Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity for almost 20 years of being an MLA in the Manitoba legislature. When I was the health care critic, one of the important issues was medicines.
For the first time, in the last three or four years, we have a national leader, who happens to be the Prime Minister, and a government that have made significant moves toward a national medicare system for prescribed medicines. The constituents I represent and, I believe, Manitobans and Canadians as a whole, would love to see a national pharmacare program. It is something our ministers of health have been working diligently to put in place.
Would the Leader of the New Democratic Party acknowledge, especially as he was a provincial legislator previously, that Ottawa cannot do it alone? There is an obligation on our part to work with the provinces and other stakeholders to ensure we implement a truly national program.
We could click our heels and do all those wonderful things, but until we recognize there needs to be that co-operation among different levels of government, it will be extremely difficult to achieve what we on this side want and what Canadians want.
Would the New Democratic leader agree that there is an obligation to work with the provinces to get a national pharmacare program?