Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-13. It is a very interesting bill in the light of the government's position on health care in Canada. There are some very positive aspects to the bill that I find quite supportable, but we have to take a look at it within the context of the government's attitude toward health care spending.
I note that the creation of the CIHR is a direct response by the federal government to the views of health research leaders in Canada who took part in the 1998 national task force on health research. The health minister introduced Bill C-13 and it was given first reading on November 4 of this year. It is to create this institution by April 1 of next year.
As I mentioned there are some good parts to the bill, but I do want to put it into the context of where the government is coming from as far as its commitment to health care spending in Canada. I note that the federal government has allocated a $374 million budget for the first year of operation, that is the year 2000-01. By the end of the second year federal funding will increase to $500 million. I also note a good part is that the estimated administrative cost for the CIHR will consume approximately 4% to 5% of the total budget. The remaining budget will be used directly toward scientific and health research, which is all very commendable within the bill.
However taking a look at it within the context of what the government has done with respect to health care funding, as commendable as the bill is, certainly the government cannot be commended for its actions with respect to supporting health care in Canada.
It loves to throw down the gauntlet for the provinces. The provinces have responsibility under the British North American Act to deliver health care services. They look for ways to get around the billions and billions of dollars in funding cuts that have been imposed on them by the federal government. It throws down the gauntlet in challenge, saying can you not do better than that when in fact it has reduced the amount it contributes to the delivery of health care services in Canada to only 11% of all health care costs. The rest of the costs are borne by the provinces and, to an ever increasing amount, by Canadian citizens.
The fact that the government has reduced its funding of health care in Canada to only 11% of the total health care costs does not seem to stop it from taking a holier than thou approach to the provinces when they are scrambling to try to get around the terrible cuts that have been imposed on them by the federal government.
Going back quite a few years, there was an agreement between the federal government and the provinces under the Canada Health Act that called for a 50:50 split and a sharing of jurisdiction and decision making. It is very interesting, as has been said many times, that the 50:50 split which has reduced down to 11% should by rights reduce the amount of say the government has in it but, no, it continues to carry on as if it were a legitimate funding partner, or at least one prepared to follow through on the commitment to the 50:50 split it made many years ago.
The 1999 budget promised to restore $11.5 billion over the next five years. That was rather interesting. We have talked about $11.5 billion, which is a lot of money, but when we take a look at the fact that it is over the next five years and when we look at the number of Canadians who will be served by the approximate $2.5 billion a year, we see that the numbers the government is now putting back is small peanuts after having gouged and cut $21.5 billion out of that spending envelope since 1993. The $11.5 billion is still $10 billion short of what it has already ripped out of health care.
There are 187,000 Canadians awaiting surgery. The average waiting time is 12 weeks. I think of a close personal friend of mine who suffered two successive industrial accidents at his workplace. He ended up badly tearing the cartilage in both of his knees. First, he tore the cartilage in one knee. Then, being a very conscientious worker, he went back to work perhaps before he should have. He ended up slipping again in a second accident and he could not recover because of the injury to his first knee and darned if he did not rip out his second knee.
My friend has to get around on canes. After six months he is still waiting for proper diagnosis. MRI diagnosis is available to him but he has had to wait six months. My friend is in constant pain when he tries to get up from his chair to come to the door to let me in. It is a major effort for him. The government has a direct responsibility over the fact that he, along with many other people, is having to wait that length of time for simple diagnoses.
The next thing that will happen is that following the diagnosis he will have to wait for whatever procedure is recommended by his physician. It is wait and wait as a result of draconian cuts by the federal government to the transfers that should have by rights gone to the provinces.
Coming back to Bill C-13, while it appears on the surface to be another bureaucratic creation it does have some very strong redeeming values. One of the strongest redeeming values is that it gives an opportunity for young, bright, Canadian researchers to continue to be employed in Canada. Perhaps even more of them can be employed in Canada. This speaks to the issue of what our party has consistently been referring to as the brain drain from Canada.
The bill goes in its own positive direction relative to slowing down the flow of the brain drain, but because of the overbloated bureaucracy in Canada and a lack of spending on the part of the government relative to health care these people have been squeezed. It also has an awful lot to do with the taxes young, bright researchers will have to pay.
As I was flying in this morning I was interested in chatting with a Canadian citizen formerly living in the Niagara area. She is an engineer who is now working in Detroit. She wants to be as close to Canada as she can be because her family still resides here. She had to go to Detroit not only to get a job but once she got there she found the difference in her after tax income to be so profound she did not feel there was any way she could now come back to Canada in spite of the fact that she wanted to come back.
The Liberals are sending a kind of mixed message. Whether we are talking about the amount of money they have ripped out of health care spending, about the amount of money they are continuing to spend on bureaucracies, or about the tax issue, people feel they have to end up leaving Canada.
There are some very redeeming parts to Bill C-13. There are some concerns such as the fact they have budgeted only 4% to 5% of the total budget to be spent on administrative costs. However, given the wide scope of the mandate, will they be able to stay within that 4% to 5% range?
This is one time when I suppose we need to have some faith in the government that the arm's length relationship which will be set up within this new function will work. In the long term, rather than working within this good envelope it has to take a far broader perspective and a far broader look at the way it is killing health care in Canada.