Mr. Speaker, the government has talked about its palliative care strategy and how it is a key component of the bill. In reality, there was no mention of palliative care or increased spending for palliative care in budget 2016. It has been brought up time and time again.
I am a firm believer that we must do everything in our power to ensure that those who are suffering are made comfortable, and that those who are at their end of life are also given and afforded the necessities of life, in terms of making sure their end of life is as comfortable as possible.
The challenge I have with the government is that it has not put any money towards that. It is an afterthought. Furthermore, it is downloading the responsibility to the provincial governments to qualify, to make sure that they are looking after conscience protection of medical professionals, and not only that, we also know that the palliative responsibilities are going to fall to provincial entities.