the establishment of pharmacare. We know that to preserve our health care system and reduce those waiting lists, we have to find ways to reduce costs and reinvest in things that produce results. Pharmacare and bulk buying is one of those things. In fact, they reckon we can save $11 billion a year if we had pharmacare. This agreement puts pharmacare in danger. In the fact, the nurses association says that CETA could increase drug costs by more than $850 million.
How on Earth are we going to maintain a universal health care system with this kind of situation?