Mr. Speaker, it is such an important bill that I was surprised only two Liberals members were listening. It is an important bill. In the last few minutes quorum had to be called twice.
In any event, I was talking about the government reporting to parliament. We hope that the annual report of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will really provide information to the elected representatives of the country so that we may decide whether our constituents' tax dollars are being spent wisely. We will be anxiously awaiting the auditor general's report.
I know that time is limited and there are many things I want to say about the bill. I cannot even pretend to deal with the process of research grants that will be administered by the new institutes. The selection process could attract foreign participants who would provide us with a wealth of new perspectives, experience and products.
We also know about agencies created by Tories and Liberals that are at arm's length from the House of Commons. We see the terrible waste of tax dollars squandered on million dollar dinosaur statues, pornographic movies, free flags and hundreds of thousands of dollars for constructing dead trees and many other things.
We hope that these new institutes, created to operate at arm's length from the government, will not turn into pork barrels that the Liberals will use to pay off political favours and other things. Hopefully high ranking scientists will be allowed to make decisions without interference from the government.
This reminds me of the BST hormone fiasco. The government pressed hard for scientists to approve and declare that the bovine growth hormone was safe, but the scientists refused. They ended up leaving their jobs over the issue. Liberal senators on the Senate committee dealing with this were appalled at the situation.
The effort in Bill C-13 represents our federal government's single largest investment in research and knowledge. We want to develop affordable and accessible health care. We need to work on the prevention of disease, detection of disease, health care services and treatment, new discoveries, new products and new patents. We need to meet the health challenges of the future, including new treatments for new strains of bacteria. We need to fight those new strains with new antibiotics. We need to be innovative and evaluate and improve our health care resources. We need to deepen our understanding of health care issues and services. We need to identify and fill in the gaps between what we have and what we should have. We need to confront questions of ethical standards. We need to research all of those things. We have to work closely with the provinces, territories, our universities, health institutions and numerous NGOs.
The minister talks about a cutting edge research centre. We hope he can deliver it. Canadians want to see accountability, not more bureaucracy. The minister said today that 95% of the funding will go to research and 5% toward administration costs. We will hold him to those figures. We will see if that happens.
When President Reagan met President Gorbachev at the first nuclear disarmament meetings, he said trust, but verify. We have to verify whether the government sticks to its promise before we start trusting.
Let us look at the record. We have seen the Liberals drop the ball on an organ donor transplant system. They did not deliver. They continue to study it while Canadians die.
We have seen the government ignore the head start program which was supported by all sides of the House. That motion was introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, who has worked hard on the issue. The Liberals have done nothing about extending the head start program from aboriginal children to all Canadian children, even though it has been a successful initiative elsewhere.
We all know about the Moncton and Hawaiian head start programs. It is said that for every dollar invested there will be a saving of $6, there will be fewer youth dropping out of school, a reduction in teenage pregnancies and a reduction in youth crime. It increases the bond between children and their parents. These are all the things we know the head start program will deliver, so why do the Liberals not go ahead with it? We will have to wait to see what they will do on research.
Another example is smoking. We saw the government raise taxes on tobacco and then lower them because it could not do anything to stop tobacco smuggling. The Liberals caved in. They did not have the political will to tackle the problem of smoking, particularly as it concerns our children. Why not tackle the cause of smoking related diseases by working to prevent people from starting to smoke? Why do the Liberals limit work on smoking problems and merely treat the diseases that flow from chronic, long term tobacco use?
Another example is fetal alcohol syndrome. Why not stop the syndrome instead of merely dealing with the results? That is what the government has done on so many other issues. It addresses the symptoms but not the cause.
Another important issue is the drug problem. Governments at the municipal level, the provincial level and the federal level are not dealing with this issue. The federal government could contribute a lot to this issue. I have not seen any strong initiative from the federal government to deal with the drug problem. Drugs are being imported into this country and nothing is being done. Nor has anything been done to effectively treat drug users. The government is turning a blind eye to this serious issue.
Other problems stem from it, for example AIDS and HIV, but nothing is being done by this government. It believes in looking at symptoms but not treating the causes. We hope this will not continue to be the case.
We know that we need to work with, consult and include our scientific community in the work that our federal government does in the field of health. We need the input of our scientific community to direct the research. On this side of the House we hope that this bill will result in the creation of successful research institutes. We want to help the Liberals achieve this if we can.
Another example is the Surrey and White Rock Home Support Association, which is in my riding. In Surrey Central we are trying to establish a wellness centre for seniors. The energy behind this effort is Mr. Ron Watson and the Surrey and White Rock Home Support Association. Ron is a wizard when it comes to matters of health care. He is one person who many people in our community, myself included, look up to. The Surrey wellness centre will benefit the elderly in our area. There is a need for this type of accommodation.
So far the Liberals have refused to allow Surrey to use millennium project funds to get this going. The Liberals have financed dinosaur statues, tree statues, all kinds of parties and other things, but they will not allow the spending of millennium project funding on such an important project that will help our seniors. The Surrey wellness and health centre will have 1,000 beds. It will serve Alzheimer patients, geriatrics, the general population and the terminally ill.
As I said, there is a need for that facility, but this cold-hearted Liberal government has no vision and will not help us. Instead, it insists on trying to get us to build a dinosaur statue for $1 million or have a big party. We cannot use the millennium project funds to get the home care unit going. It is absolutely incredible.
On another issue, Alberta is creating a health care system to try to keep Canadians from having to go to the U.S. to get medical treatment because the health care in this country is not working. This country has a sickness care system, not a wellness or health care system.
There is already a three tier health care system. One tier is regular treatment which is status quo and only in a medical emergency. The second tier is a waiting system and 200,000 people are waiting for various treatments. The third tier is when people do not get the desired health care and they have to go to the U.S.
In conclusion, it is very difficult to trust the government knowing its misguided priorities and propensity to mismanage whatever it does.