Mr. Speaker, after spending eight years in elected politics, including serving in cabinet and running for the Conservative leadership, I will say that I first and foremost always define myself as a physician, a role that I will be returning to full time at the end of this year when I leave this place.
When people ask me what I do for a living, I always say that I am a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon, a doctor who gets to take kids who cannot play on the playground and let them play again, so it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill S-248, an act respecting national physicians' day. This act would declare each May 1 national physicians' day.
Children's health has been the primary focus of my medical career, and it was one of the main reasons I ran for office. When asked in 2006 by then minister Jim Flaherty to chair the expert panel on the children's fitness tax credit, I was able to see first-hand how I could have a positive impact on the health of thousands of children via good public policy, not just one child at a time in a clinic. A tax credit to support healthy activities for kids and make activities more affordable for their parents was an innovative idea. It was a welcome idea.
Along with the reduction in the GST, I have heard from many people that this is the most popular and most memorable tax credit of the former government. Not only was it popular, but it was a success. Over 2.8 million children as of 2014 had taken advantage of it. The children's fitness tax credit was so successful that the only criticisms of were that it was not enough and that low-income families should receive a subsidy. In 2014, Conservatives made these changes to reflect what Canadians wanted and deserved.
The success and popularity of the tax credit made it even more puzzling why the Liberals promised to kill it in the 2015 election. Unfortunately, the Liberals kept that promise, reducing it in 2016 and eliminating it altogether in 2017.
One cold comfort is that in 2016, the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and other researchers compared Participaction's report card on physical activity for children and youth to 37 other countries in six continents. Canada's highest grade was for participation in organized activities. The report noted that Canada's rates were significantly higher than sports participation rates 10 years ago.
I know that the tax credit was the right policy to help make Canadian kids healthier and for parents struggling to afford sports, so earlier this year I travelled across the country to meet with parents. I wanted to talk to them about preventive health and what we could do to help get kids active.
I continuously heard from parents that they were upset that the tax credit for kids had been cut, so I went to work drafting a bill. On February 6, Bill C-428 was launched, with a website to promote it. I encourage people to go to healthykidshealthycanada.ca to support this initiative and bring back the children's fitness tax credit.
When I heard of the idea of a national physicians' day, I must say I had second thoughts about it. I wondered whether we should we have a day to honour doctors. Most physicians would say that every day it is a privilege to take care of people.
As an orthopaedic surgeon who takes care of kids, I spend my days helping children. Frankly, when children with cerebral palsy walk again for the first time, even with assistance, the joy in their mothers' eyes and their sense of accomplishment and their great smile mean that doctors feel there is no need to be honoured. They know they have played a role in making that happen.
As I looked more into the bill, I began to see why this proposal was being brought forward by Senator Eggleton, with the support of the Canadian Medical Association. A special note is the date, May 1, which marks the birthdate of Dr. Emily Stowe, born in 1831, which several of my colleagues have commented on. Dr. Stowe was the first female to practise medicine in Canada. She was also a pioneer of Canada's women's movement and is an idol for many young Canadian physicians now, particularly female ones.
A national physicians' day is also important because it highlights the role that doctors play in communities across Canada, as my colleagues have also mentioned.
For those who live in big cities, access to care is often taken for granted. However, we do know that in smaller communities, people may not even have a doctor. Those in the north would be lucky to have a nurse practitioner in their communities. Anything more complicated than a broken arm requires a flight to Yellowknife, Iqaluit or Whitehorse, or often a more southern destination.
In the northern parts of many provinces, a doctor may rotate from a southern centre, which is great, but it means that people do not have a family doctor, as they could possibly have in a bigger centre. I say “possibly” because millions of Canadians in communities all across the country lack a doctor.
When places like my community, Simcoe—Grey, lose a doctor in rural parts of the country as he or she retires, we go to great lengths and efforts to recruit a new one, and frequently we cannot. For many communities, the loss of a doctor is like the loss of the post office, the local grocery store or the local school. It is a turning point for a community, and not a good one.
The recognition of a national physician's day gives an opportunity to bring these issues to the forefront at least one day a year. It gives an opportunity to speak to the important roles that doctors play in our communities, of the need for quality care that is accountable and accessible to patients, the ability to talk about lineups and wait times or about how the government demands that everyone use one system and then is unwilling to innovate and change to provide reasonable access to care.
Part of this bargain, the unwritten relationship between citizens and the government that is providing health care, must be reasonable access to care in a reasonable time frame. Currently, this is not the case. This neglect is made worse by the stress that it causes to the patient and to the families of these patients.
I heal kids. There is nothing worse than watching a child suffer, but what the families of these children go through because of the challenges in our system is a really close second. It is frustrating for my colleagues and me to know that we are bound by all sorts of rules that limit our ability to take care of patients. In getting surgical time at a hospital or even opening a clinic, there are many problems.
Just this weekend a colleague of mine, Dr. Smith from Windsor, an anaesthetist, said that the system is broken. The patients know it and the families know it. Why are the politicians and their colleagues afraid to change it?
I heard concerns like this across the country when I was conducting consultations on modernizing the Canada Health Act. Similar views were reflected in reports by Liberal senator Michael Kirby and former NDP premier Roy Romanow about how unaccountable the system has become to Canadians, how out of touch and bureaucratic it is and how the user, the patient, is often the last person of concern.
We need to listen to doctors when they use their collective voices to speak out on issues of national importance. We need to listen when they say that the system is broken, which is exactly what our patients are saying to us every day when they come to a clinic. There needs to be a revolutionary change in our health care system. The Canada Health Act needs to be modernized so that we can provide high-quality care for Canadians, the care they expect and deserve.
Interestingly, one of the most recent and most vocal examples of doctors speaking out was not medically related. It was related to their role as small business owners. Yes, I am talking about the recent tax changes to small businesses that the government introduced. Many Canadians learned during the whole affair that the overwhelming majority of doctors in Canada are small business owners. We are not government employees, which is what the majority of people believe. This misconception is largely owed to the Canada Health Act, which makes people believe that doctors are government employees, but we are not. We are small business owners who have a large amount of overhead and we have to pay for it ourselves. The same expensive equipment that is seen in a hospital we have often have to buy for our clinics. This equipment is not cheap, and it needs to be regularly updated.
Doctors are also substantial employers. Even the smallest doctor's office provides two jobs: an administrative assistant and a nurse. Most provide more, including a scheduler, an office manager and other nurses. A large doctor's office has more full-time jobs than a local café or a small clothing store. These investments in our communities are the reasons Canadians witnessed the negative reaction to the proposed tax changes. Doctors took it as an insult to be called tax cheats by the Liberal government. To be accused of taking advantage of a system by Liberal politicians was a bit much.
Each and every day it is an honour to be a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon. I have an amazing job and I help kids get back on the playground to play. My colleagues and I do not need a day to honour us. However, if a national physician's day can help bring attention to the doctor shortages that Canadians face, to small towns losing their only physician, to the lack of accountability in the health system, to the present model of health care that forces patients into a system where they are simply neglected or to the unfair tax changes that have done nothing more than chase doctors out of this country, then a national physician's day is worthwhile. I am pleased to lend my support to this legislation.