Debates of June 5th, 1995

Budget Implementation Act, 1995

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 58

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 51.

Motion No. 59

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 52.

Motion No. 60

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 53.

Motion No. 61

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 54.

Motion No. 62

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 55.

Motion No. 63

That Bill C-76 be amended by deleting Clause 56.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I believe this includes all the motions in this group. Is that correct?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[Herb Grubel, Reform, Capilano—Howe Sound, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I turn to the main contents of my remarks, I would like to remind members of the House that in the last 24 hours the debt of the Government of Canada rose by $100 million. It now has reached a total of $556 billion. This is a very severe indictment of the budget, of which Bill C-76 is merely a method for implementing its contents.

We should periodically recall that Canada is in severe difficulties. We have to do more to eliminate the deficit, especially now that the economy seems to be slowing down and there are some indications of inflation raising its ugly head. I had hoped and wished that the government had cut spending more but obviously it was not to be.

Bill C-76 implements the budget. I am here to discuss the amendments which the Reform Party has proposed with respect to the maintenance of national standards of social programs.

The Government of Canada has a severe problem because it has switched from the traditional granting of cash to the provinces to a system which ultimately will lead to the elimination of all cash transfers. The reason is that along with the cash transfers used to come the opportunity to impose national standards on welfare and health and other programs which were financed. When this is eliminated the government will have difficulties because it will not have leverage over the provinces.

How has the government attempted to resolve the problem? The problem has been resolved by having the opportunity, without consent from the provinces, to impose standards. This is an interpretation we have put on what is in the bill. The government is acting without the consent of the provinces to impose standards. The Reform Party believes this is a very serious matter.

It is a pulling of power toward the centre that is unprecedented in Canada and we wish to oppose it. We have proposed some amendments which would clarify the point. No minister, no agent of the crown, can simply impose standards. They can be imposed only with the mutual consent of all of the provinces.

The second method which is very disturbing to Reformers is the decision whether certain standards have been violated by any province can be decided by cabinet in a closed session. We believe it is a similarly usurpation of power which is not suitable for the federal state. Third, there is a clause which we find unfortunate in that the power to withhold finances will not just be limited to the program, the standards of which were alleged to have been violated, but the ability to withhold money applies to other transfer payments. That is also an unfortunate development.

All of these approaches to try to maintain standards from the centre under the new Canada health and social transfers program are fundamentally against the current trend in Canadian society. What we have seen during the election campaign is the desire for devolution of power, to have smaller government.

I find it ironic that the parliamentary secretary a minute ago was praising that his government's program would lead to devolution.

At the same time there is this attempt to grab it back by trying to have clauses which restore and maintain the ability to set national standards.

I find it interesting to consider how we got those national standards. I remind the House that many years ago there was the obligation of individuals to look after themselves and if they could not do it families did.

We know when this is the case, cheating and excesses are not possible the way they are today. The closer programs are in their administration and design to the people they serve and who pay for them in the end, the more efficient and better they are.

The family alone historically was not able to maintain those services. When society became more complex churches, fraternal associations and all kinds of decentralized but slightly collective organizations took very good care of society.

How did it all happen? It happened in the post-war years when an intellectual, political and media elite imposed itself on Canada. It had a love affair with socialism, if not communism. The people who opposed these things thought the socialist experiment that had been undertaken in some of the industrial countries, especially the Soviet union, were a great success and that we should emulate them. This is how it came about. The initiation of those standards had their roots in a fundamental distrust in the wisdom of the people. They thought the people could not be trusted, that it took a political media elite to establish the kind of standards it thought were appropriate.

To me the most unbelievable thing was that this elite was able to persuade the media and others of the merit of its program. It introduced in a major public relations coup the idea that national standards are needed for national identity.

In the finance committee we heard a concerted effort of the political left discussing continuously on how a removal of these national standards means a destruction of Canadian national identity.

I am appalled by the ease with which this idea is still accepted. There is not one person questioning it. Is anyone saying that before we had national standards there was no Canada? Would anyone wish to ask the Prime Ministers governing up to the 1950s if they did not preside over Canada? That in my judgment is a lot of bunk. It was not the kind of Canada which the socialist dreamers wanted but it certainly had a national identity. I think that is absolutely silly.

In Europe the arguments are going in the opposite direction. Countries are attempting to integrate and unify their programs. For a long time the argument was there cannot be a united Europe, a European Union, because of different social programs. That is bunk also.

When a person grows up in a country with low taxes and low social programs, especially retirement benefits, they cannot when they retire or get sick move from that country of low cost in terms of taxes and the low quality benefits and say it is now their right as a member of the European Union to go into a country in Europe in which the taxes are high and the benefits are high.

I can understand how that would result in a breakdown of the system. We pay the low insurance rate when we do not need it. Then when we have the need to draw on the system, we go where the rates are high. It is very easy to avoid this kind of thing both in Europe and in Canada. We will be able to move from a province with low benefits and costs to one with higher ones, except that the benefits we get have to come from the province in which we have made our payments when they were low. It is as simple as that.

The ideas that we need national standards for national identity and that the system would break down because of different tastes, different levels of benefits and costs in individual provinces are a fabrication of people who were out there in the post-war years to persuade Canadians by any means possible that it takes people in Ottawa of obviously superior intellectual and moral standards to say what is the right level of welfare benefits, of health care and of unemployment insurance and various other goodies the state provides.

The amendments the Reform Party has proposed try to deal with this. We have done so with the conviction that it is in the interest of Canada in the long run to continue the process of devolution. We have gone through a very noble experiment of centralization, of national standards, which has obviously failed. The programs are all in financial difficulties and there are more people needing these kinds of systems simply because they were not administered properly.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Before I give the floor to the hon. member for Chicoutimi, I think that there is unanimous consent to allow the member to speak, as long as it is about group No. 7. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Gilbert Fillion, Bloc, Chicoutimi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the House for allowing me to discuss motions from the last group: the six motions moved by my colleague from Châteauguay. These motions are aimed at preventing the government from slashing veterans' grants and allowances programs.

Need I remind the federal government that veterans are under its responsibility? Yet, I think that the government is abandoning some of its obligations and commitments toward them, despite some historical and solemn promises.

Support to poor people, widows and senior citizens is already being cut. The government knows very well that these cuts merely

shift these needs for assistance to other public services, both federal and provincial. The only real savings that can result from this operation will be in the envelope for Veterans Affairs Canada.

As usual, the government will have succeeded in passing the bill on to other federal departments or to the provinces. We agree with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce who had also moved amendments in this regard.

His amendments are totally in line with the Bloc Quebecois's efforts to oppose this government's proposed attack against veterans. We are therefore calling for the deletion of certain clauses affecting veterans, including clause 42, which amends the Children of Deceased Veterans Education Assistance Act.

This amendment starts the gradual elimination of the benefits allowing the children of deceased veterans to pursue their studies. There are not thousands of them. This does not affect 6 million Canadians. Only 85 orphans currently receive these benefits. With one or two exceptions, they are the children of deceased members of the military who had the courage to participate in Canadian peacekeeping missions.

The government is quick to act in this matter but very slow to do anything about family trusts and big business, for example. The government will now take away from these people, whose fathers died while serving their country, what may be their only chance to get an education.

Under Bill C-76, those students who were receiving these benefits on budget day will continue to receive them, but the department will no longer take applications although some students might be eligible. In 1993-94, this program cost only $315,000. So this is the finance minister's great initiative. Not only does he attack the most vulnerable, but he now goes after the children of those who lost their lives while serving their country. What for? To save a drop in this ocean of expenditures. What is $315,000 in a budget of an amount you know as well as I do.

Clauses 68 to 72 inclusively amend the War Veterans Allowance Act to discontinue the payment of allowances to veterans who served with the resistance. These provisions also provide for the phasing out of allowances awarded to allied veterans who immigrated to Canada after their service and resided in Canada for a period of at least ten years before applying for government assistance. This is another stupid initiative that will save very little money, while making life impossible for them when applying for allowances or even welfare.

Clauses 68 and 71 also repeal provisions so that allied veterans who immigrate to Canada after their service will no longer be eligible for these allowances. This amounts to a pure and simple cut. Under clause 69, allowances will no longer be paid to at least 3,000 veterans. At the same time, this clause will have the effect of taking allowances away from another 1,000 resistance veterans whose old age security and CPP benefits place just above the normal threshold for certain health benefits, just at the limit.

This will affect some 4,000 individuals, two thirds of whom live in Quebec. Today, they are told as offhandedly as can be to go and stand in line for other social programs from now on. The message is that they are no longer recognized by Veterans Affairs Canada and that barely making it back was not good enough.

The government is showing them that it has no respect for the sacrifice they made. Sure, you may argue that, since the Minister of Finance is not a veteran, he cannot really understand what goes on or what these people are going through. However, if he spent some time in a theatre of operations, as a participant and not merely a spectator, he might review his bill immediately upon his return here.

This federal abdication of responsibilities toward our veterans is yet another example of the arrogance displayed by this government. It also shows why we have to get out of that system. The government cannot keep to its word; it goes all out against the poor, while looking after the interests of its friends. It will never manage to eliminate its huge deficit with such a policy. Of the more than 4,000 people affected by these measures, I ask the two thirds who live in Quebec to think about this when the time comes to choose between the status quo, represented by a centralist and controlling federalism, and the sovereignty of a normal country, for a normal people, which will recognize their rights.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the motion in relation to the Canada social transfer because the Liberal government is simply not facing up to the reality of the situation in Canada regarding health care. It is trying to hide the reality by disguising it with a large lump sum transfer to the provinces and leaving the provinces to deal with the problems while at the same time continuing to apply, certainly at the moral level, a very restricted Canada Health Act.

In the Globe and Mail today there was a quote I can read to illustrate the problem very well. It is a quote from an adviser in the Prime Minister's office of all places who said:

My view is we don't really have a problem per se. We have an incipient potentially harmful issue. We are not freaked by it. We just have to keep a eye over the horizon.

It is obvious that somebody is a bit worried at least. It really bothers me that the government is acting as if we are back 20 years

when it had control of the media and propaganda and could tell people things and they actually believed it.

Today in the information age with freedom of information and all the information available to people they see through the charade of the government. Everyone in my riding knows that the health care system is in trouble. All the bleating and discussion from the other side of the House about the Canada Health Act being maintained forever does not mean anything. The average person on the street knows there are problems.

I cite a couple of examples in my riding to illustrate problems exist that will only get worse unless the government admits there is a problem and deals with it. For example, a lady in her early seventies late last fall badly twisted her shoulder lifting something. She tore the tendons away from the bone in her shoulder. She went to the doctor who told her that because the tendons had been torn away the only way to fix them was by reattaching them in surgery; they will not heal. She was put on the waiting list and in the meantime given some pain killers.

Five months later the woman was still taking more and more pain killers. Because it is a muscle and tendons are joined to it, the muscle had shrunk back and it became more of a major job to reattach the tendons. Toward the end of February the woman's husband said that they could not wait any longer. Still the doctors could not give any date for the woman to go to hospital to have the tendons reattached.

Luckily Vancouver is very close to the border of the United States. The gentleman arranged to take his wife to Seattle where she had surgery within two days of arriving there. The surgeons there said they could not understand what type of health care system there could be in Canada that would allow a woman to go for six months with that sort of condition. It was unbelievable and unheard of that it would happen in a place like Washington state.

That is one example and I will give another example of a gentleman back in 1989 who noticed a bit of a problem with some blood. He went along to see his doctor who said it was a pretty bad situation and sent him to a specialist for a second opinion. The gentleman asked how long it would take me to get an appointment. The doctor said that it would be approximately 10 weeks.

Anyone in the House who has ever been to a doctor and has subsequently had to go to a specialist knows that what I say is true. I certainly know in this case it was true. It takes anywhere from 10 weeks or more to see a specialist. I know it is true in this case because the story is about me.

When I found out that I would have to wait 10 weeks to see a specialist for what appeared to be a fairly serious problem, I said: "No, thank you. Please make arrangements for me to go to the United States. I do not care if it costs me money because we are talking about a very serious problem".

The doctor said: "Listen, let me make a few phone calls and see what I can do". The doctor managed to get me in to see a specialist the same day. Because I threatened to go to the United States, I was queue jumped, which is wrong in itself. I admit that it is wrong. It should not be that way.

Luckily for me I saw the specialist the same day and within a few days by also threatening to go to the United States for tests I was able to have a colonoscopy. I was diagnosed with colon cancer and given approximately six months to live. This was back in 1989.

When they discovered the problem and there was a suggestion that there would be a waiting list for surgery, I had to raise the point that I was not prepared to wait, that I would go to the United States. Again I was queue jumped. That was not the only operation I had. After having part of my colon removed in 1989 I was put on chemotherapy, which is a devastating experience. Luckily the service was available in my riding.

About six months later I required a second operation and again I was queue jumped. I was admitted through the emergency department of the hospital because the doctors knew that I would go to the United States.

They said to me: "The surgeon is on duty on Saturday. Why don't you come to the hospital, admit yourself through the emergency department, and we will take care of you?" That was wrong but I believe I am here today because of the action I took to go to the United States for some tests and to make sure I was queue jumped for the rest.

There is something wrong with a system that allows that sort of thing to happen. I had some of my tests done in the United States because I needed MRI, magnetic resonance imaging. I would have had to wait 10 weeks in Vancouver to go to St. Paul's Hospital which had an MRI. However it was only doing five scans a day, four of which were cranial, for brain tumours and things like that. There was only one per day for the rest of the body.

The unit could easily do probably 20 scans a day but there was no budget. People could take a pet dog or cat and have it scanned by the MRI at St. Paul's Hospital because they could pay for it to have an MRI. However we are not allowed to pay for our own MRI; it is against the Canada Health Act.

I went to Seattle and paid $1,000 U.S. for an MRI. It only took two days to get in. I went there and was treated like a client, not like a number on a medical services plan. I had my MRI. Incidentally nobody asked me how I was going to pay for it. They just admitted me and did the tests. They said: "Mr. White, why don't you have a cup of coffee, come back in two hours and we will give you the radiologist's report?" Three hours later I was on my way back to

Vancouver with the radiologist's report and all the X-rays to take to my doctor.

Everyone in Canada who has been through the process asks when the results will be ready after the test is done, only to be told that the doctor will call in two weeks if there is a problem. That is unacceptable. The quality of care is so much better in my experience when people are accountable to the system that there is no comparison. We have to start admitting there is something wrong with the system the way it stands.

I use the New Zealand experience from time to time. I would like to mention briefly an experience with my mother who is in her eighties. She needed a cataract operation. She had to wait under the old system in New Zealand for up to six years at 80 years of age. By paying for herself she quickly got the service because in New Zealand people are allowed to pay for themselves. In a two-year period the waiting list was reduced from six years to six weeks because people could pay in what the government would call a two-tier system.

In the long run admitting there are problems and dealing with them make it better for everybody. We should not be afraid of a two-tier system that enables some wealthy people to pay and in the end reduces waiting lists for everybody.

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak on Bill C-76, an act to implement various provisions of the last budget tabled by the Minister of Finance. The main purpose of this bill, as everyone knows, is to create the Canada social transfer which will have many repercussions.

The new Canada social transfer will, first of all, lead to cuts in the federal transfers to provinces in the upcoming years. As we mentioned over and over again in order to show how serious the situation is, we can expect during the next three years $3 billion in cuts in all of Canada, including $2.5 billion in cuts in Quebec alone.

Let me digress here. It is hard to talk about figures and statistics when we know that behind these figures are the harsh realities of life some people have to face. For example, in the province of Quebec, some hospitals will have to be closed, even though an increasingly significant portion of the Quebec population is having some serious problems, especially in Montreal where there is talk of a broken Quebec, and where life for some of our fellow Quebecers will only get tougher.

I am both somewhat surprised and disappointed to have so little time to address this issue, because I would have had a lot to say. I would like to respond to a statement made last week by our colleague from Edmonton Southwest who, in response to the debate initiated by the Bloc Quebecois on the rationale for Bills C-76, C-46, C-88 and C-91, referred to the Bloc members' behaviour as tribalism. I find it most deplorable.

By acting this way, we are assuming our responsibilities as the official opposition, and the Reform Party should, but does not, do the same at least to protect Canadian provinces against this unprecedented attack by the federal government which quietly forges ahead, bit by bit, to build tomorrow's Canada.

We are talking about it not only because Quebec is affected, but because if the answer to the referendum happens to be no, which would be most unfortunate, all Quebecers would wake up the next day as part of a new Canada that would have been built behind their backs. It is the very notion of a distinct nation that is at stake, the survival of the Quebec people, but it is tomorrow's Canada that is being built here, piece by piece, by people like the whip who refuse to admit what is really going on.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I regret to have to interrupt the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, but there is an order of the House.

It being 6.15 p.m., pursuant to order adopted earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith all questions necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 47. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

The division is deferred. Under the order the recorded division will also apply to Motions Nos. 48, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63.

The next question is on Group No. 6, Motion No. 64. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen