Sure. I apologize for being late.
On behalf of the Canadian Health Coalition, I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear. I must say, however, that I'm very disappointed in the limited amount of time, and obviously the limited number of Canadians who have the opportunity to appear at this extremely important exercise in accountability.
The Canadian Health Coalition is a public advocacy organization that was formed in 1979 at a conference called SOS Medicare that was attended by Tommy Douglas, Emmett Hall, and Monique Bégin. So all three federal political parties at one time believed in medicare. We have since had a second SOS Medicare conference, in Regina, last May. We had the pleasure of having Monique Bégin back again and a number of other notable Canadians and international experts.
Obviously there's been progress made in health care since the 2004 accord, but we have a long way to go. And we need the federal government back at the table. The federal government has an important and irreplaceable role to play in ensuring comparable access to a continuum of quality, appropriate care for all Canadians.
The first point I want to raise is a question. Why is the accountability gap in health care growing? We have a lot more money on the table--$41 billion plus a 6% escalator--and there's less accountability for the money. That's a huge problem. Medicare belongs to Canadians. Canadians pay for it. Canadians are the shareholders. Federal guardianship is necessary to ensure that public funds are used appropriately.
I should also point out that the Auditor General of Canada, in a number of reports, has said that the Minister of Health is unable to assure Parliament that provinces are in compliance with the Canada Health Act. If you can't ensure compliance, you should not be passing on the money. Parliament should be performing its duty to hold the minister to account so that we know if provinces are in compliance with the Canada Health Act.
The annual report on the Canada Health Act is a disgrace. It's a series of blank pages, and I would urge this committee to exercise its duty to hold the minister to account and to stop keeping Parliament in the dark about where our money is going, particularly with the growth of privatization.
I just want to quote from an access to information document from Health Canada that says that while the CHA issue per se doesn't address private delivery, there are serious implications that affect the health care system, such as charging for insured services and allowing queue-jumping. It also says that the government is free to say that there's no evidence to suggest that private delivery is more cost-effective, of higher quality, or more efficient than public delivery. The silence from the Minister of Health on these questions is deafening. The Deputy Minister of Health understands these questions, but they stop at the minister's desk.
I just want to jump quickly, then, to the other question I ask, which is why the federal government is standing by as medicare is being sabotaged as we speak in the province of Quebec, in the province of British Columbia, and soon in the province of Alberta.
Very briefly, there are two competing and conflicting visions of the future of medicare. According to Roy Romanow, one view, high on rhetoric, low on evidence, and masquerading as something new, is based on the premise that health care is a commodity, that what medicare needs is more market-based solutions. This view is advocated across the country by Claude Castonguay in Quebec, Don Mazankowski in Alberta, Michael Kirby, Preston Manning, and, to my left, Dr. Brian Day. There's a lot of money to be made in breaking medicare, and this is the reason owners of private, for-profit surgical and diagnostic clinics are promoting privatization.
The other vision is rooted in our narrative as a nation. Backed by evidence and ethics, it strongly believes that health care is a public good. It believes that democratically elected governments, upholding the rule of law, not corporate bottom lines, should define common needs, regardless of where you live. You should have access, even if you don't live in Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal.
Weak accountability mechanisms facilitate privatization, and it's no accident that the provinces that are resisting accountability--the Province of Quebec, the Province of Alberta, and the Province of British Columbia--are the provinces leading the way in opening the delivery of insured services to unaccountable commercial interests.
Fourth, why is progress in implementing the 2004 accord being impeded? Canadians need better access to a broad range of services, including pharmacare, home care, and home supports. We need to continue building a quality-based system that takes prevention and appropriateness of treatment seriously.
A reasonable citizen would conclude, after what you were told by the Health Council of Canada a few days back, that Canada's new government is actually impeding progress in implementing the 2004 health accord. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the dismantling of the federal-provincial-territorial working group on accountability. That's more than symbolic.
The other area where it's obvious that the federal government has withdrawn as an active player is in the implementation of the national pharmaceutical strategy. In fact, we're going backwards. The federal government has announced new regulations that will impede access to affordable medicine. That is a violation.
Just to conclude--