Jerry Pickard

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 from petitioners in the Leamington area in my riding of Chatham--Kent Essex. They ask that the House maintain the status of marriage between one man and one woman. They recognize that the House passed a motion in June 1999 which called for marriage to continue to be defined as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. The petitioners ask Parliament to recognize that and pass a law in order to confirm that.

[Figure Skating, April 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend, Chatham's own Shae-Lynn Bourne and Vancouver's Victor Kraatz were victorious at the World Figure Skating Championships in Washington, D.C., coming home with the gold medal.

This victory crowns 13 years of outstanding Canadian athletes skating into our hearts, our arenas and Canadian history. The couple has appeared in three Olympic games, nine world championships and they hold 10 Canadian titles. The win represents Canada's first ice dance title in 51 years of championships. I can think of no better way to retire than carrying the world title as champion.

I congratulate them on their tremendous win and flawless, outstanding performance in Washington. I wish them well in their future endeavours. They have made us all proud.

[Ethanol Industry, January 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the benefits of the ethanol industry in this country are clear. Ethanol can eliminate over 30 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. It will generate over $1.5 billion in new investments. It will create new markets for 100 million bushels of wheat. It will generate 2,000 new jobs.

This year alone the United States has built one ethanol plant per month, while in Canada only one plant has been built in 10 years.

Would the finance minister make a one time commitment of $400 million over the next eight years to kickstart this industry in Canada?

[Postcards for Peace, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize the efforts of grade six students from Queen Elizabeth School in Leamington, Ontario.

During Veterans Week in November, these grade six students, under the direction of their teacher Paul Forman, participated in the Postcards for Peace initiative. Each student took the time to write letters of thanks and appreciation to the men and women of Canada who served or are currently serving, calling them brave, calling them heroes, telling them, “We are proud of you and what you have done for our country”.

These efforts are testimony that our students are being taught good Canadian values and history. In times of peace, I think that is great.

I also want to take the opportunity to wish all the veterans and members of the armed forces, both at home and abroad, a safe and happy holiday season and the very best in the new year.

[Supply, December 5th, 2002]

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.

Why did the finance minister of the day have to correct what was happening? It was clearly because a government, a Conservative government, by the way, had the same theory that the member for St. John's West supports today, a theory that had driven the country into such debt that we had a terrible time trying to deal with it.

The question is not whether we should we have made changes. The question in my mind is this: Why did the Tory government of the day almost bankrupt the country and leave us with very little resources outside the billions required to pay down the debt and the deficit?

[Supply, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by my colleague for St. John's West in his commentary about our previous finance minister and his track record.

It seems to me that I have a little longer memory of history. I remember a fellow by the name of Michael Wilson and I can remember a prime minister by the name of Mulroney, who continuously, from the time they were elected in 1984 and until 1993, overspent $40 billion a year, year after year.

Why did Paul Martin have to look at the books and straighten out some major problems? It has to be because--

[Committees of the House, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled “The Safe Third Country Regulations”.

In that report, under recommendation 2 on page 9 and page 19, there is a correction to be made. The section should read 159.6 rather than 156.9.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition calls attention to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Canadians suffer from debilitating diseases: Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, muscular dystrophy and spinal cord injury.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of suffering Canadians.

[Petitions, November 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

Petitioners from my riding state that a clear majority of Canadians condemns acts of child pornography and that the courts have not applied the current child pornography law in a way which makes it clear that such exploitation of children will always be met with swift punishment.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children be outlawed.

[Health Care System, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to talk with my constituents and with health care professionals in my riding. What I heard was that our health care system was under a tremendous amount of financial stress. The system is short on health care professionals. The system needs many adjustments and changes. We need to come up with a plan to make certain that we have long term care and sustainable funding to ensure that the Canadian health care system serves the public well.

Quite frankly, I hope the debate is not only on where the money comes from. I heard my colleague across the way and I realize he certainly has his viewpoint but I do not think the debate should focus only on whether new taxes are created or whether other things are done. Consultations with the public are most important. Through the consultations by Mr. Kirby and Mr. Romanow we are arriving at a point where we can see a lot of things that need to be done, a lot of actions that need to be taken in the health care system.

I, and I believe every Canadian, have no doubt that there will be extra expenses if we are to tackle the system properly. Making sure that we do have those dollars in place will be very important. However let us also look at some of the shortfalls of the system right now.

It used to be in a rural community we would hear about the lack of doctors and areas that are totally underserviced. I come from an area in Chatham--Kent Essex that is as highly underserviced as any area in this country. That is a real disaster for all of us. When we do not have doctors, nurses or health care professionals that we need to deal with patients, it is very critical. However it is not just the rural communities any more. We are short of doctors in some of our major areas like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

We need to look at a system where we can have the number of health care professionals trained and in practice in this country, not just doctors, by the way, but let us look at nurses. Let us look at all other health care delivery service people that we have in the system. We are totally underserviced. The opportunity in the future does not seem to be as bright as it should be either. Where will those doctors come from? Do we have the numbers to deal with those issues? I do not believe so.

One of the reasons a lot of the consultation and work that has been put in place is to try to deal with not only financing, but numbers of health care professionals.

How do hospitals get stable funding and make sure they can plan for not only today but for five or ten years down the line? How can they be sure that the administration in our hospitals is provided with the tools it needs in order to deliver proper, adequate health care to people coming into the system?

How do we deal with the cost of drugs, which seems to be escalating over time and in fact is putting more and more stress on our system every day? Are there means by which we can look at those extra costs and deal with them in a more adequate, better way?

From my point of view, from my constituents' point of view and from the point of view of the health care professionals with whom I have spoken, obviously more money needs to be put into the health care system but we also need to deal with many other issues in the health care system that will make our system the system that we want it to be.

I have no question that the Liberal government, every person in the House and all Canadians want to make sure that we put a health care system in place that will serve everyone well. The problem obviously is that we focus our debate on who will pay the bills. We focus our debate on who is wrong and who is right. We focus our debate on most of the wrong things.

When I hear that Canada does not pay its fair share in health care, I wish we would stop that type of debate and start looking at what is the past record, what have been the expenditures? Are we living up to our obligations to the people who are electing us? Are we moving that agenda forward, or are we playing petty politics on funding issues and not really looking at a system that needs some repair, that needs a cash injection, and that needs a lot more support and thought to go into it?

I am a disappointed in what I am hearing at times. We must have institutions in this country that will train nurses and doctors, that will put professionals with the proper tools and skills in small communities. In my riding the town of Tilbury is a good example. Tilbury has been searching for a doctor for years to replace the doctor who was in the community. There are outreach programs. There is funding to recruit doctors. There are all kinds of activities going on. We have not been as successful as we can in dealing with that.

I have heard of systems where doctors would set up practices in different communities to help with the building, the material, and the professional equipment that is required, but to no avail because there are not enough doctors trained in the communities.

We can look at the systems as they are changing. We have clinics in many of our communities today. Those clinics will have people come in with colds and other problems from nine in the morning until four in the evening and the doctors in those clinics can deal with those patients quite quickly.

When it comes to long-term, major health care programs, the patients are turned back to the family practitioner. The family practitioner then has a tremendous number of hours, a tremendous amount of work, and a heavy burden of individual patients who have diseases that require a long-term of care. Possibly the funding in those areas is not as good as the type of funding that a doctor might receive if he received payments for everybody coming off the street. He could deal with them in five minutes and bring the next patient in and deal with him or her for five minutes.

We must look at the role and the work that our practitioners are doing in practice as well. We must look and see if the clinics are serving our society well. Perhaps many of the long-term cases should be taken over in some other way. We should look at how the whole structure of funding to the medical community is put in place.

In Ontario there are projections that we will be short tens of thousands of nurses over the next 10 years and that is scary. When we start talking about the shortage of all kinds of professionals, not just in the medical field, but in all fields, we must be concerned where this whole system is moving.

I want to touch on funding to a small degree. It is critical that people understand that the federal government has been working very hard. It is my understanding that in the last four years we have increased health care spending by $35 billion. That is $35 billion put into the health care system that was not there before.

People have played with the numbers and they have not been accurate about those numbers in this debate. I have never heard anyone talking about all the types of transfers that go to the provinces and covering health care system costs. I can say without equivocation that our health care system is financed by the federal government at the rate of 40%. I believe all of the numbers, when we talk about transfer to the provinces, cash transfers, tax transfers, and equalization payments, would hear me out.