Obviously it still bothers them. They are yelling. They yell because it bothers them. All they like to discuss about is the Constitution, jurisdictional quarrels, and they can talk about that endlessly, day in, day out.
Yet, what concerns us all, wherever we live, and this is the fundamental reason why we are in politics, are people and their social and economic concerns. Of all areas, none is as important as health care. While we are debating this motion in the great comfort of this House, the irony is that hundreds of people across Canada, whether in Quebec or elsewhere, are waiting on stretchers, sometimes for entire days and entire nights, to receive medical treatment. This is the reality.
Many patients even wait months before being admitted to a hospital. Some of them, and newspapers have documented such incidents repeatedly, even die while waiting for a chance to be hospitalized and to receive some care. Meanwhile, in the great comfort of this House, in our nice suits and ties and nice dresses, we discuss whether the Constitution should be protected for Quebec.
In the great comfort of this House are we discussing how the federal government and provincial governments alike should give us a more effective, more human health care system? Are we discussing how we can get rid of the long lines outside our hospitals? Are we discussing how so many hundreds of patients are waiting to reach the hospital, waiting to be served, sometimes months at a time?
I know. I have three doctors in my family, two of whom work in Quebec. We have a shortage of anaesthetists. We have a chronic shortage of radiologists. Hospital emergency care is in dire straits in so many provinces.
Are we discussing how we are to better implement the five great principles of health care, one of which is reasonable access to hospitals?
This is why this budget will be geared to health care. This is why the federal government has decided, because it is the overwhelming desire of Canadians, to put jurisdictional quarrels aside and say we have to get into matters that affect people first and stop the silly quarrels where we spend days on end discussing whether this is provincial, that is federal and this is municipal.
Canadians are asking us to quit quarrelling and get together and decide together that we will make these systems work better for all of us. This imperative is even louder in the case of patients and people who are sick.
Canadians are telling us in poll after poll that they are fed up with our quarrels and our nonsense. They are fed up when the Bloc Quebecois stands up in the House day in and day out and starts talking about the sovereignty of Quebec.
I heard the member from Saint-Hyacinthe say a few minutes ago that the solution to the problem is look after our own things. That will solve everything.
The last Quebec minister who tried before the election to solve problems one at a time, Minister Rochon, made such a mess that he had to be pushed aside by the Premier of Quebec. He no longer is the health minister. He was the great “problem solver”, but he made such a mess that he had to be pushed aside. Now they say “When we run our own show, everything will be fine”.
In an editorial published the other day, the Globe and Mail mentioned that many reports concluded that it was not purely a question of money, that given the money that exists globally in the Canadian health care system, if our system was more efficient and better organized and controlled, then we would be in a position to offer Canadians a much better health care system than the one we have now.
Do we discuss ways to deal with all these problems together, to bring about common solutions to crises that call for common solutions? No. What do we do? We talk about the Constitution, about petty squabbles, once again. And things are not about to change because now we do not only have the Bloc Quebecois to deal with. We also have the united alternative, which is going to solve all of our problems.
The Reform Party, completely to the right of the spectrum, that believes in a free economy and a double tier system of medicare, is joining in with the Bloc Quebecois that wants a sovereign Quebec.
How will they sew their mishmash together? How will they form this so-called united alternative? It is really wonderful. They are joining all these motions together. The Bloc Quebecois presents a motion and Reform joins in. Reform presents a motion and the Bloc Quebecois joins in. Meanwhile people are waiting for solutions. They are waiting for beds in hospitals. They are waiting for access to hospitals. They are waiting for the federal government to make this truly a health budget. We will do this despite the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party.
This budget will put the accent on health care and it will be a positive budget which Canadians will welcome.