Harold Albrecht

[Armenia, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow marks the 96th anniversary of the establishment of the first Republic of Armenia.

On May 28, 1918, Armenia re-emerged as an independent state following hundreds of years of Ottoman and Russian occupation. This moment of triumph of the Armenian people immediately followed the deep tragedy of the Armenian genocide, which had occurred just three years before.

The new Republic of Armenia faced many challenges and lasted only two years until it was subjugated by the Soviet Red Army, but the legacy of that drive for independence strongly influenced modern Armenians, who went on to achieve lasting independence in 1991.

This week, we also mark another important event, the 10th anniversary of the passage of Parliamentary motion M-380, recognizing the tragic events of 1915 as genocide and a crime against humanity.

I look forward to joining members of Canada's Armenian community on Parliament Hill this evening to mark both of these anniversaries. My colleagues and I extend our best wishes to Canada's strong and vibrant Armenian community, and we thank its members for their important contributions to our country.

[Petitions, May 27th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present four different petitions this morning signed by citizens from across Canada. In the interest of public safety, they want tougher laws and the implementation of new mandatory minimum sentencing for those persons convicted of impaired driving causing death. They also ask that the Criminal Code of Canada be changed to redefine the offence of impaired driving causing death as vehicular manslaughter.

[Petitions, May 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a number of petitions signed by people from the riding of Kitchener—Conestoga and the surrounding area in the region of Waterloo. The petitioners call on the government to introduce a new volunteer service medal to be known as the Governor General's volunteer medal to acknowledge and recognize volunteerism by Canadian troops.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, May 14th, 2014]

I appreciate your compassionate care, Mr. Speaker.

Science and technique are important, but people are more important, and it is people who get sick. Sickness almost always goes beyond the purely physical and purely mechanical. The mind, the heart, the will, and the human need to be put back at the centre of the doctor's vocation. I think that captures very well what palliative care is.

Palliative care has been in Canada for several decades, yet it is estimated that about 70% of Canadians do not have access to it. Access is particularly limited in rural and remote areas.

Historically, palliative care in Canada has focused on care delivered in hospitals by specialists. Thus far, the main recipients of palliative care have been cancer patients who are battling for their lives against this potentially fatal disease.

Today there is increasing demand to make palliative care services available to all people with life-threatening conditions and to have options as to where Canadians will spend the last days of their lives.

A recent survey commissioned by the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association showed that the topic of end-of-life care is an important one for Canadians. This survey also highlighted that Canadians have a general understanding of palliative care and overwhelmingly support it. However, the survey also revealed that people need more information about how to access the care available where they live.

Like other healthcare services, delivery of palliative care is mainly the responsibility of provinces and territories.

As members have heard from my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, some time ago, this government is already supporting initiatives aimed at enhancing greater capacity in our healthcare system to provide palliative care. While there is still work to do to improve end-of-life care, I am happy to be able to illustrate to members that progress has been made.

All provinces now offer palliative care services to some extent, and there are some promising practices that I would like to highlight. For example, Fraser Health in British Columbia and Niagara West in Ontario have adopted models that seek to integrate palliative care across all care settings and for all types of diseases.

In my own home region of Waterloo, I am aware of a number of services that are available. HopeSpring Cancer Support Centre is providing support for those who are newly diagnosed with cancer. Lisaard House is a hospice. I have heard many positive stories and have had personal contact in terms of patients who have been served by Lisaard House in the Waterloo Region, and I am very grateful for that. Also, Hospice Waterloo Region, Qualicare, Sunnyside Home, and the Grand River Regional Cancer Centre provide hospice care.

These health authorities are also building capacity by partnering family doctors with palliative care specialists. Knowing that they can draw on this expertise gives family doctors the support they need to continue to provide high-quality, personalized care to their patients.

As a routine part of care, physicians are also encouraged to have discussions with patients about their end-of-life care preferences before an illness occurs so that they can better understand their patients' wishes.

Resources that were once spent in hospitals are now being used to support the delivery of services in the community. This has resulted in an overall improvement in the quality-of-life care provided to patients as well as an increase in the number of people accessing end-of-life care services.

In Winnipeg, the palliative care program offers round-the-clock coverage for people who wish to spend their last living days at home. To enable this process, a palliative care doctor issues a medicine kit for use in the patient's home equipped with all the medications an individual might require to control symptoms for a period of 24 hours. If necessary, a palliative care nurse can perform a home visit and use this kit on the patient. If a symptom crisis occurs, it can be handled right in the patient's home rather than having them rushed to the emergency department that may be either just around the corner or far away from the patient's home.

In Montreal, the palliative care program at the Jewish General Hospital follows 500 patients in their homes. That is 500 people who are not in hospital beds. However, they will fast-track admission to the palliative care unit for patients who need it, and when they need it.

Nova Scotia and Manitoba have expanded access to palliative care drugs in home settings. All other provinces have similar programs. This means that at the end of life, people will not have to enter a hospital to get access to required medication or to simply have the cost of these prescription drugs covered.

As well, in our budget 2014, we invested $3 million in a community-based model for palliative care to help the Pallium Foundation in its work.

Changes such as those I have just described mark improvements in the options available to Canadians as they plan for end-of-life care.

Each province and territory recognizes the value of palliative care and has made significant advances in this area, often tailored to the unique character and composition of its population. A federal framework, and I would urge that we use “framework” for palliative care, would respect jurisdictional boundaries, complement these provincial and territorial initiatives, and provide additional information about federal activities and research.

I call on all members to support Motion No. 456 in the interest of caring for some of Canada's most vulnerable citizens.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and join the debate on Motion No. 456, on palliative care.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, over the past five years a number of parliamentarians from all parties joined together to produce the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care report. I joined as a co-chair with the member for Guelph and also the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, whom I believe you know very well. It was a real honour for me to join with that group and many other colleagues from all parties to produce the report on palliative and compassionate care.

I want to read a bit of the introduction of that report to give Canadians an idea as to how this came about and the actual work that was done. It states:

The Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care (PCPCC) is an ad hoc, all party group of MPs, dedicated to improving care for elderly, dying and vulnerable Canadians. It is unique in the history of the Canadian Parliament as it was formed by the MPs on their personal initiative and funded out of their member office budgets.

The committee is an example of what is possible when MPs work closely across party lines on issues of profound concern to everyone. The spirit of non partisan collaboration exhibited by the members of the committee is a great example of what parliament is at its best.

Receiving testimony from hundreds of people at twenty four hearings, and local round tables, MPs were profoundly impressed by the dedication and depth of concern expressed by Canadians for issues surrounding the way palliative and compassionate care is practised in our country.

Also, over the course of this study, I had the opportunity to visit different palliative care places and hospices across the country. One that sticks out in my mind was when I visited a hospice in the riding of Sarnia—Lambton. My colleague there hosted us for one of the round tables and then we visited the hospice. I was deeply moved by the compassion and empathy that the medical personnel, especially the doctors, showed for their patients, as well as the nurses and other support personnel as well.

These kinds of examples are multiplied across the country. Our task is to see that these are replicated in many more communities, especially in our rural communities, across Canada. This is at the heart of what the motion, and the recommendation of the committee, is all about.

Our government recognizes the growing need of Canadians for compassionate end-of-life care. There is no doubt that care should be there when people really need it, but it should also be the best care possible and made available at a reasonable cost to Canadians.

Despite the fact that most people say they would prefer to die in the comfort of their own home, the truth of the matter is that about 60% of Canadians spend their last days in a hospital setting. This is clearly not the preferred place to be, for a variety of reasons. Care at the end of life in hospitals can take a toll on patients, their families and other caregivers and is particularly taxing on the health care system. Additionally, it has implications on hospital wait times for emergency services and may limit the availability of hospital beds.

One of the solutions to address this issue and its unintended consequences is palliative care services. Palliative care focuses on relieving suffering and improving the quality of living and dying. It benefits people of all ages dealing with life threatening conditions, such as AIDS, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Palliative care treats the physical, psychological, social, spiritual and practical needs of the person who is dying. It also recognizes the needs of that person's family and other loved ones.

While many people associate palliative care with hospices and hospitals, it can be delivered in a variety of settings, including long-term care facilities, or even in one's own home. Again, I would just like to refer to a quote from the report, which states:

The palliative care philosophy is person-centred, family-focused and community-based. The philosophy moves us from disease or condition specific care to person-centred care. No longer will we refer to “the cancer patient in bed 4A” or “the heart patient going down to pre-op” or “the broken arm in 6B getting a cast”.

One doctor, Dr. John Meenan, from Kitchener, Ontario stated, “Doctors need to move beyond the model of glorified mechanics—

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of unfortunate that we are here in this debate talking about housing, especially for vulnerable people.

In 2014, our Conservative government renewed the homeless partnering strategy, which primarily gave funds to the housing first initiative. I would like to ask my colleague why she and her party voted against that initiative.

In 2013, there were some great initiatives on affordable housing. Budget 2013 committed $1.25 billion to affordable housing. Budget 2013 also committed $600 million in long-term funding to our homeless partnering strategy. However, my colleague and her party voted against all of these initiatives.

In addition to that, if she has time, and I am sure she will because her first answer will not take long, I wonder if she could outline to the House why her party would divert subsidy funds to subsidizing offices for partisan purposes, rather than committing to funding housing for people who are vulnerable?

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, if I can stop laughing long enough to get my question in, the Liberals needed three more months to implement a lot of things, including the Kyoto accord, under which their greenhouse gas emissions rose by 30% when they were actually trying to get them down.

All through her speech, my colleague referred to things like “drying up”, as if our government has not funded housing. She is totally ignoring the $1.7 billion annually that we give through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation; the $1 billion in 2012 to CMHC's direct lending initiative; the $1.9 billion for housing homeless, including the investment in affordable housing; and $303 million annually to support first nations housing on reserves. Then, this year in our budget, we renewed the homeless partnering strategy.

My colleague will be aware that over the last number of years I have tried to address issues surrounding mental health. The homeless partnering strategy, with the housing first initiative, is critical to helping people facing mental health challenges. Would my colleague explain to the House why she and her party would vote against an initiative that would give people with mental health challenges the tools to get out of their cycle of despair and get on with their lives? Why would she and her party vote against an initiative like that?

[Petitions, May 14th, 2014]

In the second petition, Mr. Speaker, the petitioners point out that chemical abortions represent the unjust killing of innocent pre-born children. They call upon the federal Minister of Health to immediately intervene with Health Canada to ensure that the RU-486 application is definitively rejected.

[Petitions, May 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of presenting two petitions today.

The first is from a group of Canadians calling on Parliament to refrain from making any changes to the Seeds Act or to the Plant Breeders' Rights Act through Bill C-18.

[Fair Elections Act, May 13th, 2014]

No.