Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the Minister of State for Public Health.
Thank you for allowing me to speak to this motion this morning. As Minister of Health, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister responsible for Official Languages, I am pleased to support the vision for Canada laid out by the government in the Speech from the Throne.
As the speech and the Prime Minister's recent comments have made clear, health care is still our country's priority. We are at the dawn of a new era in federal-provincial relations, and linguistic duality will continue to be at the heart of our identity.
Canadians continue to believe in the fundamental values that the Canada Health Act is based on. They also believe in justice and equality, and in government provided services to ensure that access to them is based on need, not the ability to pay. That is the Canadian difference.
This government, along with its provincial and territorial partners, has achieved great things with respect to renewing and strengthening the health care system. We have recognized the challenges that await us and we will meet them without hesitation.
Last February, for example, the first ministers reached an historic agreement on health care reform, an action plan to ensure proper access to quality care according to need, rather than ability to pay, as well as to increase the transparency of the health system and its responsibility to the people of Canada.
By investing $34.8 billion over five years, the Canadian government has indicated its commitment to implement the agreement. The bulk of this amount has been transferred to the provinces and territories to provide them with predictable and growing funding for their health programs. Funds were also allocated to long-term structural reform, as well as immediate reduction of certain tensions within the health care system.
I am pleased to say that, in his initial meeting with Canadian first ministers last month, the Prime Minister indicated to his provincial and territorial counterparts that the federal government would be increasing its commitment by $2 billion this year.
This investment will provide more support for reform and help provincial and territorial administrations meet the major challenges ahead of them. These are substantial investments. Yet, as all those who have looked at our health care system are aware, money alone is not enough.
We need deep and lasting structural changes. That is why the governments have committed in this agreement to improving access to home care, as an alternative to hospital care. This is a cost-effective solution for Canadians.
We are also renewing primary care, in order to facilitate patients' access to the appropriate care from the appropriate source at the appropriate time. We are also looking at a way to provide coverage of the cost of expensive medications for people who are putting themselves into financial ruin by having to buy certain necessary prescription drugs.
It is a good to know that, together with our partners, we are making progress in these vital sectors. I am sure that progress will continue.
We have already achieved a lot. There was the inaugural meeting of the new national health council composed of leading Canadians from coast to coast.
The council embodies the government's commitment toward openness, transparency and accountability. The council will monitor the implementation of the accord and report back to Canadians.
In particular, it will monitor how long Canadians have to wait for important diagnostic results or badly needed treatment. It is information that will be critical to our shared commitment to reduce waiting times. The council's job is not to point fingers but to give Canadians vital information on medical outcomes.
Canadians are investing more than $100 billion a year in health care. They have the right to see how the system is performing and how it might work even better. Ultimately, it is about accountability to the people who use the health care system and who pay for it.
In December, the Government of Canada delivered on another important promise by establishing the Canadian Patient Safety Institute. This new, non-profit organization will work with the provinces, territories, and other stakeholders to examine the circumstances that result in patients becoming ill or injured through medical interventions. The goal, obviously, is to decrease the risk of accidents or errors in the health care system.
Another key commitment we have fulfilled relates to new employment insurance benefits for Canadians forced to leave work temporarily to support a gravely ill or dying parent, spouse or child.
These are some of the more prominent steps that the government has taken, but permit me to underline that we are not starting from scratch.
Health Canada and its many partners have had in place for a long time a vast range of excellent initiatives to improve the well-being of children and youth, women, seniors, aboriginal people, the disabled, and indeed all Canadians. Given the complexity of the health care challenge, more needs to be done.
Toward that end, the Speech from the Throne promised that the Government of Canada would take the lead in establishing a strong and responsive public health system starting with the new Canada public health agency. I know my colleague, the Minister of State for Public Health, will want to elaborate on that point. We will be working together on that.
The federal government wants to improve the overall health of Canadians so my government will focus on health promotion with a view to reducing the incidence of avoidable diseases. We look forward to any advice and recommendations that will come from the proposed new chief public health officer for Canada to address the toll of both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Shortly after taking over the health portfolio, I had the opportunity to travel across the country to meet with my counterparts in all the provinces and territories. I am encouraged to find and to report to the House that there remains a deep and abiding respect for the Canada Health Act. Though there will always be differences of opinion on how best to deliver or organize health care services, there is a strong consensus about the fundamental principles--the idea that we can work together within the act to improve the health of Canadians.
Allow me to say a few words on federal-provincial relations, an area where our government, the government of the current Prime Minister, is determined to change the tone, promote cooperation and consider the provinces and territories as partners in governance, in helping our country adjust to this era of globalization. We want the provinces to be partners and we want to cooperate with them. We know that we can achieve a lot more by working with the provinces.
Of course, there will always be differences and tensions in our federation. This is normal. These differences and tensions can truly generate healthy competition within the federation to better serve our fellow citizens. However, the tone must change. This will be achieved in part through new policies. The Prime Minister indicated his willingness to negotiate the issue of parental leave with the Quebec government. He asked me ensure that we work more efficiently with provincial governments, particularly the Quebec government, at the international level.
So this is the beginning of a new era. The end of polarization is providing us with a unique opportunity. For the past 40 years, the issue of Quebec's independence has created a polarization that, in this debate, has prevented an approach as balanced and rational as it should have been. Last week, we lost a great political voice. My former boss, Claude Ryan, will be remembered for expressing so profoundly such a balanced and rational view.
I believe that, at last, without this polarization around the issue of independence, such political voices can significantly strengthen Quebec's chances of faring as well as it did in the past, before this polarization, when Mr. Pearson and Mr. Lesage were in office.
As regards official languages, we will implement the action plan that our government fully intends to recognize as essential to our Canadian identity.