Madam Speaker, my colleague said in his speech that his government was going to invest and had invested where COVID-19 has struck hardest.
One area that COVID-19 has struck hard and will continue to strike hard for the next 10 years is cancer care. Gastroenterologists, oncologists and hematologists in Quebec have told us that cancer is a chronic illness, and if it is not diagnosed and treated in time, mortality rates, recurrences and treatment costs go up. On top of that, cancer diminishes a patient's quality of life and puts their life in danger. The costs of that are even higher.
Health care costs are going to skyrocket over the next 10 years. We are in the middle of a global health crisis, so how could the government commit the strategic error of not investing and not immediately increasing health transfers on a stable and ongoing basis? After the first wave, the Prime Minister said that the government would invest in health transfers after the pandemic. We are in the third wave. The end of the pandemic will be the fifth wave. How could the government make this mistake, and what does it have to say to the patients who will die because of it?