Mr. Speaker, I am particularly keen to participate in the debate on Bill C-13.
I have listened carefully to the debate as it has unfolded today. It has been a thoughtful debate. There are some clear differences being stated among the political parties.
I will begin my few remarks today by reminding members of parliament that between 1994 and 1997 the government continuously cut its investment in health research. I remember at the time that the health care sector was appalled that the government would cut research funding.
Once a research program is stopped, we cannot simply add a few dollars and start it again. There are professional researchers and scientists who often invest their entire lives in projects. It is not simply a matter of turning on the taps and returning to the research project. Long term preparation is carried out by the people who do this research.
The cuts that came between 1994 and 1997 dealt a death blow to much of the scientific research in the health care sector. My doctor friend from Winnipeg would be only too sensitive to this issue, but I think he would agree that those cuts were lamentable. Today, with Bill C-13, we are admitting that there were some really serious cuts, that those cuts were not just minor skin wounds, that they amounted to major surgery in the health care research system.
During these years per capita funding of health research fell from $9.14 to $7.92. Canada, as a result, became less competitive in its funding levels compared to most other industrialized nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and others.
These cuts had several effects. They drove researchers, including established professors, recent research graduates and post-graduate students, across the border in search of sustainable funding. My colleagues in the Reform Party, whose views I always respect—I do not agree with them, but I respect that they have a right to hold whatever view they want—are concerned that it was the salaries provided to the researchers, doctors and professors which drove them to leave Canada.
I would not deny that is a factor, but the scientists I have met, the medical researchers I have spent time with, say that one of the reasons they were leaving Canada, were contemplating leaving Canada or had actually left Canada was not so much because of the taxation system, but more because the facilities available to them in these other jurisdictions would enable them to do what they were professionally motivated to do. In other words, if they were serious scientists and there were no decent research labs, facilities and programs in Canada, they would almost be forced to go elsewhere to carry out the research to which they had dedicated their lives.
Coupled with the large scale withdrawal of federal funding from core social programs, the cuts in health research diminished the capacity of our health care system to care for patients and stifled the application of new research findings.
We can imagine the frustration that must have been felt and that is still being felt by serious professionals in the health care field who know that their patients should be receiving these kinds of treatments, who know that their patients should be benefiting from this kind of research, but because the research is being developed in other jurisdictions it is often not available to them because of the cuts which have been made to our health care system.
The withdrawal of federal funding from post-secondary education and cuts to health research drove many university administrations to foster commercial research partnerships with industry. We have to acknowledge that this has a whole set of concerns which we ought to register.
These partnerships, in many cases, have decreased academic freedom due to an emphasis on applied research, a trend in self-censorship among university professors and the privatization of research findings for the purpose of profit. All of this is fine. We appreciate that there are various kinds of research, but much of the kind of research which we see as being necessary, particularly in the field of medical research, is not something on which we can easily put a price tag. The benefits may be seen many years into the future and may require pure scientific research as opposed to applied scientific medical research. Once we start with commercial research partnerships, naturally the commercial sector will want to see some likelihood of profit in the foreseeable future. These are very serious concerns.
We support the general thrust of this legislation. It is long overdue. It is a step in the right direction and it is an attempt to correct some of the past mistakes made by this and the previous government. The government has endorsed this new model of health research funding, the Canadian institutes of health research. By and large, we welcome this as a replacement to the Medical Research Council.
We support the new money that will be put into the system. By doubling the 1997-98 levels of research funding to $500 million in the year 2001-2002, Canada will regain some of the ground that it lost to Liberal government cuts over the past six years.
Clearly this legislation, in its support for researchers and academic programs, will go a long way in alleviating the problem of the so-called brain drain in Canada, but the legislation, in our judgment, needs to go even further.
We have a certain reservation that our funding levels under this particular research program will remain disproportionate to funding in the United States and other industrialized countries which put a much higher premium on research and development. Again, while this is a step in the right direction, let us not say that it is adequate. Much more needs to be done if we are to maintain and regain our rightful role in the world of scientific research.
Let us face it, we have to accept our responsibility. We are a major industrialized nation and people look to us to work with them so that scientists and researchers from different parts of the world can complement each other's work. Canada has been letting go of its traditional leadership role that it could be playing.
We want to suggest that a more likely figure for consideration by the government would be $750 million annually or 1% of the total annual health care expenditure. Surely there is no one in the House who would say that spending 1% of the total health care budget on research, which will improve the health of Canadians now and in future generations, is an excessive amount when we will be in a surplus situation with $90 billion over the next five years. We would like to put that on the table for consideration.
We are also rather enthusiastic about the nature of the research which will take place in the social context. The multidisciplinary, multisectoral and cross-regional approach of the bill ideally will contextualize hard research, acknowledging social, cultural and environmental influences on our health. Our reservation is that this emphasis needs strengthening so that there will be a central focus in the causation and prevention of ill-health, in particular on social and environmental determinants.
As a bit of an aside, this is why we are concerned about some of the provisions of the NAFTA and of potential changes as a result of the World Trade Organization talks, which may hinder us as legislators in passing laws that would protect the health of Canadians in the future.
If we disrupt the profit flow of American research or drug companies, or companies offering various aspects of health prevention, we could possibly be liable to compensate them for their lost profits as a result of the trade deal. We see once again a mixing of the NAFTA and the WTO into something as fundamentally important as medical research.
We also support the whole issue of applied research, in that the goal of the legislation is to apply research and to connect health researchers to health providers in a significant way.
Our reservation is that this initiative be more than an empty gesture on the part of the government. Social transfers to the provinces need to be restored. How will new research results be applied without adequate health care funding, equipment and the necessary staff?
In spite of our enthusiastic support for the major thrust of this legislation, we are concerned about the commercialization aspect. We are concerned about the governing council. My colleague from Winnipeg indicated our concerns in that regard in her last presentation.
There is the whole issue of ethics. The government has made ethics explicit in Bill C-13, saying that health research should take into consideration ethical issues. That sounds pretty wimpy to me. We have to get a lot tougher than that and say that we will either take ethical issues into consideration or not. We should not sort of consider them. It is a little weak in the wording. The words “consideration of ethics” are completely inadequate.
This bill is a major step in the right direction. Our concern is the level of funding provided for scientific health research. In order to keep the balance appropriate we need to re-establish those serious levels of transfer payments for health care to complement the good work that ought to flow from this legislation.