Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-13, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act. We cannot oppose the principle of creating health research institutes in various target areas of public health.
Therefore, today my remarks will focus on Bill C-13 as introduced by the government, but I will also talk about the problems in the bill.
I would first like to remind the House of a few facts. Last February, the government announced in its budget new money to establish virtual institutes of health research. Following this announcement, the Minister of Health, Allan Rock, set up a transitional council to give advise on the establishment of these institutes.
For the most part, the bill before us today is based on the recommendations made by this council. The council, which was made up of 34 members representing the scientific and academic communities, spend several weeks looking into the definition and operation of health research institutes in Canada.
Simply put for the benefit of our listeners, CHIRs will replace the Medical Research Council, commonly known as MRC, and will have a broad research mandate. According to the federal government, they will allow development of new ways of doing research on biomedical issues, but also on issues more directly affecting social sciences.
These institutes will not be centralized basic facilities; they will be virtual, since they will first and foremost serve to communicate information and to link, through electronic data processing, researchers in universities, hospitals and other research centres in Canada.
Decisions have not yet been made concerning the institutes that will be created, but the task force has given some examples of themes around which the institutes could be established, for instance, aging, cancer, children and mothers' health, heart disease, etc.
The Minister of Finance's budget of February 1999 provided for investments of $65 million for the fiscal year 2000-01 and an extra amount of $175 million for the following year, for the purpose of creating 10 to 15 Canadian institutes of health research. With the basic budgets already provided to the MRC, the government now expects more specifically that it will double its funding over three years and that funds for the CIHR will reach $500 million in 2001-02.
To summarize, Bill C-13 is essentially aimed at creating Canadian institutes of health research to organize, co-ordinate and fund health research at the federal level. It repeals the Medical Research Council Act and establishes the structure, the role and the mandate of the institutes.
Let me touch on some problem areas in Bill C-13. In the preamble, unfortunately, instead of recognizing the provinces' exclusive jurisdiction over health care services, the government recognizes only that they have some sort of a role to play.
The second whereas reads as follows, and I quote:
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;
It should have provided, however, that the provinces are responsible for managing the health services within their borders and that their agreement is necessary in the event of encroachment on their jurisdiction.
Instead, clause 14 provides that the governing council is responsible for managing the CIHRs as a whole. The provinces do not even have the power to select the CIHRs.
In actual fact, therefore, nothing permits the Government of Quebec to ensure that the CIHRs meet its health care priorities. In addition, it is important to point out that throughout the bill, there is no reference to health research but to the more general expression health related issues.
So the creation of the institutes themselves is not the problem, but rather the fact that once again there is the possibility of direct encroachment on provincial jurisdiction in the area of public health care without any solid consultation of the provinces first. The government is setting up parallel structures rather than support the work done by the provinces.
The Bloc Quebecois supports increased investment in research, and in health in particular. This is why we support the principle of creating these institutes. Nonetheless, it is important that Quebec receive its fair share of federal R&D funding, all the more so because Quebec has historically received only 14% of such funding, as we know.
I would also like to remind the federal government that it must not designate any CIHRs in Quebec without the agreement of the provincial government. While the multidisciplinary vision of Bill C-13 is to be commended, it is unacceptable that the provinces have not been given a key role.
In closing, I wish to point out that, through its Canada health and social transfer introduced in 1993, the government has unilaterally and irresponsibly pulled out of the health sector.
It is to be commended for now investing more in research, but it must not lose sight of the need to restore provincial transfer payments. The CIHRs, as they are called, must not be a way for the federal government to interfere in provincial jurisdiction, while overlooking the fact that it is itself largely responsible for the massive cuts and difficult situations the provinces are facing with respect to health care.
The wonderful achievements of the Liberals opposite in recent years can be summed up as follows. Transfer payments have been cut by $6.3 billion since 1994. Quebec has absorbed almost 30% of these cuts, or $1.8 billion of the $6.3 billion shortfall. Over half of federal cuts affected the health sector.
And finally, I repeat that the Bloc Quebecois supports the bill in principle. However, I am certain that we will continually have to remind the government opposite to keep Quebec's jurisdiction clearly in mind. Amendments will definitely be in order.