Madam Speaker, I will read the motion which I thank the hon. member opposite for bringing. It states:
That this House endorses the provincial consensus reached in Saskatoon on August 7, 1998, that the federal government must restore, via the existing provisions of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), its contributions to front-line health-care services, starting with a payment of at least $2 billion, given that the federal government has already recorded an accumulated surplus of $10.4 billion for the first six months of the 1998-99 fiscal year.
The effect of the motion is to increase the CHST by approximately $2 billion.
There is a block transfer that already occurs of about $26 billion in tax points and cash to the provinces. The expectation is that over the next few years that will increase to about $28.5 billion.
While the cash floor remains static, the tax point portion is increasing and it increases quite dramatically for some provinces, particularly the province of Ontario, which is where I am from.
The other beauty of the CHST is that it addresses a long-standing grievance of some of the provinces, particularly the more prosperous provinces, that they were not getting a fair share of the transfer on a per capita basis. Over the course of the program, namely into the year 2002, that inequity in distribution on a per capita basis will in fact be addressed.
This brings me to the Ontario situation because that is the province from which I hail and about which I care deeply.
Ontario has received a reduced portion of the cash transfer. For Ontario that translates this year as a reduction of approximately $1.2 billion. The amount of $1.2 billion on its overall budget of $50 billion roughly translates into something in the order of 3% to 4%. That is what it means to Ontario, a reduced cash floor of the CHST of about 3% to 4%. When that is compared with the ill advised tax cuts it is in fact a negligible amount of money.
The philosophy of the reformatory government in my province is such that it puts tax cuts ahead of almost anything, including, I would argue, fiscally conservative and sound principles like reducing the debt, or even getting a handle on the deficit, both of which it has ignored. It has ratcheted up the debt over the course of its mandate to something in the order of $30 billion. That amount on an overall annual budget of $50 billion, to my way of thinking, is somewhat less than prudent fiscal management.
This is why increasing the CHST, particularly to the province of Ontario, in my view, is somewhat problematic. Our problem, from a federal government standpoint, is that we cannot trust it. We can get no real assurance that even if we were to agree to a $2 billion transfer, or Ontario's portion of that $2 billion transfer, that it would be applied to where we think the Canadian people want it applied, namely, to medical services.
Our fear is that it will simply go to backfill ill-conceived tax cuts. We cannot see how this will go to the legitimate needs of the people of Ontario.
I wish to let you know, Madam Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Thornhill.
I would also like to tell a story about how these policies have played out on the ground in my riding. These are ill-conceived policies. This story is about how Ontario's housing policy contributes to homelessness, how its medical policy puts people on the street who should never be put on the street and for whom there is no private market alternative. It is naive in the extreme to think that the private market would pick up some of these people. It is also a story about how Ontario has devastated our hospitals.
The nation was transfixed with the death of a police officer over the course of the summer. The death of that particular police officer occurred in my riding. It was a tragic event, but let me explain the background.
The two women who are accused in that matter were initially residents of a medical facility in Toronto. With the cutbacks they were put on the street. Because my riding houses approximately 1,000 homeless people every night, who are largely there due to dubious government policies, these women ended up in my riding. Shortly thereafter they were transferred to another facility in St. Catharines, but for reasons best known to them they returned to the riding on that fateful night.
These are people who are in need of medication. These are people who should not be on the street. They came to the riding and went to the local hospital. They had a psychotic episode. They refused treatment. When they left the hospital they walked 150 metres across the street and are now accused of murdering that police officer.
To give some graphic illustration of why this is an intersection of such vicious social policies, I will tell the House about this particular hospital. This hospital is situated very close to the 401. It was originally designed for trauma. The expectation was that with a freeway there would be trauma incidents.
When the ambulance driver came to service the bleeding police officer, who was probably almost dead at that point, he made the decision that that hospital had inadequate resources and that he would not drive 150 metres across the parking lot, but would drive the ambulance another 25 minutes to downtown Toronto in order to help the police officer.
This is a vicious intersection of a policy regarding homelessness, a policy regarding rental, a policy regarding how medical facilities are staffed and funded. These are the reasons that we in Ontario feel very uncomfortable about transferring any additional funds to the Government of Ontario because we are not satisfied that the moneys will be used for what they were intended. These are very problematic issues for members from Ontario.
Health care is important to the government. The very first thing the Government of Canada did once its fiscal house was in order was to increase the cash floor for the Canada health and social transfer. This move marked the end of cuts and signalled the priority we place on health care.
In the government's economic statement the finance minister said that the concerns related to the strengthening of medicare will be addressed. He said no one can take on the challenges of a new economy while preoccupied with the availability of basic health care, no parent of an ill child and no child of an aging parent.
I have tried to put this matter of quality of care in context and the assessment in the proper context. This means making our system more responsive to and responsible for Canadians. The government has made it clear that health care is a very high priority. The Prime Minister has said that the federal government intends in our next major reinvestment to deal with the subject of health. The Minister of Health is committed to working in collaboration with all the provinces, including Ontario.