Finance Committee on May 31st, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Question.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Well, I may not have time for a question, Mr. Chairman.

By guaranteeing the annual increase of health care funding post-2017, 6% annually up to 2017 but not less than 3% post-2017, that is an increase.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay—

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I don't know where the terminology “cut” comes from. It is an increase. It is an increase in real and absolute terms of health care funding guaranteed out for more than a decade. It's a fact.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Noël, do you want to comment briefly on that?

[Alain Noël]

I had five minutes, so I was a bit short on equalization and other programs. I didn't talk about cuts, but the thing is that the federation is organized around a certain understanding of fiscal transfers and arrangements between Ottawa and the provinces. Among these arrangements was an understanding that the federal government plays a role in health care.

You are changing the rules of the game, and this has not been discussed with the provinces. It's a unilateral decision. And you're absolutely right that it has to be considered along with equalization in particular, but equalization was also changed in 2008.

So the picture is such that what's in the books is that the federal government will in part realize its surplus on the backs of the provinces.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Ms. Glover, please.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to thank our witnesses, who have travelled considerable distances today.

I saw no personal attacks against our witnesses today. I do not understand Mr. Nantel's bizarre comments. Nonetheless, I would like to provide some clarification regarding Mr. Marston.

I'll do this in English, because Mr. Marston typically speaks in English.

I come to his defence because when Mr. Hoback was speaking there was a moment when he thought Mr. Marston was laughing at him. It wasn't in fact Mr. Marston. It was Monsieur Nantel. Again, I can't explain his odd behaviour, but I want to make that clear, because I didn't want Mr. Marston to think.... It's just that Mr. Hoback didn't see who it was.

In any event, I'm going to share part of my time with the chair, so I'm almost done. I just want to add that when Mr. Marston speaks from the heart, so do I. I'm a mother of five children. I believe in this bill. I believe in the things that are in it. I also have been fighting very long to get this forward.

I think the reason we have most of the aboriginal members of the House of Commons in the Conservatives, the reason we have all of the police officers in the House of Commons in the Conservative caucus, and the reason we have doctors and nurses who are sitting at this table is that we care about the future of the country.

So I want you to take that home with you. Democracy means allowing the people to choose, and the people chose us to do the work we're doing. We believe in it.

Go ahead, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Glover.

I wanted to follow up just on one specific issue, and that's with Professor Noël about division 17.

I've actually read a lot of your work, I respect your work as a political scientist in Canada very much, and I know some of your good friends, like Allan Tupper, who taught me at the University of Alberta. But I do have to question you with respect to division 17, because it has the 6% increases in heath care year over year going to 2017, which is more, as was pointed out, than any other province going forward. But it also ensures that no province loses going forward. So division 17 has an additional payment of $362 million to Quebec, $13 million-plus to Nova Scotia, $102 million to New Brunswick, $201 million to Manitoba.

But you reference in your opening statement about the per capita cash transfer going forward. People from my province—and you were an Edmontonian for some time—see it as a sense of fairness that if the federal government is going to transfer cash for health care to the provinces, that it do so on a per capita basis, recognizing the equality of every person in Canada. I'm very surprised. I thought you were being critical of moving to per capita cash transfers, so correct me if I'm wrong. But if I'm not wrong, explain to the citizen who lives in Alberta why they would not get the same per capita cash transfers as people living in other provinces.

[Alain Noël]

If I remember correctly, it's the 2007 budget. In 2006 there was a budget that acknowledged that. Because the Conservatives had just been elected there was not a full year to really prepare their own budget, but that budget in 2006 acknowledged the problems that existed in the federation in terms of the fiscal arrangements.

To a large extent, 2007 fixed the problems, and the deal in 2007 was that social transfers, including health and also other social transfers, would be largely per capita. That would mean that wealthier provinces would gain and less-well-endowed provinces would lose. What accompanied this was that the equalization program was much improved following the recommendations of the committee chaired by Al O'Brien.

This was sort of the deal in 2007, and it was a good deal. It was a deal that said we're not going to use social transfers to do equalization; we're going to use equalization for that. But then that deal lasted a year. In 2008 there was a ceiling that was put on equalization. This brings back the problems that existed when Paul Martin was finance minister; that is to say, that the size of the envelope is not determined by the formula of equalization, but by economic growth. Therefore, if economic disparities between the provinces increase, the program does not respond well.

All this to say that you have to look at social transfers, along with equalization, and they balance each other.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I appreciate that. But isn't that then—and that may be your point—more with equalization? Because to the Albertan who says to me, “I'm living in this province, but I'm a Canadian citizen and I deserve an equal per capita cash transfer as in any other province”, wouldn't you see that as fair, from a federal government point of view?

[Alain Noël]

As I said, if the equalization program is well done, that can be fair. But it has to be acknowledged that it's a different conception of sharing from what used to exist in the programs.

What should be said also about equalization is that it's not a program that takes money from Alberta and gives it to other provinces. I pay equalization too, as someone who has a good income.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I know, and I didn't make that argument at all.

We'll have to continue this debate after, but I appreciate all of you being here tonight and staying longer.

Colleagues, we will meet tomorrow morning at 8:30 back in this room.

Thank you all.

The meeting is adjourned.