Madam Speaker, I would like to express my support for Bill C-95.
In this connection, I would like to discuss what Health Canada has accomplished and recall that our country is very proud, and rightly so, of its health care system.
In fact, there is no other system like it in the world. We also have the Canada Health Act, which contains the five basic principles of our system: universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability, and public administration.
Our health system has contributed enormously to our excellent quality of life. Furthermore, co-operation at the international level helps us stay abreast of new advances in health care in many other countries. Thanks to this co-operation, users and providers are informed of what is being done in the rest of the world. All industrialized countries exchange information and, as a result, are able to act efficiently and effectively.
Canada has already introduced a number of measures to help achieve its goal of renewing the health care system. We are reinforcing the community aspect of health care, improving the role of consumers with respect to health care and seeking a more integrated approach to health which goes beyond health care. A large proportion of our present and future interventions is focused on the principal factors that determine our health. A fundamental truth has transpired, and it is that health is more than just care. This is an incentive to understand the complex set of factors that create a society whose members are all in the best possible health.
Governments and communities are examining social, economic, physical and psychological aspects as well as other factors. The work being done in these areas supports and complements the services provided by the regular health care system.
We are beginning to understand the close and complex connections between factors that determine our health, and our decision-making is aimed at improving the quality of health care services. The national forum on health plays an important role in this respect.
In fact, the forum's role is to project a model of health care for the twenty-first century. The forum's team consists of 24 Canadian men and women: health professionals, volunteers and consumers who have come from across the country.
While our appreciation of the complexity of the interrelated factors that contribute to overall health has grown, so too have the challenges in making effective choices about how to allocate increasingly limited resources.
The federal government has taken a leadership role in communicating with all stakeholders, including the public, in terms of the kind of future systems we want and can afford. The national forum on health will play an important role in this regard.
If we are to preserve and improve our health care system we must first decide what is essential. In this regard the national forum on health and other bodies will provide important advice to the government.
One of the jobs of the members of the forum is to engage in honest and open discussions with Canadians about influences on our health and on our health care system in the coming years.
Four working groups have already been set up and are responsible for various aspects: decisions based on convincing evidence, health determiners, values and achieving a balance.
The forum was set up in response to Canadians' concerns, and Canadians are justifiably proud of their health system.
The forum is trying to find ways to improve both the health of Canadians and the effectiveness and efficiency of health care services, and public participation is vital to the fulfilment of its mandate.
Through a range of activities, the members of the forum are informing the public about the problems and the options for improvement of health and health care services in Canada.
The forum's broad public consultation will enable all Canadians to help develop recommendations.
Every Canadian will have an opportunity to express his or her values and convictions.
The federal government is also working in concert with its provincial and territorial counterparts through the conference of ministers of health. One of our common priorities in order to enhance the appropriateness and quality of health care has been to promote and strengthen the use of clinical practise guidelines. We want to orient health care on which practices work best for different groups at risk.
I would also like to point out that Canada is renowned worldwide as a centre for research, treatment and pharmaceutical developments.
Specifically, our country is a leader in the area of chemotherapy. Throughout the world, researchers and practitioners are investing in work of great significance to the millions of Canadians suffering from cancer or an infectious disease, and to those who are at their side in their struggle. The work done so far has had tangible results.
In 1990 approximately 413,000 Canadians who had been diagnosed with cancer within the previous decade were still alive. More than one-third of these people had lived more than five years since their initial diagnosis. Many of them had chemotherapy to thank for their success in fighting cancer. This year alone a further 125,000 Canadians will be diagnosed with cancer. They will look to advances in treatment such as chemotherapy for answers and hope.
In addition to chemotherapy, vaccines play another important role in our public health efforts. For example, while the hepatitis B vaccine is used successfully in the prevention of infection it also prevents the development of cancer of the liver. Another example is the BCG vaccine which is accepted as a therapeutic agent for treating cancer of the bladder and is also known to be used in the prevention of tuberculosis especially in countries where the incidence of tuberculosis is high.
We also know that the appearance of resistant strains in the case of tuberculosis, for instance, is a cause of grave concern among public health authorities.
In a world in which international travel has become commonplace, experience has shown that the progress we have made in fighting infectious diseases within our borders is no longer enough.
These factors are so many reasons why Canada puts such emphasis on health issues. Many of our health care priorities centre on the use of chemotherapy.
Health Canada is both a partner and a facilitator in medical research and efforts deployed in the public health sector in Canada.
This is an indication of the importance of progress achieved thanks to research and the government's resolve to continue this work.
The federal role in research has been generally well accepted in this country. Provincial research programs have frequently developed their own provincial research councils around the federal council to avoid overlap while ensuring their own research goals are met.
One of the best examples of the provincial research model is that of Quebec. Some hon. members may not be aware that one of the chief architects of the conseil de recherches, now the fonds de recherches, is the present Quebec minister of health, Jean Rochon. Mr. Rochon is a former dean of medicine at the University of Laval as well as the chair of the external advisory committee for Health Canada's national health research development program. He is also the author of the Rochon report and has worked for the World Health Organization. I suppose it is not surprising that research in Mr. Rochon's province is so well organized.
Contacts at the international level play a key role in the process. These contacts are long established, and we now have many mechanisms to help us overcome the barriers of time and space and work as a team to conquer disease.
Madam Speaker, just think what Pasteur would have accomplished with the help of Internet! Whether we are talking about cancer or infectious diseases, the entire population of this planet benefits from the co-operation of Health Canada with all concerned. I believe that together we will be able to make the requisite changes in our cherished health care system and bring it into the next century. I think we are on the right track.
I would now like to quote an old Arab saying: "He who has health has hope; he who has hope lacks nothing". With the help of all concerned, Canadians will keep both health and hope.
