Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13. I would like to take this opportunity to greet Mr. Gary Carter, who is here with us today.
I am pleased to speak to this bill that formally establishes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. These institutes will be responsible for organizing, coordinating and funding health research at the federal level.
In his last budget, the Minister of Finance announced that these institutes would be allocated a $65 million budget for their first year of operation. This budget is to increase to $175 million the following year, in 2001-02, for a grand total of $500 million, when combined with the funding already set aside for the Medical Research Council.
We are pleased to see that the federal government is putting more money into health research since it is a crucial area. I should say from the outset that we in the Bloc Quebecois—my distinguished colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve included—will see to it that Quebec gets its fair share of those funds.
In the past, when looking at the distribution of federal funding for research and development—and we can go back 20 or 25 years—we could see that Quebec did not get its fair share, a share that reflected its demographic weight. On average, Quebec received about 14% of the federal funding for R and D, and so far, nothing has changed.
With the new funding provided by this bill and the money handed out year after year not only in various areas of medical research, but also in bio-food, high technology and other industries, we just want to ensure that Quebec is getting its fair share.
Someday, I hope the Quebec members of the Liberal Party of Canada across the way will rise and demand, as we have since 1993, that Quebec receive what it is owed. They were elected by Quebecers, but I have yet to see one of them take a single step to demand justice.
As I indicated earlier, we support the establishment of these institutes, especially since new funding will be allocated to one very crucial area, medical research.
However, we do have some concerns, which is why our eminent colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve will be moving amendments on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois. For instance, we feel that Bill C-13 stints on the role of the provinces. Of course, members opposite tend to forget, as they did these last few years and especially in the throne speech, that health is an area of provincial jurisdiction. In Quebec, the province has jurisdiction over health.
This is a fact that is barely acknowledged in the bill. And since the bill is based on the constitutional divisions of power, the provinces are given short shrift. The bill says that the provinces and all kind of people will be consulted, and so on, but nowhere does it say that health is an exclusive jurisdiction.
For example, the bill states:
—consult, collaborate and form partnerships with the provinces and with persons and organizations in Canada that have an interest in issues pertaining to health or health research;
We would have like to see a statement recognizing that the provinces are fully responsible for health and that they will be the first partners informed and consulted, particularly with regards to the defining of the different health research institutes.
I emphasize that the Quebec government is finalizing a science policy. It will identify strategic areas in health research, including mental health, cancer, human genome and biotechnology.
One of the amendments that we will certainly propose will be to the effect that the Government of Quebec, like all the other provincial governments, must absolutely be consulted and that its research priorities must be taken into account in establishing the health research institutes.
There is another problem with the provision I quoted earlier. In the bill, the expression issues pertaining to health is used more often than the word research. This bothers us because the use of the expression issues pertaining to health leaves the door wide open for the federal government to interfere in various ways in the area of health.
One amendment we will certainly put forward will be to clarify this issue and to replace the expression issues pertaining to health with the word research, because what the government wants to achieve with this bill has to do with health research and not. We hope this is a mistake and that the federal government does not intend to interfere in the area of health, which is under Quebec's exclusive jurisdiction. We will clarify that, and my distinguished colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve will work to make this bill clearer.
We support health research because it is fundamental, and this is something I cannot overemphasize. However, the few hundred million dollars that will be spent on health research over the next three years must not overshadow the fact that this government made huge cuts in the health sector. Cuts in transfers to the provinces, particularly for health care, have had devastating effects, the full extent of which is still unknown.
I always feel uncomfortable when the Minister of Finance rises in the House, which is a very solemn place, and tells us he increased transfers to the provinces for health, post-secondary education and income security, as this is not true. He did not even increase transfers. He keeps cutting them and he will continue to do so until 2003.
By then, this brazen Minister of Finance, who keeps spouting nonsense during oral question period, will have cut $33 billion in transfers to the provinces. Half or close to half of that amount would have been allocated to health. This is not peanuts. In Quebec alone, there will be a shortfall of $850 million in the health sector this year, while the cumulative cuts imposed by this brazen minister will total $6 billion of which half, in Quebec, would have been earmarked for health.
On the one hand, the minister invests a few hundred million dollars in health research, while on the other hand he is cutting billions of dollars which should have been used to help the sick, to manage hospitals and to make more beds available.
We have been talking about oncology for a while now in Quebec, Ontario, and other regions of Canada. These billions of dollars could have been used for all that. But the Minister of Finance preferred to take that money from the provinces. He is the one mainly responsible for the mess in hospitals, but that does not bother him in the least.
It takes some nerve to do what he did, particularly when he says, hand over heart, that he cares about the plight of the sick and of the poor children. This is sheer hypocrisy.
I have never seen such hypocrisy in this parliament as when the minister puts his hand over his heart while talking about poor children and sick people, when he contributed to making these people suffer even more.
The House can expect my eminent colleague, the hon. member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, to move a series of amendments to make this bill more acceptable.