Peter Mancini

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure for me to rise today in the House of Commons to speak to the motion introduced in the House by the New Democratic Party of Canada.

The proud legacy of this party is that of Tommy Douglas who brought into the country in Saskatchewan the first medicare system amid great opposition. It has been mentioned today by the member for Winnipeg North that he spoke about it at the time and said that we should never ever forget that once this system was introduced it would continue to be under attack. There will always be those waiting in the shadows who see money to be made in the health care system regardless of what it means for the health of Canadians.

I will be sharing my time with another member of the New Democratic Party. I know the Minister of Health would love to take 10 more minutes to try to clarify some of the muddy waters we have heard about already today, but I will be sharing my time with a member of my party who will be speaking to protect our health care or medicare system.

When the history of this place is written, I think historians will look back on budget 2000 introduced by the government and its effect on health care and say that it was a watershed budget, that it was a turning point in the history of the Liberal Party and Liberal ideology.

It was not long ago that the Liberal Party once saw a role for government in the lives of Canadians. That should not surprise to anyone because that is the attitude of Canadians; that is the ideology and culture of this country. That is why we had such proud institutions, such as the CBC and passenger rail services, as a notion that there should be a good standard of living for all Canadians and, more than anything, there should be protection of health care.

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

The ideology in the country was that no matter where we lived, whether it was in the east, the centre, the north or the west, we would be entitled to quality health care and equal health care. This is what made Canadians proud.

Over the last five to seven years the government has chipped away at those values. It has chipped away at the cultural institutions. It has chipped away at the notion of regional economic expansion. It has chipped away at some of the ideas of the founders of the Liberal Party, people like Monique Bégin and social scientists like Tom Kent. People who once had a role to play in that party do not anymore. Regrettably, the Canadian public tolerated that because we were told there was deficit. We were told that we had to sacrifice many things on the altar of deficit reduction.

Then the Minister of Finance began talking about how many surpluses he had and that budget after budget after budget resulted in a surplus. That is why I say this budget introduced this year marks a profound turning point in this country. The paltry sum of money allocated to protect health care in the country in a time of surplus means that the government has decided to support or allow the beginnings of a two-tier health care system. I predict it is something that Canadians will not allow to happen.

The federal funding to the provinces was once a real partnership. Today the Minister of Health and his parliamentary secretary talked about convening a meeting of ministers to work in partnership. The federal government has lost much of its moral authority to influence the way those policies will develop because of the reduction in spending. A partnership where the federal government pays 15 cents of every dollar to health care is, what we would call in the business community, a minority shareholder position. It is not in a position to influence the real direction of where health care will go. If it is not in a position to do that then it has abandoned the leadership role that is so necessary and that should be exercised by the federal government.

The transfer payments to the provinces have been cut and cut and cut. In 1993 the cash transfers to the provinces were $18.8 billion. The explanation for that was that the government had to fight a deficit. However, it has not been restored to the previous spending levels nor will it be restored. There is also no projection for its restoration to the same level of funding, at least not as far as the government's figures show and not as far as the government can foresee.

What we know is that the federal government has relinquished its leadership role and cut its funding to the provinces by about $4 billion or $5 billion from where it was in 1993. How have Canadians reacted? From every part of the country and from every political leader in the country there has been condemnation. The British Columbia minister of finance said “I must also say that the federal finance minister falls far short of the need for funding quality health care and education which British Columbians have told me is their top spending priority”.

The president of the Manitoba Nurses Union said:

This budget didn't go nearly far enough. Ninety million dollars is enough to keep the doors open (on health care) and not much more.

It's not really sufficient. It is a one-time grant and there is no commitment for long-term federal funding, and without that I don't know how we will protect medicare.

These are not partisan statements. This is not a member of the House attacking the government for political reasons. This is someone who works in the health care system.

The minister said that he will meet with the partners in health care. Let us see what they are saying, and they are from every political stripe. From my own province of Nova Scotia, Premier John Hamm said:

—the provinces were expecting the “full meal deal” on health care.... Instead, we got crumbs.

In my province, where we face a deficit of close to $500 million, the premier said that we needed a specific amount for health care and we did not get it.

The NDP finance critic in the opposition party in Nova Scotia called the budget a betrayal of Nova Scotians and suggested that it may work in provinces where there is a robust economy but not in the have-not provinces in the country. That is where the federal leadership is falling down. That is the betrayal to the country.

The Liberal leader, a former parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, Russell MacLellan, said that the $2.5 billion transfer increase was woefully inadequate and would accentuate real problems in health care in Nova Scotia.

Premier Tobin, another Liberal, the only sitting Liberal premier left in the country, said that this was woefully inadequate.

The list goes on and on. It is not just the New Democratic Party saying that there is a problem here. This transcends political partisanship. I will be watching very carefully to see how the Liberal members of parliament, the ones from the provinces where their own provincial leaders have condemned this budget in terms of health care, vote. I am sure their constituents will also be be watching.

As the leader of the New Democratic Party said today, the motion has been particularly crafted so that every member of the House who believes in a publicly funded medicare system can show their support to Canadians for that. It calls for three things, things that the Minister of Health has said here today and has recognized need to be incorporated in health care funding. It calls for more funding. I think the Minister of Health said in his own statement that we needed more funding. He said that it needed some ideas, and we have not diminished that. There is nothing in this resolution that says we are not open to new ideas.

What it says is that there will be “a substantial and sustained increase in cash transfers” to the provinces, which the Minister of Health has said he is prepared to look at. It further states “by taking the steps necessary to prohibit private for-profit hospitals and to stop the growth of private for-profit health services in Canada”. The Minister of Health has said that he is not favour of that either.

Given the fact that this resolution does not in any way contradict what the Minister of Health says he wants to do, I will be hoping and watching to see him stand in favour of the motion when it comes to the vote.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of my colleague. There was one area I was not clear on and it may have been something I missed in the translation.

The member indicated that she would be prepared to support the motion but that she had some concerns with the last portion of our motion. As I read that, it is that the government take the necessary steps to prohibit private for profit hospitals and stop the growth of private for profit health care in Canada. I just wonder if she as a member of the Conservative Party could elaborate on what aspects of that she has some trouble with me.

[Supply, March 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from the Progressive Conservative Party for his comments.

He made reference to the many people in the province of Ontario who have had to go to Cleveland to seek some kind of medical care. I take it from his comments that he condemned that and he thinks that is a bad thing. I concur with him on that. I remind him that it was the NDP health minister who refused to allow that company to move into Ontario.

This is a non-partisan issue, an issue that goes to the heart of what Canadians believe the health care system should be. We have learned many things from different experiments in different provinces in the past.

Is the member as equally offended by the fact that in the province of Ontario not for profit organizations like the Victorian Order of Nurses have been driven out of the health care service system so that private companies can contract that service from the government? I would like him to comment on that practice in the province of Ontario.

[Health Care, March 1st, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has not been silenced by this budget. In fact, Nova Scotians, like all Canadians, are distressed that the Liberal budget ignored their number one concern: health care.

People from every region of the country called on the government to fix the health care system in this budget. Canadians from coast to coast and all the premiers, including the only Liberal one left, Brian Tobin, have condemned the budget for failing to address health care.

For every dollar in tax cuts there are two cents for health care transfers.

Nova Scotians will receive barely enough to cover the cost of health care in the province for three days, and it will do nothing to reduce waiting lists and lineups in emergency rooms.

Nova Scotians and Canadians can, however, rest assured that the NDP will not give one inch in its fight to defend health care from Liberal, Tory and Reform policies of downsizing and privatization.

[Canada Post Corporation Act, February 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak in favour of Bill C-238 which has been presented to the House by the member for Winnipeg Centre. In many ways it is a telling piece of legislation.

When I first came to the House, I talked about the new two solitudes in Canada. Those solitudes are urban and rural Canada. Increasingly the government tends to cater toward urban Canada. People from the regions of the country, whether they are in my region in the east, Saskatchewan or the north, see that there are different standards and different rights for people in different parts of the country.

This legislation deals directly with a vital service to rural Canada, the delivery of mail to people in rural parts of the country.

I was shocked and did not know until I read this legislation that rural route mail carriers are denied fundamental rights that are guaranteed to many other Canadians particularly in urban centres. We have to ask why. We know why the Liberal government justified it almost 20 years ago when they were exempted. But we have to ask why today are 5,000 people denied the right to collective bargaining?

We are in a new millennium. We heard and lived with the hype leading up to new year's eve about how this is a new century. Surely we do not have to repeat the same mistakes of the last century. Surely there should be the right to collective bargaining, the right for workers to come together and say that they collectively want to ensure that they have a better standard of living. Surely we do not have to go back to 1920 or 1930.

Those workers, as has already been stated, do some of the most difficult work. I know because I represent an area that has rural route mail service. I can talk about the northern part of Cape Breton, Inverness and Victoria counties. The rural route mail carriers are vital especially to seniors. Seniors are the ones who wait for parcels from many of their children who have been called to the urban centres because that is where the work is. For those people the rural route mail carriers represent a vital link.

Why is it that these 5,000 employees across the country are denied the same basic rights as their urban counterparts? They do the same kind of work so it cannot be justified on that ground. What do they face because they do not have the same rights?

Their employment can be terminated on 90 days notice. Surely in this day and age 5,000 Canadian workers who are told that they have to submit bids in a lower tendering process, have the right to come together and say “We would like to organize so we can bargain with the employer and we will not be constantly under the gun or constantly having to downgrade our standard of living”. Today if they were to say they do not like the conditions, they could be terminated on 90 days notice. If I were one of those carriers that is one aspect I would seek to change.

There are no benefits. Imagine that workers, who everyone assumes work for Canada Post but who are in fact independent contractors, are denied the same benefits that their urban counterparts have. They are denied bereavement leave. There was one postal worker whose parents were both rural carriers. She had to use her bereavement leave to deliver her mother's route when her father died so that her mother could attend the funeral. In the year 2000 in this country.

And we are going to deny these people the right to come together collectively, to organize, to change these kinds of things to get the kinds of benefits that most Canadians take for granted.

There is the tendering process. They have to bid on their routes. They also have to do all kinds of other work. They are the ones who have to shovel out and clear away the area around the mail boxes. There is no compensation for that. They do all kinds of extra work and they get no benefit for it. If they complain, the employer can say, “If you do not like it, here is your three months notice. We will find somebody else in the rural community to deliver the mail”.

Some might say that is the free market economy and that we should let it dominate. I say that it is unfair to the rural people and to the rural economy. Even if one person gets better pay in a rural economy there are spinoff factors. It comes down to why rural communities are treated differently. Why are rural workers not treated in the same way as urban workers?

It is not just the NDP arguing this. Perhaps most telling is the Canada Labour Relations Board decision regarding this. For those who do not know, the labour board is like a court. The clarity bill, which will be coming before the House, was based on a ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada on the Quebec succession agreement. The government has often taken rulings of the courts and incorporated them into legislation. It says that the matter has been articulated and argued before the courts which have given some guidelines, so it will enact legislation.

The Canada Labour Relations Board is no different. It is not partisan, at least we hope it is not. It gives us some rational guidelines to go by. These rural route mail couriers brought their case to the Canada Labour Relations Board and it decided that there was a similar content in the two kinds of jobs.

What the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre is seeking in his bill is to guarantee those 5,000 workers the same basic rights as other workers have in the country. I cannot believe that members of the Liberal Party would oppose giving collective bargaining rights to people in the country. I cannot imagine the Minister of Labour being able to look her colleagues in the face. I know the Minister of Labour supports collective bargaining. The test, I suppose, for the other members of her caucus is to see if they support the collective bargaining rights that have been fought for and are hard won by the workers in the country.

This is a private member's bill and I do not know whether the Liberals will have to vote as a block. It will be interesting to see whether they grant one of the things that makes this country so different from perhaps other countries and that is the right of workers to collectively organize.

As my colleague said, I cannot believe we would deny rural route mail couriers a right that American rural route mail couriers have. I have never thought of the United States as a bastion of labour legislation and to allow America to be a guiding light is a shameful statement for this country. For us to be in the shadows of America when it comes to granting rights to our workers is something I think the people in my riding are ashamed of.

This is a private member's bill that will give members of parliament an opportunity to do the right thing. I would ask them to do so and support the legislation.

[Cape Breton Development Corporation Divestiture Authorization And Dissolution Act, February 16th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that in the month of January the miners had to go underground on strike to try to get a negotiated settlement.

It is not as if there were no precedent. One example is medical benefits. When Via Rail was shut down, medical benefits were provided to those employees. When CN was shut down, medical benefits were continued for those employees. When Devco was being closed down, the government told the miners who have gone underground and suffered injuries and their families that there would be no extension of any medical benefits whatsoever.

That is the kind of settlement the miners are seeking, in other areas as well, in terms of relocation and in terms of education.

My colleague has done her homework for which I commend her. She has a sensitive understanding of the issue. Would she not agree that these people should be entitled to the same benefits as the government has given to other Canadians when it phased out industries?

[Request For Emergency Debate, February 16th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to seek leave under Standing Order 52(2) to move, seconded by the hon. member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, that this House do now adjourn for an emergency debate to address the deepening economic and social crisis facing the Island of Cape Breton.

I will not speak just about the Devco situation because I know that would not be sufficient under the rules. However, during the month of January it was indicated by the provincial government that it would either sell or close down the Sydney Steel Corporation. It has not sold it. It has listed the assets for sale. This means 700 people will lose their jobs in that industry.

Because of cuts at the CBC, the Pit Pony series has been cancelled resulting in the loss of 200 jobs. If we combine that with the 1,500 jobs that will be lost when the government passes the Devco legislation, this comes to about 2,400 jobs in an area that already has an unemployment rate two to three times the national average.

This is a national crisis. It is an emergency. It has happened over the last month. It has been precipitated by the actions of the provincial government and the federal government. Every one of those jobs has two or three spinoffs.

I would ask for leave for an emergency debate. I will leave this in the Speaker's hands.

[Human Resources Development, February 9th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear many people support the program.

I am prepared to say that this government has seriously jeopardized that program essential to areas of high unemployment in the country. The government has tainted the transitional jobs fund through at best, mismanagement, at worst, patronage and old style pork-barrel politics. By bungling and mismanagement the government has hurt the people who need the program most, the unemployed.

My colleagues and I in the NDP stand behind programs to help the unemployed.

The shadow cast over this program by mismanagement has fueled the Reform Party's call for an end to such programs. The Reform Party would gladly abandon those in need in high unemployment areas. The Liberals would help them if it means passing the money around to their friends. Only the NDP stands for job creation free from political interference.

[National Security, December 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow the comments of my hon. colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, who I think stated the case quite eloquently as to the problems with this report.

I taught in a university for a little while. When students did not have a whole lot to say, there were a few tricks they would use. They would take their paper and double space it, increase the size of the font and pass it in, thinking that maybe they could trick the teacher into thinking there was something of substance there.

I think the solicitor general has learned the same trick, because what we have presented to us today is a seven page statement on national security that for the most part is full of rhetoric. If we want to contrast the progress of the government we should contrast it with the statement from last year.

Let me talk about some of the things the solicitor general said in his statement last year. He talked about how one shipment of heroin landed successfully in Canada could lead to numerous deaths and human suffering in cities like Vancouver. My colleague from Burnaby—Douglas is here.

What action have we seen taken to stop the importation of drugs into cities like Vancouver? Absolutely nothing. It has come to the point where my colleague who represents Vancouver East has had to stand in the House to talk about the way the drug trade in heroin is wide open like an old fashioned farmers market in the city of Vancouver. Although the government recognized the problem a year ago, not a single thing has been done.

Let us look at what else was in the report from last year. Last year the solicitor general talked about creating a seamless net against organized crime. The seamless net has some pretty big holes in it, because this year we know of recent arrests and that a major organized crime ring dealing in bank and credit card fraud has been exposed.

How are Canadians expected to feel secure when the ports on both coasts and the border along the United States are not safe from organized crime? We know this is happening because even with its limited resources the RCMP has exposed rings that are using debit cards in fraud and are importing drugs into cities like Vancouver and Halifax. My colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough has mentioned the motorcycle gangs that have increased in cities like Montreal.

When it comes to personal safety Canadians have every right to be concerned. When it comes to combating organized crime the people who live along our borders and coasts have every right to ask the government what measures it has taken to protect them. In reality, the measures taken have been to cut and gut the RCMP.

My colleagues from Kamloops, Regina and Burnaby have had to stand in the House to pressure and plead with the solicitor general to ensure that programs in Regina like the training centre for the RCMP not be shut down. My colleagues from Burnaby and Kamloops have had to stand in the House to plead for additional funding so their communities could have some RCMP presence where there are perhaps one or two for thousands of citizens.

This is what the government calls a statement on national security. National security is in real trouble. I made the point two years ago that the disbandment of the ports police would lead to an infestation of drugs on either side of the country through the ports. Cutting the RCMP, disbanding the ports police, and leaving it to our customs officers who have also been gutted in the government's race to build a surplus to try to deal with a sophisticated and powerful international network of organized crime just does not cut it. It does not cut it for the Canadians who live in Montreal, Halifax, Vancouver, Burnaby, Windsor, or anywhere along the border with the United States where we know that organized crime is winning the war.

I suppose I thank the solicitor general for tabling his report. However, as I said, sometimes I would get such papers when I was teaching in university and unfortunately with the double spacing, the large font and because it does not say much, it would get a failing grade. At this point I think that is what Canadian citizens would have to give the government.

[Blood Samples Act, December 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, like the previous speakers I too am pleased to speak to this private member's bill. A private member's bill is an important avenue for those of us in the House to put forward issues we think are important. I commend the member for Fraser Valley for bringing forward this piece of legislation, Bill C-244.

He began his remarks by talking about and relating the story of the good Samaritan. I suppose it would have been helpful to us all if we had looked back at that time to see if the good Samaritan had taken the gentleman he found in the ditch to be tested for the plague. Then we would not have had to have this debate today. We might have had some guidance from the Divine.

It is a well intentioned piece of legislation and I commend him for bringing it forward. It raises some important questions about people who partake in the kind of activity envisioned.

When listening to his remarks I became a little concerned, and the government member raised some of my concerns. There is a difference between those who engage in criminal activity and the important examples which he has given of those people who in the execution of their professional duties as crime fighters or peacekeepers have suffered or had cause to be concerned about whether they had been infected with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV.

A great deal of his time was spent referring to the perpetrators of crime. He is right. When someone is committing an offence, should our police forces or security guards not have a right to find out if they have been infected with some kind of disease if in the execution of their duty, which is the protection of society, they encounter some activity that might cause them concern.

Bill C-244 is wider and goes further than that. It does not narrow those affected to those involved in fighting crime and to the perpetrators of crime. The legislation says that a person, not a crime fighter or a police officer, may apply to a justice for a warrant authorizing the taking of a sample of blood from another person who is not necessarily the perpetrator of a crime.

There are numerous examples. We can envisage how wide ranging the legislation would be. For example, it would apply to firefighters who, in the execution of their duties, perhaps saving an individual from a burning building, come into contact with bodily fluid, blood or whatever, and may have cause to wonder if they have been infected in the line of their duty with some disease. The same would apply to health care workers and paramedics. The bill is quite broad. It applies to persons who in their professional capacity may find themselves in that situation.

Like the government member, I wonder if the criminal code is the best way to meet the need that is obviously a real concern for the member and the people engaged in those activities.

I intend to support the legislation to at least get it to committee where it can be examined. However, I wonder if we might better look at labour legislation, because we are talking about the health and safety of individuals engaged in the performance of their professional duties, be they nurses, firefighters, policemen, security guards, prison guards, teachers or people in day care centres help children. We are talking about a wide range of professionals and working people who are faced in 1999 with health and safety concerns that we could not possibly have imagined 25 years ago.

I applaud the intent of the legislation. The purpose of the legislation is good. However, I wonder if working collectively through the committee, members of the Conservative Party, Reform, the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals might find a better way to ensure that this legislation does what the member wants it to do without running into all kinds of hurdles. Working collectively we may be able to achieve that.

In addition to wondering whether the criminal code is the appropriate piece of legislation, there are certain civil liberties that have been raised by the government speaker.

We may be able to find a way to take the thrust of this legislation out of the criminal code and place it in labour legislation. The government talks about working in tandem with health. I lean toward labour legislation. If we find a way to do that then we may avoid some of the constitutional challenges that could follow as a result of criminal code legislation.

The hon. member in speaking to his bill referred to the perpetrators of crime. However, I remind him, and he obviously knows, that this legislation has a wider ranging.

I am a lawyer and a bit of a wordsmith, and we deal with words all the time. Subclause 3(b) states that a judge can issue a warrant, and it outlines the considerations. Subclause 3(b) goes on to state “by reason of the circumstances in which the applicant came into contact with the bodily substance”. I need to explore that to see exactly what it means. If it is a matter of a criminal code offence, then we know that if, in the execution of his or her duties—and the examples were given by the mover of the legislation—a police officer gets stabbed by a needle or gets bitten, those are compelling circumstances.

However, for a nurse who works in a hospital, in a unit where a number of people suffer from HIV or hepatitis B, are those circumstances sufficiently compelling? No one says, as in some of the criminal cases cited by the member, “I bit you. Now you have HIV” or “I have a score to settle with you and I am going to pierce you with a needle”. How compelling should the circumstances be for the invasion of someone's civil liberties to take a blood sample?

I need some clarification on that. By sending the bill to committee we might very well get some of the clarification that is required.

In summary, there is a serious point raised by the government, and that is the arresting of someone who has not committed a criminal offence. That is a serious matter for us to consider.

In this country one of the things we take pride in is our freedom; freedom from arbitrary arrest, freedom from arrest without the reading of rights and without knowing what we have done wrong. That is where the criminal aspect of this is different than applying it to the civil aspect, to those engaged in health and safety occupations where no crime has been committed.

I applaud the intent of the legislation. I think it should have serious examination in committee. There are some real concerns that I see with it, but I think that working together we may be able to iron them out.