Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister's action plan talks about a document that sets out core services and he just mentioned that document, but the timetable that I see for the preparation and final distribution of that document does not leave a lot of time for the sort of dialogue that I think needs to take place. So what we are going to be talking about in that, I assume, is a listing or snapshot of what we can offer today and where we are today. I suspect though that the kind of discussion we are going to need to have before too long is going to take some time and there is going to have to be a real plan to involve the public and get them talking about it. I am hoping that the Minister will take a look at that and be prepared to take the lead to start the public dialogue.

This is going to take a significant amount of time, I believe. In fact, I think it will take longer than what we have left in our mandate, but if we get the process started, maybe there is a chance of getting it wrapped up in three or four years, within the time we have before the situation becomes critical. I think we owe it to the citizens of the North to make sure that we do not let the system get to the critical state. We have a responsibility to start moving this dialogue along.

I am hoping that he will recognize that it is going to take more than what he has in his action plan. It is going to take a concerted process that he is going to have to take the lead in developing, and I welcome his offer to work with the standing committee to shape that process, but I think we need to get started on that. It has to be almost separate from what we are doing right now because this is much more immediate.

I think one of the things that I have not seen yet, that I am hoping that we will see, is some way to start talking about the resources that we need to put into health budget that we need to bring it up to the level that it should be at. The Minister has mentioned that we need to start looking more at health promotion and population health, and I think that is good. I think we have to start putting dollars there. We are not going to see those long-term savings unless we put significant dollars in. This is really a tough one for government because you need a significant investment, but we are not going to see the payback probably while we are still in office. That has always been a problem, to make this switch. We are talking about a payback that is probably more than five years away, maybe as much as 30 years away.

However, if we do not start putting money into population health and if we do not start putting our money into an emphasis on prevention instead of treatment, we are never going to get there. Unfortunately, when I look at this budget, I do not see any switch from the treatment side to dealing with improved spending in population health or prevention areas.

That dialogue needs to start very soon and I hope the Minister will recognize that it is not the same as the dialogue that he has with his action plan, which is dealing with much more immediate governance and sustainability problems. We have to start talking about significant new investments in health and where they should be in order to make sure that we can maintain the system 30 years from now.