Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to this motion brought forward by the Bloc Quebecois, “that this House urges the government to respect provincial jurisdiction over health care management, to increase transfers to the provinces for health care unconditionally, and to avoid using budget surpluses to encroach upon the health care field”.
This is not a purely academic debate, nor is it a debate pitting sovereignists against federalists. This debate is to demonstrate that, in the kind of system we have in Canada, we have to let the experts do the work if we want the system to work. We are not having this debate to go after the Liberal government. We are having this debate so that, at the end of the day, there is a reasonable amount of money in our hospitals for equipment and emergency rooms, in CLSCs for front line care, as well as for long term care and palliative care. Federal MPs all received a document this week in their office regarding funding for palliative care.
We are having this debate so there is money to address the problem of suicide, and we want this to be done within the existing framework, through the mechanisms that have been in place for a long time. Health care has been recognized as a provincial responsibility.
We want to avoid repeating the battles of the past. We want patients to spend the least amount of time possible in emergency rooms. To achieve that, the federal government must stop playing games, it must stop saying under what conditions it will put money into the system, how big the maple leaf will have to be for transfer payments. That is the reason behind this kind of motion.
Let me give an example. It is a good illustration of what can happen when you do not mind your own business.
Concerning the issue of the millennium scholarships, we have in Quebec our own loans and bursaries plan. All student associations and academics have acknowledged it is the best in Canada. We have opted out of the national plan in 1964 with full compensation, and we have outperformed everybody else. We may not be the best in every area, but in this case, we are.
The federal government has decided to yield to the whims of the Prime Minister and create the millennium scholarship program. This program is at cross purposes with the Quebec loans and bursaries plan.
The basic principles are being changed. The federal government claims its loans and grants system will reward excellence. In Quebec, the whole plan is based on the concept that we should give the students what they need for their living expenses. We do not want to see in other areas a replication of the intrusion we have witnessed in education.
When the federal government made cuts in health care, it did not try to achieve some visibility for those budget cuts. It made the cuts and told the provinces they would have to make do with whatever they got.