Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-28, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the CPP, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act—the works. It is quite a comprehensive bill, as other members have mentioned.
This bill nibbles around the edges. There was a great opportunity within this bill to provide Canadians with the economic ability to be as good as they can be, to save our social programs and to ensure that the Canadian economy, the health and welfare and the standard of living of Canadians could be much better than they are today.
Our high unemployment rate has been referred to many times in this House. It is the highest unemployment rate among the G-7 nations. There is no reason for this. If we look south of the border, the United States has a 4.8% unemployment rate. We have the situation where large numbers of our skilled people—economists, nurses, physicians and artists—have left Canada and gone to the United States.
From Wall Street to Los Angeles, from Hollywood to Atlanta, Canadians have gone to the United States and have dramatically improved the health, welfare and economy of Americans.
We need to keep our trained and skilled people in Canada. As my colleagues in the Reform Party have mentioned, there are ways of doing this. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We just need to look at other countries such as the United States which has managed to drop its tax rate, which has resulted in an extraordinarily low unemployment rate and an economy that is booming.
Let us look at the measures that have been employed in the United Kingdom and New Zealand to ensure that people have the best opportunities. I will get into these opportunities in a little more specific way in a moment.
I first want to deal with one specific area. The member from the NDP, who spoke at length, castigated us for our views on health care. We have a situation in this country that is causing a lot of pain and suffering. The health care issue is being bantered around like a football between politicians for political gain, and all the while sick patients, who cannot defend themselves, are being sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
We need a sensible debate on the issue of health care. Making utterly false statements, such as somebody wanting an American style health care system, is absolute nonsense. These kinds of comments polarize and poison the debate so the Canadian people do not have an opportunity to hear the intelligent arguments of both sides.
The situation is that we have limited resources, an aging population and more expensive technologies. Because of this governments have been forced to ration. What is happening right now is that the poor are being compromised. The rich always have a choice. They can go down to the United States, where they spend over $1 billion a year to obtain their health care needs. One of my colleagues in this party did that and it saved his life, contrary to what the NDP member said. It is a tragedy that any Canadian has to go south of the border to get the essential health care services they require to save their life. We cannot keep sticking our heads in the sand.
How do we solve this problem of limited resources and an increasing demand? Do we continue to uphold the myth that we are upholding a Canada Health Act which was a good act when it was devised in the 1960s, or do we face the facts and realize that the Canada Health Act is being violated in virtually every one of its five tenets?
I gave the example in British Columbia that if a person is injured and comes under the workers' compensation board the Government of British Columbia will ensure that person gets to the top of the line over somebody who does not come under the WCB. That is absolutely unfair. On the other hand, that government says it believes in a Canada Health Act and a system that is equal and single tiered.
Is it accessible health care for an elderly person who is in severe pain to wait 16 months to get a new hip? Is it accessible health care for somebody who needs coronary artery bypass grafting to wait six months? Is it fair for someone who needs a 20 minute operation on their wrist to wait nine months for that operation? Whichever way you slice it that is not accessible health care.
There are numerous examples in health care in this country today which demonstrate that we have a multi-tiered health care system. No one in this House, and particularly the Reform Party, wants a health care system that is like an American style health care system where under certain circumstances people need to sell their house. The purpose of having a separate, privately funded, tiered system where only private moneys are exchanged and not a dime of public money is used is to ensure that some people in the public system who choose to will get some of their services in a private setting which is separate and completely different from the public system. That is unlike what happened in the United Kingdom and unlike what happens in the United States.
In that system some people who are rich will get their services from the private sector. Then there will be more money on a per capita basis for the public sector. Therefore the people who do not have the wherewithal would have better access and better health care than what they have today. The only purpose in proposing this is to ensure that people who are on our publicly funded system will have better access. Is it unequal? Yes, it is.
I would argue two things. We have an unequal system now, but is it not better to have an unequal system that provides better access for all Canadians than the declining system that we have today which compromises the poor and not the rich? If a separate, completely independent and privately funded health care system is available, the rich will subsidize the poor. In this way resources can go toward the health care system without raising taxes.