moved that Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, to repeal the Medical Research Council Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take part today in a debate in the House which is all about new directions for health research in Canada. The creation of the Canadian institutes of health research which is proposed in Bill C-13, now before the House, will truly mark a transformation in the way health research is organized, funded, co-ordinated and carried out in our country.
The institutes that we propose are all about excellence, about encouraging those who seek it, about rewarding those who achieve it. It is about changing the way that we conduct scientific inquiry in Canada. It is also about putting Canada at the leading edge of a dynamic international movement toward discovery. From cancer to the human genome project, from the workings of the brain to understanding better the social and environmental factors that lead to health or illness, scientists are pushing back the frontiers of knowledge toward understanding.
Investigators are contributing to our grasp of factors that contribute to health and allow us to focus on the prevention of illness. Here in Canada, we understand the importance of that work. We know that health researchers are making an outstanding contribution, not only to the breadth of our knowledge but also to the depth of our understanding and to the quality of our lives.
The Prime Minister's government is committed to making Canada an internationally acknowledged leader in the global advancement of health research. To do that, to achieve that ambitious goal, we need to contribute new scientific knowledge based on research that meets the highest international standards of excellence. We believe the best way to do that is to break down the barriers that have always separated different lines of inquiry in health research, separated one discipline from the other and so we propose the creation of the Canadian institutes of health research.
This will be a network of investigators linked in virtual institutes. It will bring together experts from four major disciplines: from biomedical enquiry, to clinical research, to those working on how to improve health services and the delivery of services to Canadians, and those who focus on health determinants, what makes us ill and what keeps us healthy.
This national network will address emerging opportunities, threats and challenges to accelerate the discovery of cures and of treatments. It will build on the research base already out there in our universities, in our health and research centres, in our teaching hospitals and in our research institutes and link them all in a way that has never been done before.
By connecting all of these different areas of research and knowledge, we believe we can break down the old stovepipes of the past and instead create the intellectual pipelines of the future.
We are very excited about this initiative at this time. To our knowledge, no other country in the world is bringing such a multidisciplinary approach to health research and we are confident that it will transform not only how such research is done in Canada, but in other countries as well.
One of the reasons we have such confidence in this project is that it came from the health research community itself and reflects their priorities.
It was not imposed by the government. It was researcher-driven. Indeed, the involvement of the research community has been crucial to this initiative from the outset.
In 1998, a national task force of Canada's health research community came together to chart a new course for research in this country. After exhaustive consultations, that task force recommended the creation of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
These measures build on the strong foundation created over 60 years by the Medical Research Council of Canada as well as the national health research and development program.
To facilitate the transition from the Medical Research Council to the institutes, an interim governing council was appointed made up of 34 eminent Canadians representing the research community, health practitioners, the private sector, charities, university presidents, granting councils and provinces. This interim governing council has performed an outstanding service.
As a minister of the government, I want to report to the House that we should all be in the debt of these public-spirited persons who took so much time from their lives to make the remarkable effort to pull together the proposals that have now been expressed in the proposed legislation, which is Bill C-13.
It is important for members to know that this effort was led by Dr. Henry Friesen, a scientist of conspicuous ability and president of the Medical Research Council of Canada. He presided over the task force and over the interim governing council. Working with him at the interim council were two vice-chairs, Dorothy Lamont, president of the Canadian Cancer Society, and Eric Maldoff, who is, among other things, a busy legal practitioner from Montreal, but who involves himself in a variety of public service functions. These three people have made a lasting contribution to the leadership they have shown on the interim governing council. The government and the House, I believe, is very much in their debt.
The institutes of health represent a further demonstration of the strong commitment of the Prime Minister and his government toward research and the knowledge economy. We created a national network of centres of excellence. We started the Canadian foundation for innovation and, in the recent Speech from the Throne and in the Prime Minister's speech in the House, we announced the creation of 1,200 new chairs for research excellence in universities around the country.
We knew that additional funding was needed if we were to keep our research community alive and thriving, so we provided it.
In last February's budget, we announced $150 million over three years for the existing granting councils. We set aside another $65 million for the Canadian institutes in the coming fiscal years. We will increase that amount to $175 million in the second year. This is the single largest investment in health research in Canadian history. It represents a doubling of the level of Canadian funding for health research all in the space of three years. It is a clear indication of the government's profound commitment to research and to knowledge.
We are confident that these institutes will not only improve our understanding of health issues, disease, health services and prevention of illness, but they will also bring economic benefits.
New researchers will be hired. Technologists, graduate students and other highly skilled workers will be given opportunities to develop their potential. Over the longer term the work will lead to new discoveries, new products and new patents. This dynamic research environment will also create a very attractive investment climate for Canadian and international companies, resulting in even greater economic development.
Let me turn for a moment to how these institutes will work in practice and why they represent an improvement over the current system.
The health research environment is changing rapidly. New threats to health are always emerging, for example, new strains of bacteria resistant to old forms of treatment.
And in response to these new challenges, modern health research is also changing. There is a revolution in genetic technologies and a greater awareness of the effects of the environment and other factors on our health.
At the same time, innovative methodologies in health research are allowing us to identify and evaluate how to provide health services in the most efficient and cost-effective way.
What we need to do is bring all of these elements together, in a co-ordinated way. The CIHR will do this. It will integrate basic biomedical research with applied clinical research. It will improve our delivery of health care through study of health services and systems. And it will deepen our understanding of health by studying the factors which affect it.
They will also provide for a more efficient use of public funds. At the moment, research proposals are largely initiated by researchers themselves and funding is subject to quality review by peers. While research will continue to be subject to peer review, the new system will allow us to identify gaps in knowledge and direct our efforts to filling those gaps. Both the quality of the research and its relevance to health priorities will be the basis for future funding.
I also want to point out that ethics will be a key component of the institutes of health. Standards and policies will be developed to ensure that research is conducted in keeping with the highest ethical standards.
The institutes will also encourage the development of partnerships. The institutes are designed to work seamlessly with provincial and territorial health departments, with universities, with health science centres and with other research agencies. There will be a greater opportunity for the voluntary sector and community groups to have a say in setting priorities for research and for partnerships with institutes where there are common goals to be pursued.
One element which illustrates this approach is the Community Alliances in Health Research announced in October. This will take the institutes of health research into communities across the country to address issues of local concern.
Say for example the community has a particular health concern. Researchers would work with community representatives to examine the best ways of addressing those concerns, of finding the cause, of facilitating prevention, of furthering treatment.
We know for example that rural communities face different health challenges than urban areas. The CIHR will have the ability to address the specific preoccupations of rural populations employing a multidisciplinary approach.
The CIHR will do something else as well. It will create opportunities for young Canadian scientists and for scientists around the world to work in a cutting edge research environment. Dr. Henry Friesen has said that this initiative “sets Canada up to be a world centre”, to use his words.
Dr. Michael Smith, Nobel Laureate in 1993 who is now carrying on his work in British Columbia has stated: “The creation of the CIHR is a clear indication of a commitment to strengthen Canada's research capacity. This is a wonderful time to be a part of this country's research community as we enter the next millennium”.
That is the kind of impact this legislation can have. That is the kind of atmosphere of excellence we want to create here in Canada.
Our goal is to make Canada the country of choice for researchers from around the world. And we want to make our own students and researchers feel that there is nowhere else they would rather be because there is nowhere else that they can achieve so much. The CIHR goes a long way to achieving that objective.
This legislation is good for health research. It is good for jobs and it is good for Canada. Because at the end of the day, its beneficiaries will not just be the research community, or our young scientists, but Canadians, from all walks of life and from all parts of the country.
It is Canadians who will have more information about preventing disease and promoting health. It is Canadians who will benefit from new treatments and products coming to market more quickly. It is Canadians who will benefit from a health system that is making the most efficient use of their health care dollars.
I hardly need to remind the House that when it comes to health research, the obstacles to progress are often formidable. We also know that the human impulse for exploration and for discovery is unstoppable.
There has been much discussion in the House and elsewhere about what some call a brain drain. There are numbers exchanged back and forth in the debate about whether Canada is or is not suffering a loss of human capital and its best brains. It is difficult to know what the true facts are because the debate becomes so clouded by politics. One thing we do know for certain is that if we are to keep the best and brightest in our country, if we are to create an environment in which excellence is encouraged and its achievement is permitted, if we are to make Canada, as the Prime Minister has said the place to be in the 21st century, then one of the essential steps we must take is to invest in research and create a research environment where people will want to stay and where people will want to come.
That is what the Canadian institutes of health research is about. A doubling of federal funding for health research, a co-ordination of every one of the disciplines involved in health inquiry, a new approach to organizing and carrying out scientific inquiry for health purposes, all of this has been inspired by excellence. I truly believe that the legislation now before the House can make a measurable difference not only in the research environment, not only in keeping people in Canada and bringing them from abroad to do their best work, but at the end day in improving the health of Canadians and the capacity of our health system to respond when they are ill.
Many years ago, maps of the world had whole sections of the globe that were referred to only as terra incognita, because at the time, no one knew what was there. Over the decades and centuries, brave men and women ventured forth and discovered what was there. They gave names to those places and pushed back the frontiers of human experience and human knowledge.
Today there is still much terra incognita in human knowledge and understanding. Nowhere is the process of exploration more exciting or more important than in the field of health research. Canada intends to be at the forefront of that field. As Canada's Minister of Health, through this legislation I say to the world that we intend to be the best. We intend to do it best. We intend to demonstrate to the entire world that Canada is truly the place to be.
I commend this legislation to the House and urge all members of all parties to support it. It is a measure that goes beyond politics. It has nothing to do with partisanship. It is truly in the interests of Canada. I encourage all my colleagues to approach it in that spirit, to pass it through this place to committee, to hear the witnesses, to make sure we have it right and then to send this legislation on so that the institutes can open their doors and commence to function on April 1 next year.