Mr. Speaker, as we consider Bill C-95, hon. members will want to reflect on the business of the Department of Health as it embarks on its new life, its new beginnings.
The department is no longer responsible for social assistance. Does this reduce its importance in the national structure? Is it fading away? Is it weakened? Far from it. As I read the results, the Department of Health is now poised and primed to take on perhaps the greatest challenge it has ever known. It has gathered its strength in order to guard the health of Canadians through an era of stress, strain and dislocation that is testing us all.
It is finding alternatives to the financial resources once thought inexhaustible but now known to be limited alternatives described by words such as collaboration, knowledge and intelligence, waste reduction and value for money. These are the watch words of the new department, focused today more than ever on health because it is focused on health alone.
The basic facts of Bill C-95 are as follows. The department is renamed. Some inspectors are empowered. The social well-being dimension of health is acknowledged and there are to be charges to businesses for services that have business value.
A new name means a new focus. This is what the bill is about, what is in the bill and who can object. It is eminently reasonable. It has been well set out by the minister and by other hon. members and the significance of the new name, the Department of Health, is personified in that single word because of the very importance of health to Canadians.
I would go one step further. The Department of Health is a symbol of a new beginning. This nominal act speaks volumes about a determination to focus intensely on the health of Canadians, our most precious resource.
The renamed department will continue all the essential work that has helped Canadians reach the top of the world rankings in health. However, it will do far more than maintain hallowed traditions. It intends to be a dynamic player in a world filled with new challenges and opportunities for health care.
The department is in business to protect the health of Canadians but it is doing that business in a new way, streamlined by a new vision of the way things must work in the future.
What indicators are there of this new approach? None is more practical or more telling than the consolidation in the department of 11 separate activities distinguished as such even up to the recent main estimates into just four business lines. This move reflects what has been learned from the program review process and participation in the science and technology policy review. More than this, it reflects a willingness to consult, to listen, to learn and to change.
The first of the new business lines will position the department to support and renew the health system in Canada. It will try to achieve a better balance among health care, disease prevention and health protection and promotion.
Quality health care services contribute to the health of the population, but good health is not simply the result of health care. Rather, it is more true to say health care is the result of ill health. Good health arises from a host of social, economic and environmental lifestyles and genetic factors.
Hon. members are aware of the initiatives undertaken by the Prime Minister's national forum on health to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for health and identify the root cause of illness. The recommendations of the national forum will guide the department in its efforts to make the system healthier for all Canadians.
It will work with the provinces and territories to contain costs, including the costs of prescription drugs, in order to ease spending pressure on governments and the private health care system. It will lead consultation aimed at interpreting the Canada Health Act but it will not cease to enforce the act so that universal access to appropriate health care is maintained throughout Canada.
Canadians look to the federal government, to hon. members here in the House, to create bridges among the provinces. They want us to ensure national standards for health care. They insist we intervene to remedy inequalities and protect infrastructure. For all of this the Department of Health is our means, our instrument.
Another line of business the department has recently adapted will focus on the health problems of disadvantaged groups. This involves marshalling a number of existing programs toward this single objective. It involves new programs to be delivered in partnership with the provinces. As well, it involves improving the flexibility to respond when a new health need arises.
The department will intervene to help protect those at most risk when it is clear that the federal government is placed to provide the best care at the lowest cost. Affordable health care of the highest quality is the aim, the objective, while eliminating overlap and duplication with the provinces and other partners.
I will not dwell on the delivery of health services to First Nations, Inuit and the people of Yukon. I pass over it not because it is less important. Indeed it accounts for the largest share of the department's entire budget. I pass over it because it has been thoroughly explored in the representation of the minister and other hon. members speaking on the bill.
This is the new business line that flows least change from the department's previous portfolio of responsibilities. Helping native people and northerners attain a level of health comparable to that of other Canadians who live in similar conditions has long been a goal of this department, a goal of this government. The goal has not yet been achieved, but great strides are being made in the right direction to serve the people of the north.
The fourth reconstituted business line of the Department of Health seeks to reduce the health risks to Canadians arising from food and drugs, from consumer products and medical devices, from disease and disaster. This is the regulatory and compliance thrust of the department. This is the heart of health protection, where the department stands on guard to preserve the health of Canadians. It is here that Bill C-95 adds some muscle and meat to the refocused mission of the Department of Health.
The transfer of responsibility for the safety of consumer products and workplace equipment is formalized in the bill. Officials of the department get powers in the bill to inspect possible disease-carrying agents entering this country by way of foreign products. The costs of services provided to businesses may be recovered under a provision of the bill. If risks to Canadians are going to be managed effectively in an era of restraint, new ways to meet those costs must be found. This is one such way.
The late Lewis Thomas was a physician who taught at Yale. He was a great essayist and was called the poet laureate of 20th century medical science. Dr. Thomas wrote that the term health industry provides the illusion that it is in a general way all one thing and that it turns out on demand a single unambiguous product which is health.
Thus, health care has become the new name for medicine. Health care delivery is what doctors and nurses do along with hospitals and other professionals working with them. They are now known collectively as the health providers or the health team. Patients have become health consumers. Once we start on this line, there is no stopping.
We tend to forget sometimes that health is not simply a product distributed in neat little packages from a constantly replenished inventory on a shelf somewhere. We also forget sometimes in our rhapsodies over a multibillion dollar health system that it ultimately comes down to one patient, often hurt and scared, and one medical professional who may or may not be sure either about the cause of the complaint or what to do about it. It is a face to face, one to one confrontation as to what to do. This reality is part of the new understanding of the department which will be renamed with the passage of the bill.
I take the minister at her word, given to doctors at the CMA leadership conference in March, that decisions will be based on solid Canadian values such as fairness, compassion and respect for the fundamental dignity of all people, of all Canadians.
In the October edition of the Fraser Forum , which is published by the Fraser Institute, there was an article entitled: ``Two-tier health care system''. I quote from the article:
I would say that of all the government health plans in Europe the German system is the king among the blind. However, it's still one-eyed, it is still inferior compared to a purely private system, I believe. Now, the German system does not guarantee universal coverage-
The Canadian system is the best system, the single tier system. Only last week we heard that great American, Ralph Nader, telling us here in Canada to be vigilant, to be watchful and not to lose that single tier system where all Canadians have access to excellent health care.
I am pleased to speak on Bill C-95 today. I am pleased to enunciate for the second time the new name, Department of Health, and the significance we in this government place on the health of our people and the well-being of all Canadians. It is because of this naming, the single word health, that we give no extended situations to other things but singly the health of Canadians and the prominence it will play within our government.
I urge hon. members in this House to support the government with this very important bill. It is the fibre that helps this country maintain the strength of its unity.