Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak on budget '99 which has as its theme building today for a better tomorrow; yes, a better tomorrow for our adults and youths of today and for our fellow citizens yet to be born in anticipation of the coming century of the new millennium.
In today's news Statistics Canada reported that the Canadian economy for the whole of 1998 grew at the rate of 3%, turning in one of its best quarters of the decade at 4.6%.
For individual Canadians today's news reports that the disposable income for the whole year, when adjusted for inflation, was up 1.5% from 1997, a real gain in real income.
It is this type of economic growth that the federal government is committed to sustain and surpass. Indeed it is a key goal of the government to create a strong economy that generates well paying jobs and ensures a higher standard of living for all Canadians.
That is why budget '99 will invest more than $1.8 billion over the remainder of this fiscal year and the next three years in advanced research, in innovation, in the information highway and in support of employment.
Before I focus on these budgetary items, let me at once say how extremely pleased my constituents of Winnipeg North—St. Paul received the news that among these other items, budget '99 is a health budget as well.
An additional $11.5 billion, $3.5 billion of which is an immediate one time supplement available this fiscal year, has been earmarked specifically to the health care system over the next five years, over and above the $12.5 billion cash floor presently in the Canada health and social transfers. This is a truly substantial amount that has been welcomed by provincial governments whether of the NDP or Tory banners.
This additional allocation translates to $425 million over five years for my home province of Manitoba. This health component of the budget reflects more than the amount itself. It reflects the common vision that all premiers and territorial leaders confirm as undertakings they had previously given in an exchange of correspondence with the Prime Minister at the first ministers meeting on February 4, 12 days before the budget was announced.
It reflects their undertakings that they remain committed to the five principles of medicare, universality, portability, accessibility, comprehensiveness and public administration. It reflects the common vision that they achieved in the framework for social union signed shortly before the budget was announced, that all levels of government, federal, provincial and territorial, would make themselves accountable to Canadians in an open and transparent manner.
This common vision includes the belief that research is at the core of a quality health care system, a system that will improve care and treatment, prevention certainly and hopefully a cure. It is about our hope as Canadians that a woman will overcome the tragedy of breast cancer and a man the tragedy of prostrate malignancies, that a grandfather and a grandmother will be spared premature loss of memory and that a son and daughter will regain nerve functions following a devastating accident or injury.
Hence, budget `99 has also earmarked a substantial amount for health research, $25 million to create a new research fund henceforth to be called the nurses using research and service evaluations, or NURSE fund for short.
This new initiative is to enhance the leadership role that nurses deserve to play in the health care system now and in the future. Also there is $35 million to the Canada health services research foundation.
In each of the next three years the Medical Research Council and Health Canada's national health research and development program will see an increase of $27.5 million and $2.5 million, respectively, to their annual budgets. This new allocation is to provide immediate support for advanced health research.