Debates of May 18th, 2000

Employment Insurance

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, on May 9, members of this House unanimously approved a motion to review the EI program.

Recently, the Minister of Human Resources Development announced a recommendation to change the boundaries of EI economic regions.

Will the Minister of Human Resources Development tell us today when all the changes to the EI program will take place, because the regional committees are waiting to see what the response to their recommendations will be?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is referring to the process of consultation on the EI boundaries, it has begun. It was gazetted on Saturday. There are 30 days now for all Canadians to consider the proposals that have been presented. They were built with the support of citizens across the country but now more have the opportunity to comment.

I would expect that the hon. member himself may wish to make comment in this regard over the course of the 30 day period.

Human Resources Development

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of HRD. The privacy commissioner recently described the comprehensive files about Canadians. I should like to ask the minister if she will provide me with my file, complete with the names of all government agencies that have accessed my file.

I would like her to do it without going through the delay process of the access to information process. I would like her to explain if she will provide my file and, if not, why not.

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said time and again, I think in this particular circumstance, should the hon. member want that information and would like to detail the source of information he would like in particular, he should best go through the access to information process.

Crtc

[Roger Gallaway, Liberal, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage. For two days last month CRTC commissioners actively participated with industry representatives at the Canadian Cable and Television Association convention.

At a time when many Canadians question the neutrality of the CRTC, would the minister care to comment on the propriety of the commissioners' actions?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, it is entirely proper that CRTC commissioners make efforts to improve the public's understanding of the CRTC as well as to improve their own knowledge of the technological evolution in the telecommunications industry.

This is why CRTC commissioners regularly attend a number of business and consumer conferences.

Not so long ago, I personally attended a dinner organized by a consumer association in which CRTC members participate. This is therefore behaviour that we encourage.

Presence In Gallery

[The Speaker]

I wish to draw the attention of members to the presence in our gallery of His Excellency, Mr. Alami Tazi, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Handicrafts of Morocco.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Speaker]

In this order I would like to hear the last part of a point of privilege, then I will take the Thursday question from the opposition House leader, and then I will hear a point of order from the member for Dartmouth and then whatever comes after that.

To put everything in perspective, a few days ago the hon. member for Wild Rose rose on a point of privilege. Today we will hear the other side of this argument.

Privilege

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to rise to respond to a question of privilege raised on May 16 by the hon. member for Wild Rose.

The allegations made in the question of privilege are serious. I agree with the hon. member that members of parliament must be treated with respect by Correctional Service Canada and by all parts of the government. That is why I have spoken at length with both the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada and to the corporate secretary to the service concerning this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I have been advised that there was no threat to withhold information made by anyone in Correctional Service Canada, nor was there any attempt to intimidate either the hon. member or his staff.

First, it should be noted that the commissioner and the corporate secretary have often dealt with the hon. member's assistant in the past.

In fact, the hon. member's assistant had placed a phone call to the corporate secretary last Friday concerning this very report. In this instance I have been informed that following question period on Monday, May 15, the corporate secretary phoned the hon. member's office seeking particulars regarding the report to which he had referred in question period.

Although the hon. member's assistant offered to fax a copy of the report to CSC, the corporate secretary declined that offer and indicated that she would get the report from senior Correctional Service Canada officials in the prairie region. When she was unable to locate the report within the CSC in a timely fashion, the corporate secretary phoned the hon. member's office and the hon. member's assistant again offered to fax her a copy of the report.

I am advised that when no fax was received, the corporate secretary placed a further call to the hon. member's office. She stated that she was on the speakerphone because she was in a meeting with the commissioner and the headquarters management team. The management team wished to discuss the report in an effort to respond to the hon. member's question as quickly as possible.

I have been informed that the hon. member's assistant indicated that she would not be able to provide the document. The commissioner inquired why the report would not be provided and was advised that the hon. member had instructed his assistant not to provide the report.

The corporate secretary concluded the conversation by stating she would continue her efforts to obtain a copy through CSC channels.

Fortunately for the commissioner and the corporate secretary, this conversation took place with nine other CSC executives in the room. These people have each confirmed that both the commissioner and the corporate secretary acted in a businesslike manner and that they did not at any time say that the CSC would refuse to offer the hon. member help or information concerning that report or any other Correctional Service Canada matter. These nine individuals have also confirmed that the tone assumed by both the commissioner and the corporate secretary through the conversation was professional and was not intimidating or rude.

When the corporate secretary asked me the other evening what would have happened if there had been nobody else in the room, I did not have an answer for her.

Having reviewed this matter personally, I am satisfied that CSC and its officials at all times acted in a proper and professional manner. I therefore believe that there is no substance to the allegations put forth by the hon. member.

[The Speaker]

What we have is a situation where the hon. member himself was not there to hear the conversation nor was the hon. minister. We are getting two reports secondhand on both sides. It is possible, I would imagine, for two different people to interpret facts in a different way. Both hon. members are to be taken at their word here. I think that their staffs passed down their interpretations and there may have been a misunderstanding on both sides.

I would find that there is no point of privilege in this particular case. However, I would like some kind of a communication between the person who is working in the minister's office and the secretary who is working in the office of the member for Wild Rose to see if they can straighten this thing out and get whatever information they need.

Business Of The House

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, could the government House leader give us some idea of the government agenda we will face for the rest of the week and for the week after the break week coming up?

Specifically, could he give us the status again of the grain transportation act which I asked about last Thursday? We are looking forward to getting our hands on that as quickly as possible.

Also, is the Minister of Justice planning to bring forward any type of a review or changes to the Privacy Act about which we have been musing in the House of Commons?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, the business tomorrow will be report stage of Bill C-12, the labour code amendments.

Next week is a constituency week. When the House resumes on May 29, the business will be Bill C-16, the citizenship bill; Bill C-33, the species at risk legislation; and Bill C-31, the immigration bill.

Tuesday, May 30 shall be an allotted day. I understand that there will be agreement to sit later than usual to consider a proposed change to the migratory birds convention.

On Wednesday, May 31 we hope to deal with third reading of Bill C-12.

With regard to the two specific pieces of legislation to which the opposition House leader referred, I will transmit the question to our House leader. I am sure that when he is back in the House tomorrow, he will answer that.

[The Speaker]

I am now going to hear a point of order from the hon. member for Dartmouth.

Points Of Order

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House that the record show that the MP for Dartmouth was in fact not in the House for the first vote last evening. She was in fact approaching it at a run but was not in her seat and the hon. member realizes that was not good enough.

Ironically the hon. member was late for this vote because she was in the West Block at the launch of a new book about M. J. Coldwell, a parliamentarian with such honesty and integrity that it has reached legendary proportions.

I apologize for my error in judgment and any difficulty it may have caused. I will work harder to keep the standards high in this important public place.

[The Speaker]

The hon. member's statement is noted.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about the very important issue of health care. We have seen the decline of health care for a number of years. I can only go to the facts in my own riding with which I am very familiar. I hear the stories from across the country about waiting lists. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about some of these problems and then what I see as the solution to fix health care in the country.

For those who are not from British Columbia, Victoria is in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands. Victoria has one of two level two ICU pediatric intensive care units. The other is in Vancouver. The Victoria level two ICU unit for children is in the process of closing purely because of money. I spoke privately with Mr. Closson, the CEO of the Victoria health board. He told me that this discussion started purely because of economics.

There are other concerns. Saanich Peninsula Hospital is in my riding. Health services are being restructured there as well. What are we seeing? We are seeing a decrease in the level of service. It is believed that the hospital will be shutting down the emergency department and will have only acute care beds. Patients on the Saanich peninsula will now have to go to Victoria General.

The problem is that wherever we go in this country, from coast to coast to coast, the level of service is decreasing and the waiting lists are getting longer. The system is seriously broken. I think members opposite recognize that we need to revisit how we deliver health care. If we look at the demographics, the population is aging. Nobody can deny that greater demands will be placed on our health care.

I personally believe in one national public health care system. We need to work harder to make sure that happens. Our health care system is sacred to Canadians. The status quo is not going to do it now. We saw the magnitude of something like $25 billion knocked out of health care in the last seven or eight years, which is a significant amount of money. When that much money is taken out of the pot, it is impossible to deliver the same amount of health care.

Beyond the financial aspect, we also have to be very innovative. We have to look at new ideas and be open to them. We have to be open to change on how we can best deliver the most amount of health care to Canadians and that the money we put in reaches the patient.

There are two side to this, the money side and the innovative side when looking for new ideas for delivering health care.

I first want to talk about the economics of health care. We often hear members from all parties in the House talking about putting more money into it. It needs to be emphasized that there is only one way we will be able to put the amount of money into health care to sustain it for a long time and that is through the private sector. I am not talking about the private sector creating its own health care system.

However, it is important to understand that governments cannot create wealth. The only people who can create wealth is the private sector. I firmly believe, if we want to have a truly sustainable health care system that Canadians can be proud of, that we will have to cut taxes to make Canada number one in the world and allow the private sector to flourish so that we attract investors from around the world to come to Canada. Only then will we begin to create wealth that the government can then use, through taxation, to deliver health care.

That me brings to the second part of why I got into politics. When I spoke to Mr. Closson in Victoria, he said “Mr. Lunn, yes, we are having to restructure what services we deliver out of what hospitals because there is only such money in the pot and we can only deliver so much. He continued on to say that they had a bigger problem that was not getting the emphasis it needed. He said that in Victoria this summer they will have to close hospital beds because they will not have the staff. He said that they could not attract people for summer relief because they were going south. He said that the brain drain in the health care sector was a real crisis, that it would take a long time to fix it and that they needed to start now.

We are not addressing those concerns and it comes back to taxes. It is my personal belief that this all comes back to economic prosperity. I firmly believe that if we are going to have the money to deliver health care, if we want to attract people to stay and if we want the graduates out of post-secondary school to achieve their dreams, we will have to look at how we tax people. I want to emphasize that because I do not believe it is said often enough.

The other half of the equation is that we have to be innovative. We often hear about bill 11. The New Democratic Party motion, in particular where it says “we have grave reservations about investing public funds in private for profit facilities”, are words it likes to use to try to raise the hair on the back of people's necks. It talks about profits and corporations making money. I absolutely believe that we have to look at what is being done in Alberta before we blatantly criticize it. At least Alberta is trying to be innovative.

I firmly believe in a truly national public health care system, not the two tiers that we have now. The majority of the Canadian population lives within 100 or 150 kilometres of the U.S. border. The border very accessible to people across the country.

The status quo is not working. I know my colleague from Okotoks is listening with interest to this and feels very passionate about this subject. I am no expert in this, but maybe the private sector could do a better job in some parts of our public system. For example, with MRIs and CAT scans, maybe there are places where clinics could be set up that could do a better job at delivering these services. This would reduce the waiting lists across the country. I do not know, but we have to be open to looking at these ideas.

If we are going to be able to deliver health care to an aging population, we need to ensure that we receive the very best value for our health care dollars. I do not know the actual number, but I think we spend something in the magnitude of $90 billion on health care globally across the country. That is a number that we cannot even wrap our heads around.

Are we getting $90 billion worth of health care? The people in my constituency would argue that they are not. I am going to a meeting on Saturday when I go home because people are really upset about the emergency ward being shut down at the Saanich Peninsula Hospital. They are shutting down one of two ICU level two pediatric units in British Columbia. All of them will now have to go over to the children's hospital in Vancouver. When we start to withdraw our services in various areas that is wrong.

I personally will be voting against this motion because I think we need to be innovative when we look at how we deliver health care. We have to be open to new ideas. They may not work but we need to know that and we need to let the rest of the provinces learn from that. Let us try new things. Let us collectively collect all of that information. If we need to open the Canada Health Act, let us make it better and stronger.

Most important, we need to look at the economics of this. We need to attract investors from all sectors. We need to reduce taxes so people will want to stay in the country. It has been proven in every single jurisdiction, whether it is Hong Kong, Ireland, Ontario or Alberta, that when taxes are cut government revenues go up.

Let us make Canada number one. We can be better than the United States. We can be the best. We need that economic wealth if we want to sustain the health care that Canadians take so much pride in.

Business Of The House

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Victoria—Haliburton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That this House endorse the initiative of the delegation of members of parliament, under the leadership of the Minister of Veterans Affairs and composed of a member of each party officially recognized in the House, to travel to France and to return to Canada with the remains of the unknown Canadian soldier who gave his life in defence of liberty during World War I.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Does the hon. member for Haliburton—Victoria—Brock have the unanimous consent of the House to present the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the member of the Canadian Alliance Party.

During his comments he implied that the words that we were using in this motion, private for profit, were there simply to raise the hairs on the backs of people. I want to tell the hon. member that the words in this motion are an accurate depiction of reality. The reason this motion is here today is to make a deliberation and a determination about where we want to go with our health care system.

I sat through question period today and heard over and over again from members of the Reform Party about how offended they were regarding breaches in privacy legislation and about their demands to change the law to ensure that fundamental rights are not violated.

When it comes to something as fundamental as the right of Canadian citizens to quality health care, why does the member's party not believe it is important enough to stand up for? Why is that party prepared to support the Liberals in a most passive, inactive response to a fundamental shift in our health care system? Why would that party endorse any system that ensures different treatment depending on ability to pay?