Mr. Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments on the issue of palliative care. As a former health critic in the Province of Manitoba, I spent a good number of hours meeting and talking with individuals who were very much concerned about the need for expanding palliative care. This is an issue that all provinces, as they try to deal with their provincial budgets, have to come to grips with. It is not an easy issue.
The Minister of Health and the Prime Minister have made the commitment, and we want to demonstrate strong leadership on this file. We are talking about $3 billion. We are talking about the issue of a health care accord renewal. The last time that took place was back in 2004.
There is an opportunity for us as parliamentarians to recognize that we need to invest in palliative care, but at the same time would the member not agree that it is absolutely critical that in demonstrating this leadership we also need to work with our provincial stakeholders and others to ensure that we are providing a service, so that it does not matter what region in the country, there is some level of basic palliative care for all Canadians?