Thank you, Mr. Chair.
On behalf of the Canadian Medical Association, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee as part of its pre-budget consultations. As the national organization representing Canada's doctors, let me commence by highlighting the CMA's strong support for the federal government's commitments to health and health care. The CMA's recommendations for the federal budget are based on tangible and meaningful actions that support the advancement of the government's commitments.
I'll briefly outline our core recommendations. Taken together, these measures will go a long way to addressing the major challenges facing Canadians as well as the provinces and territories in meeting the needs of our aging population.
As our first area of focus, the CMA recommends new funding to the provinces and territories to support seniors care by means of a demographic-based top-up to the Canada health transfer. This needs-based funding would be delivered in addition to the CHT, which currently leaves provinces with older populations at a disadvantage. Rather than opening up the funding formula, the federal government can deliver this much needed funding immediately.
Our second area of focus is on expanding the availability of home care and long-term care. The CMA recommends that the government establish a new targeted home care innovation fund. In addition to incenting innovations, this fund would support scaling up best practices.
To support access to long-term care, where wait times range up to hundreds of days across Canada, the CMA recommends including capital investment in the continuing care sector as part of the commitment to social infrastructure.
Our third area of focus is on delivering support to Canada's informal caregivers. There are 8.1 million Canadians currently giving informal care to family and loved ones, and only a fraction are receiving any assistance. As an initial step to expanding support to caregivers, the CMA recommends that the federal government amend the caregiver and family caregiver tax credits to make them refundable.
Our fourth area of focus is on improving access to prescription medicine. The CMA was pleased to hear last month that Ottawa will be joining the pan-Canadian pharmaceutical alliance in negotiating savings for all publicly funded drug plans. In addition to this important step, the federal government can reduce costs further by establishing a new funding program for catastrophic coverage of prescription medication. As we know, far too many Canadians simply cannot afford to buy their prescription medications, and this is unacceptable. We must and can do better.
A final matter I'd like to raise as part of the pre-budget consultations is that while the CMA strongly supports the federal government's commitment to reducing the small business tax rate, we have been concerned by statements regarding Canadian-controlled private corporations. This may be unknown to some, given our public system, but the majority of Canada's doctors are self-employed small business owners.
Physicians are highly skilled contributors to the knowledge economy. They invest in our communities, and provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. For a significant portion of physicians, incorporation is a key component of the practice model. Changes to this framework could introduce unintended consequences for the health sector. In light of the critical role of this framework, the CMA is calling on the federal government to affirm its commitment to the existing framework governing Canadian-controlled private corporations. I would be pleased to provide more information on this issue.
In summary, the CMA's pre-budget recommendations offer tangible and practical means of implementing many of the federal government's health sector commitments. Each of these recommendations has been designed to deliver an immediate impact in areas where Canadians are struggling the most.
Thank you.