Finance Committee on May 31st, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Your point of order is to do what?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

It's just to clarify that he's not a full member of the finance committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Points of clarification are not points of order. Points of order deal with procedures of the committee. Does this relate to a procedure of the committee?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

No, it relates to what Ms. Nash said.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. It's not a point of order, Mr. Jean.

Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I think it was a point of interruption.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

This bill has an unprecedented scope. I'll just share with you that this committee has been dealing with the Employment Equity Act, the Status of the Artist Act, the Coasting Trade Act, the Wage Earner Protection Act, the Canada Marine Act, the Food and Drugs Act, the Fisheries Act, the Currency Act, the Investment Canada Act, the International Centre for Human Rights, the Health of Animals Act, the Bank Act, the Seeds Act, the Old Age Security Act....

It is a vast bill, and I want to thank those of you who have made the point, which we completely concur with, that this bill should be split. In the interests of democracy, of fair debate, and of reasonable examination of the implications of these changes, that would be a wise thing to do. Nevertheless, we are examining all of these pieces.

I want to say to those of you who are here from the cultural sector, I certainly am concerned about cuts taking place in this sector. In my particular riding, we have a large number of people who work in the arts and culture sector. I should also say that we have had other testimony about the impact of the cuts to libraries and archives, and in spite of the minister's reassurances that these cuts will not mean any change to how things are done, we've had other testimony that says that in fact that's simply not the case.

I'd like to get a sense from you, because I know what a huge economic impact the arts have in Canada, and it is basically a sustainable industry. It's a non-polluting industry. It has a huge economic impact. Perhaps one of the witnesses for the arts could just comment briefly about the economic impact when you start cutting back on funding for the arts.

Mr. Pineau or Ms. Wirsig?

[Alain Pineau]

Very briefly, this is a sector that is quite key to the creative economy, and there are all sorts of studies that show that artist creation and creation in general are linked. It's a question of training, of people—the artist and cultural workers are an important part of the economy. In 2008 the Conference Board of Canada did a study that showed that directly and indirectly it represented over $84 billion, so it's an important part of the economy. It's important to invest in that sector in particular.

The other aspect, also because we're talking here about job growth and long-term prosperity, is that one of the upsides of the downsides of being an artist is that it doesn't cost much to create an artist job and to have a cumulative effect, a multiplier effect, because artists are not paid huge sums of money.

I remember the statistic—but I can't say exactly where the number came from—and it cost about $30,000 to $35,000 to create a job in the cultural sector. It costs something like $400,000 in heavy-industry and about $100,000 in middle-industry types of jobs.

If the strategy is to create as many jobs as possible, there shouldn't be cuts in the cultural sector. There should be investment.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you very much.

I take your point that this budget implementation act, which is supposedly about creating jobs, in fact will be cutting jobs in the arts sector, which is very efficient in creating jobs.

I want to have time to ask a question about health care. It could be to Mr. Noël, or to Ms. Silas.

What I'm hearing you say is that there will be serious repercussions down the road because of the change to the funding formula for health care. It's kind of a time-release change that will happen. Because there is no overall restructuring of health care, there's going to be a squeeze in terms of the cost of delivery of health care.

Can one of you please comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. Nash, you're almost out of time.

Ms. Silas, very briefly, please.

[Linda Silas]

Yes, it has been very clear from most of the provincial premiers that the squeeze will come. Never mind that the squeeze will come when the federal government reduces its financing, but what's happening right now is that we see a big squeeze because of the cost of drugs and because of the cost of our health care system, mainly in the acute care sector.

We know that the long-term-care sector is going to be the next big bubble. Nothing in this bill or in the announcement in December is addressing this. Compared to what we were hoping for with the health accord, which was a vision.... That's where we're hoping to convince this committee to go further.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Ms. McLeod, please.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all of our witnesses, but because health care is near and dear to my heart, I think I will focus in on health care issues.

First of all, I don't know if you were able to be here during the last panel, but at the end of it my colleague engaged Dr. Turnbull in terms of a fairly significant list of what are really positive measures in what we are providing within this budget for health care. I'm not going to go through that list, but I just want to note the glass half-full or half-empty.... There are significant measures. One in particular that is near and dear to my heart is starting to recognize the interdisciplinary role and the ability for nurses and other practitioners in terms of ordering medical supplies, devices, etc. Those are of some of the pictures within it.

I want to take a quote—we had a conversation yesterday—from one of the institutes. This is actually very familiar, because I think there's research all over the world. I think Minister Flaherty, when he moved forward with the 6%, extending it, and then 3% is a significant commitment from the federal government.... But here's the quote:

Canada spends a lot, but doesn't get a lot. Our health care spending is...11.4 per cent of GDP; that ranks us sixth among the industrialized countries with universal health care. Yet Canada ranks poorly on many key measures, such as access to doctors and medical technologies....Thus, contrary to a widespread misconception, health-care in Canada is not “underfunded”, but is...“underperforming”.

We sat down with the provinces, and I always will remember my Bloc colleague saying “Don't interfere in our jurisdiction”. We now have the funding envelope, and the health minister has been very clear in terms of wanting to sit down with the provinces about where we're going to go next. So given this statement, does anyone disagree with the statement that we can be doing better? I mean, if other countries are doing better.... Do you disagree with that particular statement?

[Linda Silas]

I'm quickly reading Dr. Turnbull's comments—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

This was yesterday—sorry.

[Linda Silas]

Oh, okay.

But the CMA is very clear in its statement and is asking the same thing that we are: you need to attach the funding, which is a lot of dollars, and dollars from Canadians—they're not ours to spend—to targets. One of the areas they address is pharmaceuticals. The cost of pharmaceuticals in this country is three times the cost of inflation; it is after hospital costs. Right there, we pay more for drugs than we pay for doctors. Now, I will say this: last year, doctors just matched it, but still, it's a big problem.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

So how come in Canada...? We've tried to sit down with the provinces. We've had all of these different things that we were trying to do. I actually had a health care round table in my riding with a number of professionals and leaders. What they said is that the most key thing the federal government should be doing is providing good data and information to support decisions the provinces make, and that they should be providing continued support through things like Health Infoway Canada.

My experience is that when you allow innovation, the closer it is to the front line, the better you get. So why are we not getting the outcomes that some of our other countries are getting?

[Alain Noël]

If I may, Mr. Chair, the story of rising costs in health care is not a Canadian story. It's an international story and it's—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Yes, but on outcomes for GDP, we're just not having—

[Alain Noël]

There are differences, but there's no way that reducing the contribution of the federal government will improve automatically—

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Well, increasing it can—

[Alain Noël]

—the performance of provinces.

What we see across the OECD is that the cost of.... Well, there's aging, and there are also scientific advances. In health, scientific progress does not so much reduce costs as increase costs, because it allows us to solve more problems and to create treatments that are often expensive. So there's no story of underperformance in the provinces.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Well—

[Alain Noël]

If there were, at least one province would do better than others. There is a general trend here.