Mr. Speaker, before I get to my question, I want to point out that the comments of the hon. member for Winnipeg North suggested that it is important to work with the provinces on national pharmacare, which is actually the very core of the motion before us. The motion calls on the federal government to sit down with the provinces and territories and negotiate a national pharmacare system.
More to the point of my hon. colleague, with whom I have the pleasure of sitting on the health committee, I just want to clarify one thing. The leader of the NDP has called for the decriminalization of drugs and not for legalization of drugs. Of course, it is a very important distinction: decriminalization and regulation as opposed to legalization.
My question is this. I know that the member wants to save money. In fact, he opened up his speech with a story about Mr. Diefenbaker and the importance of frugality. Well, one of the core rationales behind the motion of the NDP today is that we can extend coverage to all Canadians and save $4.2 billion a year nationally. Therefore, as a Conservative, as someone who claims that we, as parliamentarians, should work to reduce costs for our citizens, can he tell us why he is going to vote against a motion that would bring in a system that would actually reduce the costs of pharmaceuticals for every single Canadian in this country? Why does he want to saddle them with higher pharmaceutical costs?