Audrey McLaughlin

[Petitions, June 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions.

The first is from petitioners in the Yukon territory who find it unacceptable that individuals die while in the custody of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Each incident of death while in custody undermines public confidence.

The petitioners therefore call on Parliament to review RCMP procedures for dealing with individuals in custody who are known to have medical conditions.

[Health Care, June 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Today the Canadian Hospital Association will be opening its annual meeting with a call to arms against the government's plan to dismantle the national health care system.

The plan to group funding for health, social assistance and education and to gradually deplete the cash portion of the transfer has been roundly denounced by the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Hospital Association, labour organizations, the provinces and territories. Even the nine Liberal members on the finance committee have said the cash portion must be retained.

Will the Prime Minister finally listen to Canadians and set out plans to ensure that the cash transfer portions for social and health programs will continue past the year 2000?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, June 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to second the motion of the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. It is true that the clauses in Bill C-76 which the member is proposing we delete, and I am in agreement with that, represent a fundamental restructuring of the social and health system of Canada.

It certainly makes a mockery of the review done by the human resources minister in which many people participated thinking that they could have real input. It certainly makes a mockery of the national health forum that was supposedly established to set out more clearly a national system of health.

Most concerning about the clauses that are proposed to be deleted is that they change Canada in a very profound way. While social and health programs are of foremost importance to citizens of the country in their daily lives, there are important economic programs that provide a social infrastructure absolutely essential to the competitiveness of the country.

It is shocking the Liberals have joined with the Bloc and Reform parties to dismantle national programs. Rather than saying up front that they are prepared to dismantle the programs, the Liberals are prepared to do it as one article recently stated: "by erosion through stealth, by the death of a thousand cuts".

Even today the government has brought in limited debating time for an extremely serious issue. It suggests that not only are the Liberals not keeping their promises in the red book but they do not want it brought before Canadians who will look at it more carefully and see the real implications. The shift has come without a full public debate. That is why it is so important to have a full debate in the House.

On other issues, whether the use of drugs in sports or medicare, we had independent commissions. This is one proposal I have made because of the long term impact of the clauses we are now

asking to be deleted. They should be deleted until there has been further in depth study of the long term social and economic implications to the country.

The Liberal government is sending a clear message to Canadians that it is willing to abandon its responsibility to promote economic and social equality. Canadians should be reminded once again that the Liberal Party won the last election on its promise to make job creation the number one priority of the federal government. Instead Bill C-76, a financial bill, kicks the legs out from under some of the supports that have softened recessions in the past and would do so in the future.

At a time when child poverty is at the highest rate we have had in history, when the United Nations is criticizing us for our lamentable record on poverty issues and when many young people are giving up hope, the government has all but abandoned the promises that brought it here.

Does the government have a national vision in terms of these important programs. We can only judge by its actions. When Canadians look at the clauses in Bill C-76, they will wonder about a government whose only goal seems to be to complete the downward spiral of social programs and encourage the lowering of wages and benefits for Canadian workers everywhere.

The $7 billion cut to federal transfers for post-secondary education, health care and social assistance will have a profound effect in further creating the haves and have not provinces and territories. The Canadian Hospital Association and the Canadian Medical Association have expressed their concerns about specific clauses of the bill. They are experts in the field who know what the effect will be on health care should the clauses pass.

The bill is not about making a small change to social and health programs. It is about dismantling them. The block funding arrangement means that funding from the federal government will not be tied to specific programs. It suggests that the government no longer embodies a national vision of the programs. That is why I say the motion must be supported. There must be much more study and much more understanding by Canadians about very important decisions on the future of health care and social programs.

My colleague from the Bloc Quebecois says that national standards are terrible. They have guaranteed, particularly under the Canada Health Act, some equity from sea to sea to sea. There is no guarantee it will continue. There is no guarantee at all. As the funding is not just reduced but no longer available from the federal government, the federal government will no longer have a say in implementation in the provinces and territories.

Under Bill C-76 the cash transfers to the provinces and territories will run out within the next decade. Without the power of enforcement the federal government will not be able to maintain medicare as a public not for profit system.

Even Liberal members of the finance committee who studied the bill opposed the plan, because it is a betrayal of everything the country has stood for. We are in a mad rush to the bottom. I am afraid we have not seen the end of it from the government.

The Prime Minister is on record as saying that we need to get our health care spending down and that maybe the Canada social transfer is one of the ways he will do it.

Let us look at the facts. We are spending about 10 per cent of GDP on health care. The Prime Minister says that is too much. The major increases in health care costs continue to come from increasing drug costs and private health insurance for extended health coverage. We spend only about 6.8 per cent of GDP on public insurance.

The Liberal government can do something to reduce health expenditures. It can rescind and repeal Bill C-91 that provided patent protection for multinational drug companies and dramatically increased drug costs and the costs to every health plan in every province and every territory.

The United States spends far more on health care than we do. It is precisely because it has a private system that is out of control. If one charts the statistics one can see that until the late 1960s when Canada introduced its public system health care costs were rising at about the same rate in the United States and in Canada. We spent about the same proportion of GDP on health. However when our public system was introduced we began to save money. The growth rate in the United States has continued to skyrocket where ours has levelled off. Now the United States looks to us for solutions.

The government promised that it would not withdraw from or abandon the health care field but the bill breaks the promise. The government is abandoning every Canadian who trusted the government. It is abandoning poor Canadians and the unemployed. It is abandoning the ill.

I despair for the country when the government has turned its back on the people. I strongly oppose Bill C-76. I strongly support the motion of the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. I urge and indeed plead with the government to delete the clauses so there may be further discussion, public debate and open debate on the serious and fundamental restructuring of the social and health care plans.

Should the government choose to do so, it would have praise from many parts of the country. This is the opportunity for government members to vote for the motion to delete the clauses

and allow time for Canadians, not just the Liberal Party, to have a say about the future of health care and social programs.

I urge all colleagues in the House of Commons to support the motion to delete the clauses.

[Child Support, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, 62 per cent of single parent families led by women live in poverty. Two weeks ago, the courts ruled against Suzanne Thibaudeau, who had challenged the law requiring custodial parents to pay taxes on child support payments. The law is unfair and simply impoverishes women even more. We have waited long enough.

Parliament has already debated this issue in the form of a private member's motion. There has been a task force on child support payments. The minister has had ample time and opportunity to act.

The minister has stalled on this issue for too long. It was this government that appealed the Thibaudeau case last year, causing another year's delay. I urge the minister to act immediately to change this unfair law.

[Gasoline Prices, June 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

My colleague from Regina-Lumsden has continually in the House asked the minister to take action on the pricing of gasoline. No action has been taken and yet over the past few days we have seen the price of gasoline go up again by as much as four cents a litre with no apparent economic justification. These new increases could cost the Canadian taxpayer up to a billion dollars.

In light of these new increases would the Minister of Industry now take action to protect consumers and immediately call an inquiry into price fixing at Canadian gas stations?

[Petitions, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this petition is from constituents of mine from all communities in Yukon.

These petitioners state that whereas there is no connection between gun control legislation and a decrease in occurrence of criminal activity. Whereas all handguns in Canada are required by law to be registered, they feel that implementing more restrictive firearms controls will affect only law-abiding citizens and is unjustifiable. They feel that responsible governments should follow more effective prosecution and tougher sentencing of criminals.

[Petitions, May 31st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. First, a petition from women across Canada concerning breast cancer. More than 5,400 Canadian women will die of breast cancer this year and about 19,000 new cases will be diagnosed.

Your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to urge the government to co-operate with the provinces and territories on establishing centres of excellence in each of the provinces and territories, to establish a national information and telephone support service, and to provide the requisite basic funding for support groups that help breast cancer patients.

[Gun Control, May 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, aboriginal groups from across the country have made presentations regarding their concerns about Bill C-68, the firearms legislation.

The James Bay Cree and the Council for Yukon Indians have presented well documented briefs which illustrate the government did not initiate the required consultation process on this legislation. The onus was on these two groups to hold the government accountable for the agreements which have been made.

Given the CYI agreements were proclaimed in February of this year, it is quite shocking that barely four months later the Minister of Justice had not complied with certain aspects of the agreements.

While these agreements are between two parties, it is inevitably the First Nations that are expected to ensure compliance with even constitutionally entrenched agreements. Is it any wonder there is a high degree of mistrust of the federal government by aboriginal peoples?

The Inuit-Tapirisat, the AFN and the Metis have all presented their concerns. The minister has said he will consult. What he has not said is what he will do to meet these specific concerns. The minister has both a legal and a moral obligation to be forthright and address these issues today.

[Breast Implants, May 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the multinational Dow Corning filed for bankruptcy protection, effectively cutting off another avenue for Canadian women seeking compensation for faulty silicone gel breast implants.

Despite the injury caused to Canadian women and the cost to taxpayers, the federal government has never filed suit against the manufacturers of these devices and continues to allow the use of saline breast implants; another disaster waiting to happen.

The federal government must act now and respond to breast implant support groups who have urged the minister to provide core funding to help them organize, to disseminate information, to make sure that physicians are required to inform women about the risk of implants, and to develop a national protocol for the removal of faulty implants.

Canadian women want action and deserve action. The government must respond now. It must no longer accept this serious health risk to women.

[Social Programs, May 10th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

As he will know, under Bill C-76 the Canada social transfer section clearly is a fundamental restructuring of Canada and of our national health care and social programs. A United Nations committee has expressed concern. I do not believe that anywhere in the very much mentioned Liberal red book was it suggested to the Canadian public that we would fundamentally adopt a Reform Party policy in transferring these programs to the provinces.

Given the fundamental restructuring that this section on the Canadian social transfer represents, would he appoint an independent commission? We have done this in the past with the Hall commission and the Macdonald commission. It could study this particular section and come back truly with an independent view of what this means for the future of Canada.