Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment about the discussions around social union since we are awaiting the full details of today's developments but I know full well Canadians have clearly indicated that they have felt left in the dark on these very substantive and serious developments pertaining to the future of national programs in the country today.
Let it be clearly put on the record that once again Canadians feel decisions are being made at the level of executive federalism away from parliament and beyond the ability of Canadians to participate actively and fully in the debate. I want it to be clear and on the record that we call once again for this discussion of social union to go from this day forward into the public domain where all parliamentarians can debate the issues and where all Canadians can be fully involved.
Although this point will be further elaborated by my colleague from Churchill River, aboriginal peoples remain concerned that they have been excluded from fundamental decision making around the future of national social programs and once again we are left without the adequate input and advice to deal with what is clearly a most horrific problem in terms of health care on reserves and outside reserves among aboriginal peoples. It is a matter of serious concern to all of us that in a country as wealthy as Canada we have third world conditions all around us and we see deplorable conditions pertaining to the health and well-being of first nation communities.
There are some delicious ironies in this debate. It is clear we are talking about the future of a national health care plan. We are talking about the ability of the federal and provincial governments to co-operate with participation from Canadian citizens on the future of our health care system. At the same time we have a federal government that is so hung up and preoccupied with this notion of taking political credit and demanding report cards about provincial activities although it is this government that took the $6 billion away from taxpayers that was going toward the health and social programs of Canada.
It is certainly ironic especially since it was this government in 1995 that brought in the Canada health and social transfer which not only took the biggest chunk out of health care spending in the history of this country but which also removed conditions by which provinces would be required to adhere to certain standards and principles. That is one delicious irony of this debate.
On the flip side another irony comes from a province like Manitoba with a provincial government that has cut so deeply into its provincial health care system, all the while sitting on a significant surplus. And it has the gall to issue a petition calling on the federal government to increase its share of transfer payments. That is the kind of ridiculous situation we enter into when we do not as a country recognize the serious problems at hand and work together to build for the future.
It is absolutely clear that what is at hand today and hopefully is being resolved as a result of developments today is a commitment on the part of the federal government to reverse the decisions it made a number of years ago which in effect put us on the road to the death of medicare. It is absolutely clear that today we are are trying to put our health care system on some kind of stable footing out of a crisis mode of operation so we can move forward.
Any kind of contribution from members, including those from the Bloc who have brought us this motion today, is most welcome. But let us be clear that what is fundamentally at stake is the question of medicare, the question of a national, publicly administered, universally accessible health care system.
While we take some encouragement from today's developments, we are also very worried given the past history of the federal Liberal government on this issue. Let us keep in mind why we are in such a mess today and learn from the lessons of the past and correct those errors.
I want to put on the record a brief statement by a well known former policy adviser to the Liberal government, Mr. Tom Kent, who recently released his own paper on social policy reform: “It is not in the stars, not because of forces beyond our control that we have faltered in national purposes, that our pursuit of the public interest has lagged. It is in ourselves, in the atrophy of national policies”.
Let me also put on record the words of a well known former Conservative, Mr. Dalton Camp, who recently very clearly described the problems we are facing: “It is simply folly to believe that we do not have the means to provide for a national health care system. Means and ends no longer converge. The idea of government as a custodian of the national interests has become a shibboleth and self-government a myth. We are now looked after, if at all, by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, America's trade and competitiveness act and the promoters of the pending multilateral agreement on investment. We are looked upon by other members of the new world club as compliant to the point of docility”.
That quote coupled with Mr. Kent's observations points to the very critical issues at hand. What is the true intention of the federal government in terms of health care from a national perspective? It is more than about money on the table. It is more than claiming political credit. It is truly about direction, about standards and about leadership.
The most graphic way one can refer to the concerns we have is to look at the way our public system has fallen into private hands.
There is no question, we have had report after, that a good part of our health care spending today is from the private sector. We are rapidly losing hold of a sound publicly administered system.
Our biggest worry is that we are very much on a slide to a two tier American style health care system. That is the last thing Canadians want.
I urge all members today to look to this point as the beginning of a new era where we can actually recognize the importance of a national health care program; the principles of the Canada Health Act, the need to stop offloading and deregulation by the federal government in the area of health protection, the need to find ways to stop this slide into a privatized American style health care system and to find ways where we can truly work at the federal-provincial level with citizens participating at building for the future.