Mr. Speaker, it is with great interest that I rise to speak to 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.
Following on the speech by my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, our party's health critic—and I will take this opportunity to congratulate him on the excellent job he is doing—I would first of all like to revisit what he asked our Reform colleague just now. He asked him whether he admitted that this bill ought to have been introduced long ago and that there ought to have been more investment in medical research.
This is an area of the utmost importance. I now understand, seeing the government members' lack of interest in commenting on it, why the Canadian government has not rushed to invest more in medical research.
Speeches and debate coming from the government side have been lacklustre debate. A few government members spoke for form's sake. The ones doing the work are the opposition members. Is this due to lack of interest, lack of courage or a bit of cowardice? One might well ask.
I would like to give a little scenario in connection with the bill. Last February, the present Minister of Health announced that he would be injecting new money into the creation of what may be termed virtual institutes of research.
It must be understood that no infrastructures will be created. There will be a kind of networking, as is already being done in certain sectors in each of the provinces. For the medical research laboratories, there will be an attempt to create a network so that these people can speak to each other and co-ordinate their research, in order to enhance its effectiveness.
The main thrust of the bill we are looking at today is the outcome of recommendations made by an interim committee, comprising 34 members of the scientific and academic community. Hon. members who heard the speech by my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve a few days back will recall that he listed the scientists and academics on that committee. These people have great reputations.
To simplify things, the Canadian institutes of health research will replace what used to be called the Medical Research Council. These institutes will have a broad research mandate. They will develop new approaches to research in biomedical matters and on issues more directly affecting the social sciences.
In his budget, the Minister of Finance announced that the government intended to double funding over three years for the health research institutes. Funding will amount to $500 million in 2001-02. That is not insignificant, and we applaud this budget increase. The research laboratories needed it. The institutes' permanent governing council is expected to be operational by April 1, 2000.
What we understand from this networking is that the institutes will deal with four major sectors of health research. They will focus their work on various types of research in four sectors specifically.
The first sector is the very important and vital field of biomedical research. At least 60% of the biomedical research in Canada is done by pharmaceutical companies in Quebec.
The second sector is clinical research. It too is very important. It also plays a basic role in the discovery of pharmaceuticals.
The third sector is that of health systems. Currently, all provincial governments are dealing with health care reforms. They have had to move toward ambulatory care. They are trying to see if their system is well organized to make it as effective and efficient as possible, and thus provide the public with the quality of care and services it deserves.
The fourth sector covers cultural society and population health. Research institutes will bring about a strategic repositioning in health research to solve major medical issues. Moreover, we will also have to invest in research on heredity, genetics and the human genome.
The House had the pleasure of listening to the speech by the hon. member for Jonquière, who is intensifying her efforts to have a genetic engineering research institute established in her riding. It would be a good thing if the government such research could be carried out in the riding of Jonquière.
In short, Bill C-13 seeks to formally establish the Canadian institutes of health research to organize, co-ordinate and fund health research at the federal level. It also repeals the Medical Research Council Act and defines the structure, role and mission of the institutes.
We support the bill as regards its purpose and the virtual establishment of such institutes. It is appropriate for the whole research network, all researchers and scientists to co-ordinate their efforts and talk to each other to truly ensure effective research, and we must also provide them with the most effective tools to enable them to carry out their research. We have no problems with that, and we agree with this way of repositioning medical research.
But we do have a problem with the preamble of the bill, because instead of recognizing the provinces' exclusive jurisdiction over health care, the government merely recognizes the fact that they play some role in that area. Indeed, the second “Whereas” reads as follows:
Whereas Parliament recognizes the role of the provinces in health care and that the Government of Canada collaborates with provincial governments to support the health care system and health research;
But it should have indicated that it is the responsibility of the provinces to manage health care services within their territory and that their agreement is necessary when their jurisdiction is involved.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It is the same old story. Health care is a provincial responsibility. Why is the federal government always bent on extending its tentacles and constantly eroding provincial jurisdiction?
Health care and education are provincial responsibilities. In Quebec, we are determined that we will never allow the Liberal government to interfere in our areas of responsibility.
If any money is to be invested in medical research, it must take the form of social transfer payments, so that we too can double our grants to researchers in our universities and medical research institutions. So—