Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today on Bill C-76.
A lot of misinformation has gone on recently with respect to the budget. I would like to correct some of those statements.
The budget is going to sound the death knell for many things we hold dear to our hearts as Canadians, in particular the social programs of the country we have spent so many years and decades forming. These social programs have set us apart from countries like the United States; set us apart from countries that do not take care of those who are underprivileged in society as we in Canada have done much to the envy of people in other countries.
Contrary to what many people believe, the budget poses the single greatest threat to those social programs. It is not something we should be proud of, but rather ashamed of. I will explain why.
The big ogre in all of these talks about budget and finances is not the deficit. The big ogre in this is the debt, that huge expanding volume, almost impossible for us to comprehend, now at about $560 billion and three years from now will be about $660 billion.
Where will we get the money to pay even the interest on this? I will show the House. Imagine what we spend every year to be a pie. That pie would be circular and would represent $160 billion. Of that pie, $40 billion goes to pay the interest on the debt. The $120 billion remaining goes to pay for government programs and social programs.
Three years from now with an added $100 billion to the debt we will see interest rates on the debt at $50 billion, not $40 billion. That will force our country to decrease its spending on government programs and social programs from $120 billion to $102 billion.
I ask the people of the country to ask themselves where we will get the money to pay for those social programs if we will have $18 billion less to deal with. There are two options. Either we have increased growth in the economy, which should occur to some extent, or raise taxes. The latter is not an option but will be something the government and provincial governments will be forced to do to pay for the programs we have come to enjoy. If we do not we will have to decrease services in important areas like health care and education. These are very important programs we have come to enjoy.
I will give some real time examples of the first option, one very close to my heart. Here are some facts about health care in British Columbia. Prince George, a city in northern British Columbia which actually serves one-half of the province, has lost 80 per cent of its orthopedic surgeons. That leaves one left to serve one-half of the province. It has lost 50 per cent of its obstetricians and gynecologists and its only neurosurgeon, among other specialists.
Why have these people left in the last year and a half? Not because they want to get more money but rather they found it intolerable to work under the fiscal restraints imposed on them not only by the province but by the federal government. There is dual culpability in this situation. It is not held by one arm of the government or the other.
The reason is twofold. We have increasing demand for health care services and more expensive technologies and we have less money to pay for them. We also have an expanding and aging population. As we look into the future, if we look at the demographics of the population in the country, we can see that situation will not change for the better but rather for the worse. Those demands will increase.
Some tragic situations have occurred in northern British Columbia. People have to be flown out of that hospital. Doctors working there have to find spots in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver for people to be treated, people sometimes with life threatening injuries, people whose injuries are being treated too late for them to get the adequate treatment required to survive and to come back to functional normality. In a rich country like ours that is an embarrassment and a crying shame. All we need to do is speak to those people to see what happens.
What happens in northern British Columbia is not isolated. This also happens in Victoria. A colleague called me and said he has a 40-year old patient. She is getting vertigo, which means the room spins. They think she has a tumour in her brain stem, part of her brain. She will wait two months to get her CAT-scan and her MRI scan is booked on the 12th of never.
Madam Speaker, if you were that lady, what would you think? What a tragedy to have that happen in our country. If she had enough money she would go to the United States and get these services done in a matter of two or three weeks. That is a two-tier system; a health care system which we have right now, contrary to what government members say.
On one hand the government says it will take money away from Canadians under the guise of cutting, that is remove $8.4 billion from provincial transfer payments, and it will bring down the federal deficit. That is simply not true. All the government is doing is putting the onus back on to the taxpayers and the provinces. It is not fair.
I suggest a constructive alternative solution. It requires a change in philosophy, an openness of mind and a desire to change things for the future. It is a leap of faith which would provide a better health care system for all Canadians.
Let the federal government take it upon itself to define the essential health care services and ensure all Canadians, regardless of income, are covered. Nobody in this party wants to see anybody have any part of their essential health care services withheld because they cannot pay for them. That is something we are fighting against and it is something we will continue to fight against in the future. We want to ensure that every Canadian is covered by these essential services. However, we cannot go on expecting public health care to pay for everything in existence. It simply cannot do that. Therefore let us define those services and ensure they are covered across the country.
Let us give the provinces the power to raise money to pay for their health care services. That would entail amending the Canada Health Act. It would not destroy it, it would amend it.
There are many good aspects to the Canada Health Act the Reform Party wants to preserve.
However, the government cannot on one hand take money away from the provinces and on the other hand tell them they cannot raise funds. That is not fair. Let us enable them to raise funds. That would perhaps provide for a two-tier system in which there is a private system and a public system.
We must understand the federal government can take the responsibility and say to the provinces that if they have a private health care system only private moneys would be exchanged. Not a penny of taxpayers dollars would go into that private system. It is a fallacy to assume we in this party want to have taxpayers money going into a private system.
It would enable the public system to have decreased waiting lists and it would also provide more money for the public system. Some would choose to use the private system. The bottom line is that people on the public system would receive their essential health care services in a more timely, more expeditious and more efficient fashion.
This is an unequal system but we have an unequal system now. Is it not better to have an unequal system which provides better health care for all Canadians than to have the present system which will worsen as time goes on? The Canadian public, when it understands that, would agree. We in this party would support the government if it would take the initiative and do that. To stick its head in the sand and say nothing is wrong is completely untrue.
The provincial government in British Columbia was forced to implement a stop gap measure of $18 million just to lower the MRI waiting list and the waiting list for coronary artery bypass grafting. Those lists have 700 or 800 names. If a person is waiting for open heart surgery, I am sure they would find it extremely disconcerting to find out they have to wait five months. Senator Keon mentioned the waiting list for non-emergency heart surgery in Ottawa is now five months. That is a travesty.