Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here.
Most of the time, I will speak English. However, if you put questions to me in French, I will do my best to answer in that language.
It's my privilege to be here on behalf of the Cancer Society, which is the country's largest national health charity. We have 140,000 volunteers across the country and millions of supporters.
Today I want to summarize the three recommendations in our brief. Most importantly, I want to suggest to you very strongly that there are practical, affordable steps the federal government can take in this budget not only to improve health care but also to get better value for our health care dollars. Good health care and good health are the foundations of everything we value, including our economy. We face no greater health challenge than cancer, our leading cause of death. Building a more productive health care system, one that achieves more value for the money we put into it, will not only relieve suffering and pain; it will save lives, it will save money, and it will benefit every household and business in this country.
Achieving better value for the money we invest will ease the burden on taxpayers in a country where we invest more than $150 billion each year through government in health care, making it by far the largest piece of provincial budgets. Achieving better outcomes in prevention and treatment will reduce the costs of sickness and disability. It will help more Canadians remain active participants in the labour force for longer periods of time. In our submission, we highlight three areas where the federal government can take practical, affordable action. Let me say a couple of words about each.
Concerning tobacco control, despite the progress we've made over the last 30 years, tobacco remains the single largest preventable cause of cancer in Canada. Tobacco use remains responsible for 30,000 deaths a year in this country. Somehow, however, we've allowed federal investments in tobacco control to erode. Today we invest 1¢ of every dollar the federal government collects in tobacco taxes in programs to help people stop smoking. It's time we renew our federal tobacco strategy—it expires next year—and renew it with funding appropriate to what was envisioned when the strategy was first introduced in the early 2000s, an annual investment in excess of $100 million a year.
Second, I want to say a word about health research. While federal health care transfers have increased at 6% a year for more than a decade, federal investments in health research have become stagnant. They have essentially flatlined since 2008. This is madness. Surely as our health challenges grow, and our investments grow with them, we want a smarter, more evidence-based suite of policies to draw on. It's essential that, at the very least, our investments in health research keep pace with our investments in health care.
Finally, I'll say a word about the new national health accord. We strongly support the priority areas the federal government has outlined, especially home care and drug affordability.
In conclusion, I really want to draw your attention to the most important opportunity that the government has this year and a recommendation that I think this committee could make that would have a real impact. We recommend that the government dedicate as much as possible of the $3 billion it has committed to home care to improving palliative care across the country in homes and communities. This investment targeted at palliative care has the power to transform that type of care in this country. Spread too wide, that investment will have its impact diluted. By focusing on palliative care, we can come very close to closing the gap for people, especially at the end of life in the last 30 days. Here in Ontario it's estimated that care in the last 30 days of life is 10 times more expensive to provide in an acute-care hospital than it is to provide at home, and at least two or three times more expensive than it would be in a hospice or a community setting. This is an enormously powerful opportunity to make life better for families, to relieve unnecessary pain and suffering, and to transform one of the most broken parts of our health care system.
I think there are practical, affordable steps we can take together. The Cancer Society is anxious to work with you to realize them.
I want to thank you very much for the opportunity today.