Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the motion introduced by the hon. member for Témiscamingue.
My comments will deal primarily with the first part of the motion, which reads:
That this House recognize the very harmful effect of federal cuts to the Canada Social Transfer (CST), particularly on health services in Canada—
Everyone knows the strategy applied by the Liberals to eliminate the deficit. Year after year, the Minister of Finance deliberately underestimated his revenues and overestimated the costs of servicing the debt. This allowed him to slash social programs, while underestimating the deficit by several billions of dollars.
After that underhanded ploy, the federal government started a war of flags with the provinces, to promote its visibility while ignoring things such as the loss of efficiency, overlap, waste, not to mention its own constitution and the primary interests of the public.
Social transfers are at their lowest in 20 years. By the year 2003, cuts to cash transfers will total $42 billion. These cuts have a major impact on our current health care system, in terms of access to quality care.
Everyone now agrees that the massive cuts made by Ottawa to the health care system are the primary cause of the very difficult times that our system has been going through in recent years.
We are not the only ones saying that. I will quote some comments made by a few groups, including members of the former National Forum on Health, who are considered to be reasonable people by politicians.
Let me begin with the Canadian Medical Association. It says that the “cuts to federal transfers to the provinces for health and social programs have been the main obstacle to access to quality care for Canadians, and the reason for the most serious crisis of confidence regarding our health care system since the implementation of medicare, in the sixties”.
That comment by the Canadian Medical Association can be found in a release published in La Presse , on September 22, 1998. The association is asking that the amounts cut by the federal be restored and indexed to take into account the cost increase for new technologies and the fact that the population is aging.
The Canadian Healthcare Association issued a press release on August 5, 1998 that included the following statement:
[The federal government must] provide an immediate injection of cash and an appropriate growth mechanism for the Canada Health and Social Transfer to help meet the health needs of a growing and ageing population [—]
Even the members of the former National Health Forum felt the need to clarify their recommendations, and I quote:
We recommended that $12.5 billion be the floor, not the ceiling. [—] The increase in transfer payments to the provinces should strengthen the health care system and this money should be invested where it has the greatest chance of producing positive results.
In an article in the May 7, 1997 Journal de Québec , Jean Charest blamed the Prime Minister for the cuts that have affected the health care sector, and exonerated the Premier of Quebec. This is what he said:
Mr. Bouchard, just like Messrs Harris, Filmon and Klein, has been forced to contend with Ottawa's unilateral cuts.
He pointed out that, during the last three years, the Liberals cut health and education transfers to the provinces and territories by 35%. He said this represented at least $6 billion.
So Mr. Charest was right: all the provinces are feeling the effects of the federal government's cuts. Here are some of the headlines from the rest of Canada.
On April 13, 1998, the CBC reported the following: “Manitobans are travelling to Dakota to seek treatment in mobile hospitals working out of tractor trailers along the American border. To avoid the four-month wait in the public health care system, Manitobans are paying $1,300 US ($2,000 CAN) out of their own pockets for two MRIs, an amount that will not be reimbursed.”
On June 6, 1998, La Presse reported: “Military medical officers are lending a hand in Newfoundland's overburdened emergency departments. Thirty medical teams, made up of one physician and one assistant, will be providing services in rural and urban areas of the province starting in July. An agreement has apparently been signed between the province and the federal Department of Defence in order to compensate for the physician shortage. Doctors are complaining they are insufficiently paid”.
To quote a French CBC report from April 6, 1998: “The government of Prince Edward Island will be calling on the private sector for construction of a new hospital. According to the Minister of Health, the project will not be possible unless there is partial private-sector funding. She refused, however, to disclose the amounts required”.
Another French CBC report, from February 25, 1998: “Anaesthetist shortage in New Brunswick. The northeastern New Brunswick hospital corporation is seeking a second anaesthetist for the Acadian peninsula. Hiring this specialist will enable the Tracadie-Sheila hospital to provide day surgery, which the committee working to save the hospital has been demanding for two years”.
According to another French CBC report on February 27, 1998: “Edmonton hospitals have cancelled all non-emergency surgery. Emergency rooms and intensive care units are at full capacity in Edmonton, in large part because of the high number of cases of flu. Some patients from the northern part of the province have had to be taken to Calgary or to Saskatchewan”.
The present government is telling us the provinces do not know how to administer their health care. I want to tell it that the problem is not bad management by the provinces, but the huge cuts in the Canada social transfer. All provinces have had to review their health systems. Their reform was necessary.
What is more, they had to do so under difficult conditions, because the government cut the funds that would otherwise have supported these health care reforms.
This is going on all over Canada, and not only in Quebec as some would like to think. The health care system has been hit with massive cuts by this government. Attributing all these problems to bad decisions and poor management by the provinces is an act of bad faith.
In Quebec, the health care reform was needed because the preceding Liberal government had refused to do it for nine years. The reform should have taken place before the PQ government came to power, but the issue was a political hot potato. Mr. Bouchard had to implement measures to stabilize the system and he did so under unacceptable conditions, as I mentioned a few minutes ago.
I would like to go on and really describe the adverse effects on the provinces, and Quebec especially, of the cuts to the health system, but unfortunately I am short of time. I would like to say to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Health that they should make amends and return to the provinces the money they so massively cut.