Mr. Speaker, may I say that it gives me a great deal of pride today to speak in support of Bill C-95 to establish the Department of Health.
My pride lies not just in the federal government's record of accomplishment and achievement in the broad health domain, although I have a great deal of pride in that, but also in a health system that is the envy of the world. On top of that I have pride in the knowledge that the genius of Canada's Constitution is found in the fact that the world's finest health system did not come about at the expense of a fundamental respect for the letter and spirit of our Constitution.
While we are batting around our good and much maligned Constitution I should like to make a slight comment. Members of either the official opposition or the third party who are fond of making comments about the Constitution could perhaps learn a bit if they would read the Constitution. Many of the misapprehensions we have heard from both those opposition sides might be cleared up if they would merely read it. Maybe they need some help in reading it. However they should read it.
We could speculate on how the Fathers of Confederation would have dealt with health care had they any idea of the enormous technological changes that would take place in the first century of our country's history and in the even more profound technological advances that continue to arise each and every day. Perhaps we could speculate on how the Constitution would have been written if anyone in 1867 could have imagined the day when health expenditures would account for about one-tenth of Canada's economy.
Last Thursday the hon. member for Drummond enumerated the various heads of power over health the Constitution assigns to provincial legislatures. She drew particular attention to subsections 92(7), 92(13) and 92(16) which deal with health institutions, property and civil rights, and local matters. The hon. member could have added that subsection 92(2) deals with local taxation and spending and has health implications.
Those listening to the hon. member's stirring defence of Canada's Constitution could have been forgiven for thinking that everything the Constitution has to say about health is encapsulated in subsection 92. The fact of the matter is that other subsections also have considerable relevance. In the interest of peace, order and good government and in the interest of ensuring the people of Canada understand what is actually happening I should like to name some of them.
Subsection 91(27) gives the Parliament of Canada exclusive jurisdiction over criminal law. "Ah", I hear some people cry, "what does that have to do with health?" I will tell them. It is the basis of a number of statutes protecting public health and safety. That is federal jurisdiction.
Subsection 91(2) assigns to the federal Parliament responsibilities for international and interprovincial trade. It again supports the basis for federal regulations, as a small example, in the area of drugs and medical devices. That is federal jurisdiction once again.
Subsection 91(11) gives the federal Parliament explicit power over quarantine and marine hospitals. That is an interesting sidelight. It reveals a good deal of the thinking in 1867 about where matters cease to be local and take on national significance: quarantine and marine hospitals. It is not too big a stretch to see that should be and indeed is constitutionally within the federal domain.
Subsection 91(7) concerns the military and veterans. It is federal. Subsection 91(8) has to do with the federal public service and subsection 91(4) concerns aboriginals and lands reserved for aboriginals.
All these powers account for a great deal of the federal role in health. They account for the considerable array of the duties and responsibilities set out in clause 4 of Bill C-95 and by extension they account for the vast majority of Health Canada's operating expenses.
When viewed from the perspective of federal constitutional responsibilities, health is clearly a great deal broader than my hon. friend's narrow view of health care delivery, important though that is. No one in the Department of Health and no one on the government side is trying to minimize the responsibility of the provinces in health care. It is clearly not my intention to reopen the Constitution on this occasion but to separate myths from reality, particularly as they regard the application of federal spending powers in the health field.
I will again reiterate my earlier comment. The Constitution is a wonderful compilation of documents that has been much maligned both by the official opposition for obvious reasons and by the third party for reasons I can only claim are obscure. Most of their reasons are pretty obscure to me.
The biggest myth is that the spending power broadens the sphere of federal regulation. The reality is that nothing in the Constitution gives the federal Parliament the means to regulate provincial matters in the guise of spending power. Perhaps I could say it again very slowly. It can attach conditions to the funds it makes available to the provinces. However, just as it cannot compel the provinces to accept the funds it offers, neither does it buy jurisdiction when its offer of funds is accepted.
Clause 12 of Bill C-95 makes the limitation clear just as the existing Department of National Health and Welfare Act also makes it clear. It states:
Nothing in this act or the regulations authorizes the minister or any officer or employee of the department to exercise any jurisdiction or control over any health authority operating under the laws of any province.
That is why the Canada Health Act does not forbid user fees. It does not require that provincial legislatures forbid them. It simply makes it clear that any province which decides to finance medically necessary health services through such means cannot count on receiving the full amount of financial assistance the federal government is prepared to offer.
This brings me to the matter that the federal government is intruding into provincial prerogatives. There is an immense distinction to be drawn between intrusion and involvement. The motivation for the federal government's involvement in health financing does not derive from any desire to centralize powers or to colonize a field of provincial jurisdiction.
The federal role in health care has been the exercise of leadership. There are those who would hold that leadership is a dirty word or a symptom of megalomania. I hold differently, as do members on this side of the House. I hold that leadership is a characteristic all Canadians value. All Canadians from all regions of the country expect and demand their federal Parliament to display leadership. It is not a dirty word. It is a great word which we over here absolutely applaud.
It is here that doctors and hospitals cease to have just local significance. The value that all Canadians share transcends being merely local. The importance that all Canadians attach to the principles of universal health care is a defining characteristic of the Canadian psyche. This is who we are. This is what we stand for. This is what we are proud of and this is what we fight for.
How is it possible to overlook this aspect of health care? I do not understand it. It is beyond me. At a time when all Canadians welcome the positive forces of reconciliation and partnership, I cannot understand how we in the House would allow ourselves to ignore the positive contribution that the federal government has made and continues to make to the health and well-being of all Canadians and to the articulation of the spirit of community that hold us in high regard the world over.
Before I close I should like to tell a little story about something that took place in my first session of Parliament in the House when we were in opposition. There had been a debate, again I believe it was an opposition day debate on the question of health care. After the debate was over, I joined two of my colleagues, one from my own region of Atlantic Canada and another from Ontario. We talked about how important medicare and the Canadian health care system was to each one of us.
It turned out that each one of us had had fathers who had suffered and families that suffered because of injury and illness prior to the development of medicare in this country, prior to the Canadian health care system. We came from three different backgrounds, from three different areas of the country, but all three of us remembered what it was like in childhood and how our families had suffered because the Canadian health care system had not yet been put into place, put into place I might add by the federal government, a federal Liberal government.
This is why I am pleased to have had an opportunity to speak in support of Bill C-95. This is why I and my colleagues on this side of the House in the Government of Canada will fight and maintain the Canadian health care system in the face of all odds.