Madam Speaker, I was very happy to hear my hon. colleague mention pharmacare. I have been hearing Liberals talk about pharmacare for coming up on 30 years. Since 1997, they have promised Canadians they would bring in pharmacare.
He mentioned in his speech that he is looking forward to negotiating with the provinces, but the question that all Canadians have is this: Negotiate what?
To this day, neither the Prime Minister nor the health minister, nor any person on that side of the House, has ever identified the form of pharmacare they want to negotiate. The NDP has been calling for public pharmacare and the reason is that the Hoskins committee report, the health committee and every task force over the last 30 years have recommended that we must deliver pharmacare through our public system.
Will my colleague stand in the House and say that what the government will negotiate with the provinces is folding pharmacare into and delivering it through Canada's public medicare system, not a U.S.-style private patchwork system?