Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising this very important issue.
Rural areas are indeed facing an unacceptable shortage of health workers. Our government will continue working on addressing the shortage as well as improving health care in rural areas generally. The needs of Canadians in rural and remote areas are foremost in our minds, and we will work with provinces and territories in the coming weeks and months to improve our health care system.
However, we must not cherry-pick from the list of things that I mentioned tonight. We are creating solutions across the board in staffing, in health care transfers, for the pipeline and for education. No stone has been left unturned.
Our health system needs further investment. We also want to make sure that our tax dollars are being spent in the most effective way possible. Throwing more money into a broken system is not the best path forward, and we can improve the way that we deliver health care to eliminate inefficiencies and get better health outcomes for all Canadians.
