Mr. Speaker, this gives me an opportunity to thank my hon. colleague from Edmonton Strathcona, who has been such a powerful voice for equity and for defending things such as public health care, which is under great threat from the Conservatives in Alberta. We can actually see what would happen if the federal Conservatives were to ever get power in this place. We can see what they would do by looking to places like Alberta, where there is a constant attack on the public delivery of health care and a constant push for privatization, and we know where that ends. That means that people with means and wealthy people will always get the health care they want and the rest of people, those who cannot afford it, will suffer. This is what Conservative approaches to health care mean.
However, what is more disturbing to me is the way the Liberal government, which is governing as a conservative party, has adopted, with slightly nicer language and perhaps less severe vocabulary, the same policies. Let us take pharmacare as an example. The government negotiated with us and signed a bill into law called the Pharmacare Act, which obligates the government to negotiate pharmacare agreements with every single province and territory in our Confederation.
Again, I will repeat that the Liberals insisted that we call it national pharmacare, but they have stalled at regional pharmacare. They refuse to sign anymore pharmacare agreements with any provinces and territories. All they had to do was put a few billion dollars into this budget, and they could have signed agreements with every remaining province and territory. They chose not to. They have put tens and tens of billions of dollars into military spending, so if they want to find the money, they can.
Politics is about choices. The Liberals had a choice to make. They could have honoured their word, honoured the Canada Pharmacare Act, honoured their 30-year commitment to public pharmacare and put some money in to make pharmacare a reality across this country, but they chose not to. That is why New Democrats are needed in this place. We are the only party that consistently stands up to protect, defend, sustain and expand public pharmacare, which we will do in the House until every Canadian can get the health care they need from head to toe.