Debates of April 22nd, 1996

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions. The first petition comes from the citizens of Calgary, Alberta.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to eliminate tax discrimination against families that decide to provide care in the home for preschool children, the disabled, the chronically ill or the aged.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition comes from Sarnia, Ontario.

The petitioners would like to bring to the attention of the House that consumption of alcoholic beverages may cause health problems or impair one's ability and, specifically, that fetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol related birth defects are 100 per cent preventable by avoiding alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to enact legislation to require health warning labels to be placed on the containers of all alcoholic beverages to caution expectant mothers and others of the risks associated with alcohol consumption.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I wish to inform the House that because of the ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended by 20 minutes.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, Question No. 7 will be answered today.

Question No. 7-

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Of the total number of merchant navy war veterans receiving benefits: ( a ) how many are receiving pensions under the Pension Act, ( b ) how many are receiving health care (in hospital or at home), ( c ) how many possess health cards, ( d ) how many are receiving income support under the new civilian Bill C-84, ( e ) as there is no transition clause in this act, how many merchant navy veterans are still covered and receiving benefits under the old civilian act, (f) how many merchant navy veterans have applied for benefits, and how many have been refused?

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Secretary of State (Veterans) (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency)]

(a) 282 as of December 31, 1995 (including survivors); (b) 2,097 as of December 31, 1995; (c) 2,097 as of December 31, 1995; (d) 483 as of December 31, 1995 (including survivors); (e) merchant navy veterans, like all veterans, must apply for benefits before service eligibility is determined. It cannot be known how many clients under the pre-1992 legislation would have merchant navy veteran eligibility were they to apply under the new legislation. (f) Of the 648 disability pension applications received up to December 31, 1995, 351 were declined. For war veterans allowance, including treatment only, as at March 31, 1996 there were 3,109 applications, of which 756 were declined. For the veterans independence program, as at March 31, 1996, there were 1,212 applications, one of which was declined.

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, a point of order. I would like to draw to the attention of the House that I have had Questions Nos. 8 and 9 on the Order Paper since February 28, which is 53 days. Furthermore, Question No. 9 was in the exact same form in the last session of Parliament-nothing has changed-and it sat there, I believe, for over 150 days without being answered.

The previous parliamentary secretary to the House leader assured me that departmental officials were working hard on the answer and I would have it soon.

Several weeks have gone by and I have not heard anything. It is unacceptable that I cannot get this information in a timely fashion.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Would the hon. parliamentary secretary care to enlighten the House on the matter raised by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster?

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, as we all do on this side of the House, I will attempt to solicit the information that he is requesting. We will do the very best we can to see that the information is forthcoming in due course.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Shall the remaining questions stand?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-18, an act to establish the Department of Health and to amend and repeal certain acts, be read the third time and passed.

Department Of Health Act

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address Bill C-18 which prior to prorogation was referred to as Bill C-95. It has been is brought back substantially in the same form, in the same place, in the same position as it was before. I do not know why we prorogued. The whole thing was a farce.

This is a housekeeping bill that we will support because it amalgamates basically two departments, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and what was formerly called the Department of National Health and Welfare. Now the government wants to call it the Department of Health.

Since this bill touches on the new Department of Health I would like to submit for consideration some comments and recommendations respecting the health of this nation, the health of the government and what the government could do to improve health care for Canadians. I am concerned that the new minister for health, like the previous minister, is not in control, that he will not take responsibility for the department and that he is letting the bureaucrats set the agenda for him.

More people are concerned about long line-ups in hospitals and getting care and attention, yet this minister makes a big to-do about attending wine and cheese parties and the possibility of banning the importation of unpasteurized cheese.

This is foolish. The bureaucracy has come up with something that is scientific somewhere, unbeknown to us in opposition. We do not know where they are going and what they are trying to do. If this was the case there would be a lot of problems in Europe, would there not? For more than 500 years Europeans have been eating unpasteurized cheese and nobody is dying. Are Canadians dying? Where are the facts? What kind of game is the Minister of Health trying to play?

This is the issue of the day versus cigarettes and some of the petitions presented today about alcohol and breast cancer. These are the important things, not unpasteurized cheese. Tainted blood; I will return to the Krever inquiry shortly.

When it comes to the health and well-being of Canadians, I believe the government is being hypocritical and duplicitous in its approach. Government members talk about the five principles of health care and how they will protect them. They think they are the only ones who can protect them. Who will pay for it? Reformers have made recommendations for health care. All the Liberals do is scoff and laugh at them: "slash and burn".

I have accused the government of hypocrisy and duplicity. Let me try to prove that with facts and evidence. I will compare one aspect of the Liberal budget with what we had in our zero in three budget.

On government spending and non-social spending we, along with the government, would probably have cut, as the government has, about $10 billion. On social spending, the one area of established programs financing which refers to health care and education, and the Canada assistance plan, which is welfare, the total expenditure by the government in 1994-95 was $17 billion. If we compare that with the cuts which we would have made to health care, education and welfare, the combined total in our budget was $3.5 billion. The federal government cut $6.6 billion in these areas, $3.1 billion more.

Who is guilty of slash and burn? Who is giving less money to those programs which are most important to the Canadian public? Health care and education are the key foundations to any structure, especially the social structure in Canada.

When I went door to door I said we have to cut spending everywhere else to preserve the amount of funding we have for health care and education. Even in caucus many of us argued there should not be any cuts in those areas. The counter argument was to show the Canadian public the effects of the debt and the high interest costs to service the debt, how these are actually suffocating and restricting the amount of money for all programs and therefore the cuts also must touch on health care and education.

We asked those two institutions to look at some areas which could be rationalized to eliminate waste in spending. That is not something which is preferred, and yet the government has made large cuts. That is duplicity.

The government had the hypocrisy to say that it would protect health care for Canadians. It promised it would ensure portability. It argued the Reform Party had a two-tier system.

The funding for health care by the federal government, when it was first instituted, was to be maintained at the 50 per cent level. That has been reduced to 27 per cent. Now the government is saying it will guarantee stable funding two or three years from now. It is guaranteeing that $11 billion will go to the provinces. What security does the Canadian public have that the federal government will stick to that solution?

I have a suggestion for the federal government to consider in terms of health care. We have something more. We like to highlight an alternative. This is a health care bill, after all. The alternative we are suggesting is medicare plus. We are talking about other options and improvements for the system which the federal government is too afraid to approach. It needs input. It needs debate. It is not the final Reform Party platform. It is not the final

Reform Party position. However, it should not be rejected out of hand, like the Liberals are doing, by labelling it a two-tier system.

The objectives we have are to ensure the stability of funding and to focus our existing resources on the core and essential services. If the Canadian Medical Association, the public and the experts could help us to come up with a definition of core, we could get on to choices beyond medicare, choices which would reduce the existing line-ups.

The medicare we have is vital and important and is something I will always argue in favour of and I will gladly pay my tax dollars to support it. However, we must make it efficient and effective and return to the best health care safety net in the world.

We have to remove the existing funding freeze. If we can we should give more money and look at restoring the per capita transfers to the 1992-93 levels rather than what the Liberals are doing, cutting by stealth.

Maybe we should consider converting the remaining cash transfers to tax point transfers. Index growth in transfers with economic and population growth trends; keep in touch with what is happening in society.

Focusing resources was another suggestion. Canadians need to define what constitutes core, essential health care services. For a broken arm one type of cast could cost more than another. Let us guarantee the cost. If other services are needed then there may be other ways to pay for it. Perhaps other people have suggestions on how funds could be raised for that.

Choices beyond medicare, we should consider removing existing restrictions in law which prohibit choices in basic health care beyond the publicly funded health care, medicare.

This is what the federal government stubbornly refuses to do. Where medicare does not meet the needs of Canadians, they should have the option to exercise these choices by finding services elsewhere if outside the scope of the core services.

Where Canadians exercise choice beyond medicare they will be responsible for arranging appropriate, private funding of such choices either with employer-employee benefit plans, third party insurance or through private resources.

This gives the provinces the flexibility. The five principles of medicare can still be ensured and guaranteed, but it gives the provinces some room to manoeuvre. These are things the federal government refuses to accept or even consider.

I have seen a copy of some talking points the federal government has given to its 177 members in terms of what to say on certain issues; how to brag about revisions to the MP pension plan it so proudly boasted about in the red book; that it has eliminated double dipping and that it has done this and that. Yet notwithstanding all the bragging comments, the government still has a pension plan four to five times better than that in the private sector and it still tries to justify its pension plan, the millions of dollars members will receive after leaving the House on the basis of the low $64,000 salary in the House.

I will read one of the talking points which will show the hypocrisy and duplicity. It will give further evidence of these two words through some specific examples: "It is always intriguing to watch the right-wingers practice what they preach. The Ontario Tories have proposed a 5 per cent pay increase for themselves while slashing hospitals and social programs. At the same time, the Reform MP for Calgary Centre has proposed more than doubling MP salaries to $150,000 while his party has advocated two-tier medicare and the demolition of seniors' pensions. Our government has different priorities".

Liberals are being told what to say out there, what to tell the Canadian public. This is so hypocritical and so duplicitous, it forces me to address this. I take exception to the use of political partisanship and the political game to this extent.

It says the provincial Tories have proposed a 5 per cent increase for themselves where they just announced they have rolled the MPP pensions into compensation and above board, taxable, look after yourself, thank you very much type of job. In fact, they have done the exact opposite. It is a 5 per cent decrease, according to the MPP pension plan in the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The nerve of the government saying right-wing provincial governments slash hospitals and social programs. Excuse me, does it not realize who gives them the money? Does it not realize who is supposed to help fund social programs, hospitals and education? Who receives $7 billion less for education, health care and welfare? It is the provinces.

The government brags about the cuts it has made to program spending. All it has done is give the provinces less, which then in turn have to find the ways and means of delivering the same level of service they did before with less money.

Who gets rocks thrown at their windows? Who gets the rallies and the special interest groups complaining about what is happen-

ing? It is the provincial governments of Alberta and Ontario. They are the ones that get all the rallies, not the federal government. The federal government has been very smooth and good at reducing transfers to provinces, making them come up with the solutions, making the provincial governments the guilty party and at the same time increasing transfers to individuals.

The federal government has slashed spending to hospitals and education to the tune of $6.6 billion versus what we would have done, only $3.5 billion.

The government talks of compensation. It refers to me, the member for Calgary Centre, that I recommended doubling MP salaries. That is another hypocritical, duplicitous and self-serving statement. Every member knows the compensation in the House. They know the compensation consists of $64,000 on a yearly basis. There are two tax free allowances which we all get of $29,000. If that were transparent and taxable like everybody else's in the country, such as teachers and professors, that alone would equate to around $120,000.

I have not recommended doubling the salary to $120,000. What I am saying is that what members in the House already receive as salary is probably close to between $120,000 and $130,000.

All I am asking is to quit justifying this gold plated MP pension plan on the basis of one part of their salary when there are more parts to that salary than they pretend. That is hypocritical, that is duplicitous, it is self-serving and it is not coming clean with the Canadian public. I for one will not stand for.

I think it is stupid that any member of Parliament uses arguments like that to convince people of the sacrifice they have made to justify the millions of dollars after they leave the House. I find that offensive and I will never defend something like that.

I have given up an MP pension plan here. I will never qualify for one no matter how long I work here. I have to look after myself. I appreciate the government's doing that but even there it played a stupid game. It restricted future members from not being able to opt out. It gave it only to this crop of honest MPs from the Reform Party who stood on principle and put their money where their mouth is; but not this government.

The government says it has different priorities. You bet it does. Its priorities consist of broken promises, distorting the truth or exaggerating the truth, bragging to the public about its achievements.

Broken promises; it promised to protect civil servants and fired 44,000. It promised to renegotiate NAFTA and endorsed it carte blanche. We all know about the GST promise. Members opposite, members within the government are being kicked out because they know what they said door to door. They did not go door to door reading page 22 of the red book. Everyone of these hypocritical members of that party knows that.

For the Prime Minister to stand in the House today and say "read page 22, that is what we said", is a bunch of crap, and he knows it is crap. That is not what they said door to door. That is broken promises. That is hypocritical. That is duplicitous. That is self-serving and that is not coming clean with the Canadian public.

Talk about distorting the truth, they say Reformers would cut $25 billion in one year. That is not true. We would not cut $25 billion in one year. The truth is we would have cut $25 billion over three years.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The hon. member for Calgary Centre may not mind it but I am having a devil of a time trying to listen to everybody at once. It is in the best spirit of debate in this House that whoever has the floor be given the opportunity to speak clearly without interruption.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know I have hit a nerve when they start yelling. I know I am hitting the truth when they start to rebut.

I was giving examples. I am not trying to inflame or exaggerate; I am trying to be factual. I have given examples on distorting the truth.

Who is slash and burn? Not us. It is this government unloading onto the provinces and bragging to the public about its achievements on deficit elimination, deficit reduction, that they broke the back of the deficit. If a $30 billion deficit is breaking the back of the deficit, if projecting a $24 billion deficit next year is breaking the back of the deficit, if adding $111 billion to the debt is putting Canada's financial house in order, we damn well do need a new finance minister. We need a new CEO and a vice-president of finance because these two people are doing this country a great disservice.

Worst of all this government has different priorities which really frustrates me. The government has the priority of cover-up from the department of defence where it covers up on Somalia. Here is a minister who gives instructions which are not even followed. Is that respect? He is out of control with his department just as the Minister of Health is with his.

The Krever commission was set up to find out the truth. I have a letter from a lady whose husband died as a result of tainted blood. She also has it now because they did not come clean with her and tell her what was going on. They did not provide adequate information to prevent her infection. This lady is going to die and what does the government do? What does the justice minister do? They comply with all these idiot groups that want to ban the release of what the Krever commission is finding out. Is that serving the Canadian public?

Something went wrong. Do Canadians not have the right to know what went wrong? We are not looking to jail anybody, we just want

the truth. We want to know what happened and when it happened. The government should be embarrassed about that. If that is the kind of government the Liberals like, if those are their priorities, they are welcome to them.

I would have nothing to do with this. It is frustrating. I heard the Liberals say one thing in opposition. I read about it and heard about it and now the Liberals are the same as the Tories. They are doing what they want in government. It is not right.

This country deserves justice. It deserves honesty from its politicians. It deserves more than simple rhetoric, saying one thing to get elected and then laughing and doing something else once there. The Canadian public deserves more and it can get more. There are more Liberal backbenchers with more integrity than any I see along the front line of this House of Commons.

[Paddy Torsney, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I note with some interest that the member mentioned our country's blood supply system. The important Krever inquiry has been put into place because the Liberals in opposition called for it and saw fit to put it in place.

The member's colleague from Port Moody-Coquitlam discussed the blood system at some length earlier in the debate. I want to assure all members that a safe and secure blood supply system is of critical importance to me as well. It is an issue I am fairly familiar with. It has been a horrible piece of our history which we need to address.

Both members have forgotten, or perhaps they have chosen to overlook the fact that this government is taking a leadership role on the issue of the blood supply system. On March 11 the Minister of Health announced his initiative to put a plan of action in place in order to be prepared when Justice Krever submits his final report. On the interim recommendations of Justice Krever, the Minister of Health has already put in place a number of those recommendations to make sure the system is cleaned up.

This is a leadership issue. That is what the Reform members and many Canadians have called for, leadership. In the course of this debate I have not heard what the Reform Party would do on this critical issue. Perhaps the members opposite could share very specifically with this House their proposals to improve our blood supply system. What is the member's idea for what we can do to show leadership? What would he do on the blood supply system if he were in government?

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment the hon. member on her position on the blood inquiry. I do not find that I disagree very much with what she said. It does bother me though and I do question whether she got my point about duplicity, saying one thing and doing another.

The member stands up and brags about how it was the Liberal Party that commissioned the inquiry. She then fails to go ahead. She is like the finance minister; he only does one side of the equation and never does the other side.

The other side of the equation is: Why will the government not allow the information the commission is gathering, the facts of the blood inquiry it is receiving, to be released? Why is the muzzle being put on by the government? The member may brag about striking the commission and putting it in place, but why will this new information not be released?

The member asks what I would do if I were the Minister of Health. I would need all the facts before I would make a decision. One thing I know I would do is I would make sure to have something in place before all these victims died. Perhaps there are as many as 12,000 victims, I do not know.

A personal friend was affected by this and he died at a very young age. He was just a boy and got tainted blood. It really comes close to my heart when I see this. These families are victims no different from and no less than victims of crimes by weapons or physical abuse. This is something serious. I would have at least addressed the victims. I would have told them how they would be compensated and when and what would be left for their families when they passed away so that there would be some security in the future. That is not being addressed. That is being avoided. The hue and cry out there is for that to be resolved.

I would not muzzle the final report of the commission. I would allow for its timely release and would let the cards fall where they may. For those who were supposed to be responsible, those who did a good job would be complimented. Those who did a poor job would be reprimanded. Those who were guilty of any criminal actions would then pay the price for it, nothing more, nothing less. A lot of people are dying.

Those are the things I would do. I am not a medical expert. I do know that the system and a whole department has come under question. The Canadian Red Cross, my gosh, I have always looked up to that organization. I have given blood and I still do.

If something happened, tell us what happened so we can avoid it in the future. There is nothing to run and hide from. Why cover up? That is why I am accusing this government of cover up. That is what it is doing.

[Dianne Brushett, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, to address some of the comments the hon. member has just brought forward is very significant. Before coming to this place, I came out of the health care profession and I had dealt internationally with Red Cross centres and blood supplies around the world.

Hindsight is wonderful vision. In the early eighties when we were reading the scientific literature regarding HIV and all of the

proposals that were coming forward there had to be a judgment call: Is this significant enough to test at this point; is the test specific enough to identify this particular virus if it can be called a virus? It is an example of a microbe that encapsulates itself and changes over time. It is not something that can be pinpointed very specifically, identified, chased down and a concoction found that would immediately cure or prevent this very dreadful disease. Back in the early eighties it was very much a judgment call. Looking back, perhaps we did not make the best judgment as early as we should have in the history of our blood supply.

I would remind the hon. member for Calgary Centre that the Canadian Red Cross is one of the most honourable institutions in the world. It is one of the most highly respected blood supply sources.

I have worked in that field where there are transmissible diseases such as hepatitis, AIDS and many other things we cannot even begin to test for or identify. We go through a spectrum of tests which is broad enough and significant enough that we can guarantee Canadians and whoever else across this world uses our blood supply that we are giving them the best product that can be tested and identified in the marketplace today.

I have worked internationally in other blood supply systems. It is like setting an aeroplane and navigation system. If one makes the system so absolutely perfect that it is foolproof, there would never be a child flying to Disneyworld to see that great and wonderful spectacular event. Yet we can do things within a realm of safety and predictability that we provide a product which is safe and available for those in need of health care. There will come a time when we have a synthetic and artificial blood supply that can transport oxygen throughout the body and maintain a healthy body without the risk of those transmissible diseases.

The Canadian Red Cross may not be perfect. Perhaps it did not make its decision soon enough to trust that international literature and scientific reports were significant enough that we should challenge and start testing, although it was not as specific or as good as it should have been at the time.

I would challenge the hon. member. There is a lot to be thankful for in our Red Cross in the safety and respect it holds throughout the world in this very valuable blood product.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and the intervention by the hon. member. I found that her from the heart, off the top of her head defence of the Canadian Red Cross and of the blood system and relating to us her past experience were very admirable. An even better compliment is that it was much better than the department's canned speech she read a couple of weeks ago. Maybe she should speak her mind more often and we would all be better off based on her wisdom and her knowledge. This House could benefit from it, with respect.

The member knows darn well that I am not criticizing the Red Cross. I am criticizing a system that has been set in place. The information has to be gathered and should be shared with the many people who suffered. The victims of the tainted blood want to know what happened. That is all they want to know. I do not think they want to go on a witch hunt. They just want to know. I do not know why this government is catering to the former ministers of health, the pharmaceutical agencies and the people who are now filing legal petitions to prevent this report from being made public. That is the part I do not understand.

My point today in debate was to point out that this government is hypocritical in its actions and is duplicitous in the self-serving rhetoric it uses. I tried to give specific examples. A lot of the time the rhetoric is good. In fact a lot of time it is the same as ours and I would swear that the government stole some of our speeches, but its actions are not the same and do not match the rhetoric that it uses.

That is a disservice to the Canadian public. It is a disservice to the government. Canadians are much smarter than a lot of politicians give them credit for. In our isolated little world here we tend to believe what we see on TV, what we read in the newspapers, the national media types. We think that is what is important but it is not. What is important is the grassroots. Our constituencies are what are important and we should always stay in touch with them.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-18 sponsored by the Minister of Health. It is an act to establish the Department of Health and to amend and repeal certain acts. The substance of the act is ostensibly to take into account the reorganization of Health Canada to operate now as Health Canada as opposed to health and welfare.

There subsequently have been some changes to the original bill. One had to do with ministerial responsibility. There has been an important motion made to amend Bill C-18 in a way that will continue to ensure ministerial accountability under the laws of Canada.

Canada has the best health care system in the world. That is undeniable. There are five principles of the Canada Health Act. One of those principles is universality: health care is available to all Canadians. I will speak more about that a little later on.

The second principle is public administration. The third principle is portability which means that people can receive the health care services they need regardless of where they live or where they travel in Canada. The fourth principle is accessibility. This ensures that health care is reasonably accessible for the important health

care needs of Canadians. The final principle is comprehensiveness. This means that our health care system continues to provide the broadest range of essential or necessary health care componentsto Canadians.

These are the five principles which the Government of Canada and the Minister of Health continue to talk about to the Canadian people. They also talk about its implications to Canada as a country.

There has been a lot of discussion about the possibility of things like extra billing, user fees or some other special arrangements but that is not the philosophy or the principles of the Canada Health Act.

The Canada Health Act and its five principles are a very important component of Canadian unity. They are principles which I believe have made probably the largest contribution to keeping Canada together and keeping it strong and united. It is a fibre that transcends all partisan politics, notwithstanding the comments just heard from the previous speaker.

The Canada Health Act represents an instrument of the Canadian government. It represents the principles that we want to share with all Canadians, features such as helping those most in need first. We want to make sure that under any circumstance Canadians will never feel alone when it comes to their health care and other social needs.

We want to make sure Canadians understand that in our health system, the best system in the world, they will receive health care not because they have money but because they are sick. That is a principle and a value of which I am very proud and about which most Canadians are very proud.

The previous speaker talked about long line-ups in hospitals and a number of other things. I want to comment briefly on line-ups in hospitals. I spent a number of years as a trustee for the hospital in my community of Mississauga, the Mississauga General Hospital, a 600-bed facility with an excellent, well-trained and well-qualified staff.

A tremendous metamorphosis in health care has taken place over the last decade. The changes within the health care system are substantial in that there was, as evidenced, a shift or a reduction in the average length of stay by patients in hospitals from somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7.2 days average to about 4.2 days. That represents a very significant efficiency, a productivity improvement and a savings to the hospital environment to deliver care.

During that period, the Mississauga hospital reduced the number of beds from some 600 down to below 500 beds. However, in terms of the statistics, the hospital continued to serve more patients than it did as a 600-bed facility. One of the critical reasons for that has to do with the shift in philosophy toward ambulatory care. It used to be that one would go into the hospital and prepare for a surgical procedure maybe a day or two in advance and stay a little longer. Now one goes in a little later, the day of surgery, and then goes home early enough to convalesce in one's home environment, which the medical profession has found to be a more conducive environment to the healing process. The other aspect of the shift to ambulatory care is basically for people to receive their services and then move out. All of this has resulted in substantial savings to the health care system over the years.

The funding of hospitals is a joint responsibility between the federal and provincial governments. Through the transfers to the provinces, the federal government funds a very substantial portion of health care costs but it is administered and managed by the provincial governments. Through that administration certain funds are granted for capital purposes as well as for operating budgets.

It is up to the provinces to deliver the capital and the operating revenue necessary under certain guidelines concerning which they have some discretion. However they have no discretion with regard to the five principles of the Canada Health Act.

The savings that were achieved over these many years as a result of improved technologies, of care giving and medicine, of the shift to an ambulatory based system and simply due to productivity improvements in the health care sector, went to benefit the provincial governments. As announced by the Minister of Finance in his first budget two years ago, changes were made in the transfers to the provinces with regard to the various elements of the transfers. It is now called the Canada health and social transfer.

The federal government never got benefit or credit for those savings or efficiencies within the health care system. They were all left to the provinces. This ensured they had the kinds of tools necessary to maintain, protect and defend the principles of the Canada Health Act. Now the government must make sure it is doing even better and will continue to do better with the limited dollars available for all spending purposes and for the health and welfare of all Canadians.

I would like to highlight a couple of features of the Canada health and social transfer. This instrument and the so-called block funding was created by a situation to do with the combined value of the cash transfers to the provinces as well as tax points, or the ability to tax at the provincial level.

One thing that occurred was that the cash component of those transfers was beginning to be reduced. In circumstances where provinces had violated certain principles of the Canada Health Act, the federal Minister of Health would have stepped in and after some review and time for correction, would have withheld certain

amounts of cash transfers to the province, until such time as the province desisted from a particular activity.

As long as there is a cash component in the transfer to the provinces, the federal government has the opportunity to enforce the principles of the Canada Health Act. However, it was very clear that in time the cash component would disappear. In fact, the federal government would not have an opportunity to enforce the principles of the Canada Health Act.

As a result, the combination of various levels of transfers, not only for health but for post-secondary education and the Canada assistance plan, does provide some latitude where cash under all of the block funding will be available for an extended period.

Since that time the finance minister has also put in place as a result of the budget a new funding arrangement that provides an iron clad guarantee that the cash cannot fall below $11 billion.

Fiscal responsibility was an issue about which the previous speaker wanted to spend quite a bit of time talking. The federal government has shown a continued, strong and unwavering commitment to the five principles of the Canada Health Act and an unwavering commitment to ensure there is a cash component available to the provinces so they can continue to administer the health system and still respect the five principles of the Canada Health Act.

I want to make a comment about some other items, having been a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health since January 1994. The committee has looked at a couple of areas and the member touched on them, for instance, cigarettes. The members of the committee looked at health warning labels on tobacco products, as well as plain paper packaging. There were a number of other initiatives which the committee has considered because of statistics, such as 40,000 Canadians die each year as a result of tobacco use.

These issues are important to Canadians. They want us to continue to look at ways in which we can provide cost effective health care and also shift the emphasis away from cures and remedies to prevention. That is the important issue.

Today Canada spends approximately 75 per cent of its health care dollars on curative or remedial approaches and only 25 per cent on prevention. It is becoming very evident that to continue spending money at those levels is unsustainable. Ways have to be found to shift those dollars into the preventive sphere so that savings can be achieved and the costs which will be incurred forgone if certain products are not used more responsibly in our society.

Tobacco is one of those products. Another which is very important to me these days has to do with alcohol consumption, and particularly the misuse of alcohol. My private member's Bill C-222 calls for health warning labels on alcoholic beverage containers.

A number of people have asked why I am doing this. The answer is painfully obvious to many Canadians. In fact, some 19,000 people die each year from alcohol related causes. Alcohol costs Canada approximately $15 billion in health care costs, social program costs, criminal justice costs and productivity. Fifty per cent of family violence cases are related to alcohol abuse. One in six family breakdowns are related to alcohol abuse. Thirty per cent of suicides are related to alcohol abuse. Forty per cent of automobile accidents are related to alcohol abuse. I could go on and on. Everyone knows how terrible it is in our society. The costs are very significant.

The direct alcohol related cost of some $15 billion is only a portion of it. The ripple effect and the impact on families and friends is far more than $15 billion.

Five per cent of birth defects are caused by alcohol consumption. There is a problem known as fetal alcohol syndrome. Medical expenses incurred during the lifetime of a fetal alcohol child cost Canadians approximately $1.5. million. Fetal alcohol syndrome costs Canada approximately $2.7 billion a year. Another problem is known as fetal alcohol effects. It is very similar to fetal alcohol syndrome, but it does not have the same physical effects. However, it occurs two to three times more than FAS.

This is the kind of thing at which the health care system has to look. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars in expenses because products are misused. People do not take care of themselves or they do not make positive lifestyle choices.

These are the things which are important to Canadians. They want to ensure that health care dollars are spent wisely and that we look at ways to save money on direct health care, as well as reducing the demand on the system so that we can ensure its long term sustainability for all Canadians for generations to come. That is the important message.

I have listened to other speakers. I understand the role of opposition members and that they have to be critical of the government. However, I do not understand how partisan speeches can be given in the House which talk about hypocrisy, duplicity, broken promises and cover-ups, and then attempt to talk eloquently about the blood commission.

The blood commission affects many Canadians. It is very tragic. I want all Canadians to know our blood supply system today is safe. Immediate steps were taken to ensure the safety of our blood supply system.

However, that does not relieve us of the responsibility to have an inquiry, the Krever commission, to look at all of the things that happened during that period to ensure we understand what happened, that we make sure there is nothing left to correct, to ensure there is no future risk to our blood supply system. Those are the things that are important.

Canadians need to have that confidence level. They need to have the feeling we are doing the right things. I do not think they got it from the comments made by the previous speaker who tended to suggest that somehow there were still problems here.

Anytime is a good time to get the facts right. If it takes more time to make sure they are right so we can have the correct information in order to make correct decisions, then I say we have to move on with this.

The commission is doing its work. The same can be said with regard to the Somalia case and members' compensation, which the member wanted to talk about. He showed a tremendous amount of frustration but I do not want to fall into that trap.

I simply want to reiterate for all members and for all Canadians that the Canadian health care system is the very best in the world. We are the envy of every other country. We have principles which the federal government is committed to defend and to protect. We will never leave any person in Canada without the protection of our health plan.

The principle all Canadians should remember is that in Canada health care will be available to you not because you have money but because you are sick. The Prime Minister has made that commitment. I trust the Prime Minister and I know Canadians trust the Prime Minister.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Hamilton—Wentworth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Mississauga South and the member for Calgary Centre who both touched on a very important aspect of the Krever commission debate on Canada's blood supply. However, they did not explore it as fully as I would like to in my remarks.

We sometimes have the problem that rhetoric gets in the way of a clear discussion of the consequences of events evolving around us. In the case of the Krever commission and the Somalia inquiry, the issue of the destruction of documents has been repeatedly raised. This is a central issue to the accountability of all government departments, including the accountability of Health Canada.

If officials are allowed to destroy documents without fear of severe consequences, not only would the public be denied access to the truth but there would be no such thing as ministerial accountability. How could a minister know, be it the minister of defence or the health minister, what was actually occurring if officialswere destroying documents and preventing people from getting at the truth?

It is not just an issue of whether the media, the press or even MPs have access to the documents that tell the story, perhaps a very terrible story, the issue is whether the minister actually has access to these documents.

The Access to Information Act contains no provision which specifically applies sanctions to government officials' destroying documents. This is a terrific omission. I will say publicly that the information commissioner, John Grace, has done a wonderful job in bringing before the public the entire issue of the destruction of documents.

This is a very essential issue, essential to our very democracy, this question of whether officials, elected or unelected, can cover-up accidents of incompetence, to use the words of the official opposition. We are probably talking more about incompetence than malfeasance here.

Unfortunately not only is there no provision in the Access to Information Act to prevent this, there is no other provision save for one clause. I do not remember the section number, but one section in the Criminal Code forbids government functionaries from deliberately wilfully destroying documents. However, the penalty is less than two years.

Opposition parties as well as government members would do well to pay very close attention to this failure in existing legislation to protect Canadians, to give Canadians the opportunity, be they elected officials or ordinary Canadians, to have access to the truth of what goes on in the events that affect them the most.

I cannot prejudge the findings of either the Somalia inquiry or the Krever inquiry, but at issue here is not just what the truth was but whether the truth will ever be available to Canadians. On issues in all ministries, certainly in Health Canada, because decisions are made that affect human lives, we as Canadians need the opportunity to examine those decisions.

I use the analogy of mad cow disease in Britain. Certain decisions were made by both government and bureaucrats that have put in jeopardy about $11 billion in the economy and possibly human lives as well. We need the opportunity when major government departments are making decisions on our behalf to to examine them to make sure those decisions are being made wisely and well.

I think the member for Mississauga South would support me in suggesting that changes to the Access to Information Act would be of great assistance to giving the kind of accountability we demand of the best health service in the world, Health Canada.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member certainly does raise some interesting points. He said them quite well and I will not try to elaborate.

However, I note from an extract of Hansard of November 18, 1992 that the member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, the current Minister of Health, speaking to the then Minister of National Health and Welfare, called for a public inquiry into the blood supply conducted by individuals of the highest calibre and qualifications.

On that basis I have absolutely no question in my mind the health minister is fully committed to dealing with the blood supply issue in the most thorough and open fashion possible.

On March 11 of this year the minister did announce that he is calling on the partners in Canada's blood supply system to discuss how to redefine and renew the blood system. The minister has reaffirmed that all the partners in the blood system, including consumer groups, must work together to plan and provide for the preparation of the final recommendations of the commission of inquiry on the blood system in Canada.

I do not want to belabour it, but I know the minister absolutely concurs with the member that information must be on the table. We are prepared to receive, now that we have the interim report of Justice Krever, the final recommendations to move forward to ensure we have a safe and secure blood supply system in Canada.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Mississauga South is obviously very well versed on health issues. I bring the following proposition to his attention.

These past few weeks, the Minister of Health has been criticized by Bloc Quebecois members, and the Bloc's critic for health in particular, for his initiative concerning cheese made from raw milk. I am one of those members who represent rural ridings. Of course, prima facie, nobody wants stricter rules to be imposed on any industry, especially not one located in our own electoral riding.

At any rate, the health minister did bring this issue to the attention of the House, or rather submitted it through the regulatory process to seek the public's opinion.

I bring the following to the attention of the House. I do this with the concurrence of my electors. A constituent of mine, Mr. Robert Redmond, son of Mrs. Barbara and Mr. J.P. Redmond of Vankleek Hill, Ontario, is presently in a hospital in Toronto recovering from having contracted listeria bacteria, apparently from having consumed raw milk cheese. This person is now paralyzed.

I ask my colleague if he does not agree with me that as difficult as this issue is, the Minister of Health is right in at least gazetting this particular regulation to make sure that in a responsible way, which he is as the minister, that all sides of this issue be heard.

I have more constituents who are dairy producers than anyone else in the House-