I will call it a bleeding joke, Mr. Speaker.
This government cut $16.5 billion out of health care and it wants to be in charge. It gives itself a perfect rating. It is laughable.
When we talk about the feds wanting to get into big cheque policies where they will give the provinces more money if they agree to certain conditions, there is another unparliamentary word that covers that. I understand that it is actually a criminal conviction. The Prime Minister is using this threat of not receiving billions of dollars to get the premiers to agree to his conditions. It is disgusting.
It is also interesting that part of the agreement is that the federal government will get credit for spending the money and writing the cheque. Do these people not realize that it is not their money? It is the taxpayers' money, the people who pay the bills. What difference does it make where the money comes from?
I would like to know where they get off saying that money for health care is tied to a social union contract. We had promises for months from the minister sitting on the government side that there would be money for health care in the budget. We heard that commitment from this government. Now we hear “It depends”. The government is now saying that the money will only be there if the premiers agree to the Prime Minister's conditions for a social union contract.
I do not think Canadians want to hear that the Liberals are playing with health care dollars. I do not think Canadians want to hear that the federal government is holding these health care dollars over the heads of the provinces to get its way. Canadians want to hear that this government, as it has been saying for months and months, is committed to restoring funding to health care. However, that is not what we are hearing. What we are hearing is that it is conditional on the provinces bowing down to the Prime Minister of our country. Shame on the government.
The government says that opting out cannot be allowed. I think Canadians should take a really good look at what opting out means. We have the example of a province which opted out of a pension plan. That did not split up the country. It is not an issue on the street that there is a Canada pension plan and a Quebec pension plan. I do not think people really care. What is interesting is that the Canada pension plan has over $150 billion in unfunded liabilities and the Quebec pension plan has a $70 billion cash flow.
I do not think there is anything wrong with opting out of something if the provinces feel they are more able to do it. I do not understand why the other provinces do not see this opportunity to have the same kind of system as the province of Quebec has with its pension plan.
Part of the problem is egos, which politicians in this country have. I do not deny it because I have an ego myself. The government has an ego. It wants to be the biggest, it wants to be in charge, it wants to be seen as being responsible for spending the money, but it is putting our country at risk. It is putting the health of our citizens at risk.
I cannot believe that the Prime Minister and his government are so small minded that they cannot see the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that in this country we had better find a better way of working with our partners. We had better find a more open forum for discussion and debate over jurisdiction, and we had better have a better system of listening to what the issues really are.
As long as we continue the way we are going with the federal government holding the heavy hand of dollars over the heads of the provinces, with the government making provinces do things they would normally not do because they cannot refuse additional sources of funding, we will continue to have the same problems year after year. There will be a lack of trust and a lack of respect for the other partner. The partnership will not work. If this government cannot see that, then there is something terribly wrong.
I will go back to a definition of insanity that I have used over the past few days. It is the government thinking, not only on this issue but on other issues as well, that it can continue to do things the same way again and again and get a different result. It will not look at another way of doing things, nor will it respect the Constitution to which it and four provinces were signators. The Constitution clearly outlines federal and provincial jurisdictions.
Nowhere in that Constitution does it talk about health being a shared responsibility. Nowhere in 1867 was health ever considered to be a shared responsibility. If the federal government wants to get into provincial jurisdiction, then it should do so with their agreement.
