Mr. Speaker, the member and I have had the pleasure of serving on the health committee together, so I am not surprised that many of his interventions in the House have been related to health.
Virtually every budget that we have had since 1994 when we came here has had an element of health in it. The Canada Health Act includes the five principles: comprehensiveness, portability, being publicly funded, being accessible, and universality. I want to comment on universality.
I have learned that in the province of New Brunswick, in fact, pharmacare is available to seniors only if they are collecting the guaranteed income supplement. It is a prerequisite that they have to be at that level of income whereas in other provinces it is obviously different: to effectively be in poverty is not a criteria for pharmacare.
Recently the government has made some indications with regard to discussions with the provinces on future incremental funding for the health system, indications that there may be some strings attached to additional moneys. For instance, if additional moneys were to flow, pharmacare and home care are areas that would be required in terms of where the application of those additional funds might go. I know that the member is quite interested in this.
From the perspective of universality, though, I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not we have effectively protected the principles of the Canada Health Act, particularly universality as it pertains to seniors or others who need pharmacare and home care.