Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my hon. colleague from New Brunswick Southwest, I rise to speak to the amendments he has put forward at report stage of Bill C-13, an act to establish the Canadian institutes of health research and to repeal the Medical Research Council Act.
I hope my hon. colleagues on all sides of the House will listen carefully to the motions that are being put forward and will give them every consideration when it is time to vote.
It is my belief that these motions will by no means take away from the bill, but in fact will add to its credibility. We could probably even say clarity at this point.
The government must demonstrate a commitment and respect for the principle of accountability through public access to research material and reports pertaining to public health issues.
The Minister of Health has given us a bill that is specific in its explanation of the organization of the CIHR. The CIHR will consist of a president and governing council. Together they will be responsible for the overall direction of the institutes.
The bill states that the members of this governing council will reflect the highest standards of scientific excellence. The bill further states that the appointments will be made by the governor in council; by definition, the cabinet and ultimately the Prime Minister. Here we go again. This is a very cozy arrangement and the very reason we should be concerned. In other words, cabinet and the Prime Minister will decide who will hold these positions.
The president and the governing council of the CIHR will hold these positions at the pleasure of the government and they will be up for review every five years. The motions before us speak clearly to the re-examination of the formula we currently use for appointments to positions such as these.
I believe the motions before us today offer a distinct opportunity to move beyond partisan politics. We must put in place a process that is both transparent and principled, a process that will be dependent on the credentials of the highest order.
As I read the bill it became increasingly evident that I was on familiar ground. The bill projects Jean Charest's plan for Canada's next century, the platform for health care that I ran and won on in the 1997 election. I cannot fault the minister for coveting the plan of the Progressive Conservative Party because our plan is visionary.
As Mr. Charest said, we should continue to adopt new medical treatments, new pilot and experimental programs that would provide Canadians with state of the art, cutting edge services and treatments, and new technologies to improve the access to care in rural and remote areas of the country. He said there would be programs to test new integrated delivery systems aimed at providing health care based on the the highest quality of health practices. He spoke of the development and maintenance of a Health Canada worldwide website on the Internet to provide a state of the art health care information system, including advice on the prevention and treatment of illness to help hospitals and researchers link their knowledge bases in the country. Is that not the task of the new agency?
In 1997 the Progressive Conservative Party said that it would create a national institute for health with membership drawn from the health care field. It would have a board that would be co-chaired by the federal minister, along with the provincial and territorial ministers. The Progressive Conservative platform in 1997 laid out the right process to save our health care system. It was one of vision and challenge.
The Liberal policy is a disaster for our research institutions and probably the major cause of the brain drain, particularly on top of very high taxes. Are members aware that people with cancer are being sent to the United States for very high-priced treatment?
Today, they are forced to go after those brains for the new technology and superior equipment that we should have here.
Members of the Progressive Conservative Party support Bill C-13 in principle since we had already written most of it. However, the government now, more than ever, is under scrutiny by the Canadian people for its accountability, responsibility and lack of transparency and it might do well to give consideration to the motions before us today, which pertain to these very issues.