Mr. Speaker, obviously it is the case that if we are to deliver better palliative care in Canada, it will have to done in collaboration with the provincial governments and the federal government. However, what I would say matters greatly, what matters in this place is if we are going to do that, we need to see federal leadership. That has been the problem with health care in Canada for decades now. There has been a total absence of leadership from the federal government.
We have heard members talk about introducing palliative care into the Canada Health Act. That is fine, except we cannot enforce the Canada Health Act unless we have a federal government that is actually funding health care in Canada.
We have seen the contribution of the federal government over the decades go from 50¢ on the dollar down to 17¢ in health care. It was projected to go lower under the Conservative plan. We have yet to see in the Liberal budget anything that would stop that reduction in the federal share of health care funding.
It is great for us to talk about the need for that, and I am proud to do that as a New Democrat who believes in federal leadership on the health file by putting money on the table. However, until we have a government that does that, we will not get the kinds of improvements I think we would all like to see on palliative care. As a New Democrat, I would like to see that in all aspects of the public health care system.