Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-13, which establishes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. This bill is now at report stage, following the hearing of witnesses and clause by clause consideration by the Standing Committee on Health.
I will remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois supported the principle of the bill and voted in favour of it at second reading stage. First of all, I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and health critic for the Bloc Quebecois, for working so hard on the health committee to try to convince the government majority that this bill needed amendments to make it acceptable to Quebecers.
I also heard my colleague from the New Democratic Party, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, talk to us about all the amendments she proposed to the government because she wanted to see some changes made to the bill. In many respects, she finds it just as unacceptable to Canadians. However, members of the government majority have shown no openness with regard to the amendments proposed by the opposition parties and no co-operation whatsoever. Therefore, my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve had no choice but to bring forward his amendments here, in the House, at report stage, to give us at least an opportunity to talk about what is unacceptable in this bill.
Bill C-13 is important to us. However, as it is worded, it concerns us. In fact in its 52 clauses, it refers over 15 times to research into the health care system and health issues, which are without a shadow of a doubt provincial matters.
Thus, the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois make it clear that the bill focuses on health research and not on the potential expansion of mandates beyond the field of research.
The Bloc Quebecois wants to make sure that it is the provinces making the decisions on the choices and principles underlying the health care networks and services to the public as is provided in the Constitution, which the Liberals claim they are defending and which they are blithely flouting with ever more obvious encroachment on provincial jurisdictions.
When the federal government was not at war with Quebec, when it respected its partners in the Canadian federation, when it was not led by individuals with complexes who need to go behind Quebec's back to reassure themselves that they are powerful, when it was guided by the values of public good and community welfare rather than political visibility, it passed laws in this House creating federal agencies such as the Medical Research Council or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that respected provincial jurisdictions.
It is therefore possible for the federal government to introduce bills without disregarding provincial jurisdictions, which also means that Bill C-13 could quite easily have been amended to reflect the distribution of jurisdictions at each level of government without watering content down. The government's bill ignores the distribution of jurisdictions. This negates the very principle of what a federal government should be.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois introduced amendments to allow the establishment of these institutes while also respecting the distribution of jurisdictions. These amendments also seek to ensure that what is being promoted is indeed the communication of information among researchers, so as to improve health networks, rather than the implementation of rules defined without the provinces' input.
Through Bill C-13, the government once again decided to invade a provincial jurisdiction and to legislate without having had the courtesy of inviting its partners in the federation to help develop this legislation.
Again, this government claims to know better than all the other governments what needs to be done regarding biomedical research. Once again, as was the case with the millennium scholarships or the transitional job fund, the federal government is finding ways to spend our billions, which are not its money, as it pleases, primarily to gain more visibility and buy votes in the process.
Sure, some will argue that the interim governing council that developed this bill included Quebecers, competent people, and I have no doubt that this was indeed the case. Through their experience and expertise, these people undoubtedly made a remarkable contribution while sitting on the interim governing council. However, they had no mandate to represent Quebec and, more importantly, these people's primary concern was not to be a watchdog for the Constitution and for the respective jurisdictions of the various levels of government.
Could it be that this government, which claims to be a champion of clarity, which wants to give lessons in democracy to the whole world and which boasts that Canada is the most decentralized federation in the world, is afraid of giving real autonomy to these research institutes? Is this government that afraid of true decentralization?
Once again, this arrogant, conceited, know-it-all government is refusing to listen to the opposition's call to reason.
It is not so much the creation of the institutes of health research that should put us on our guard but the fact that once the institutes come into being, even virtually, there will still be a serious risk that, with their federal mandate, they will conduct research into public health services without first consulting with the provinces, thus interfering directly in areas of provincial jurisdiction.
The Bloc Quebecois is therefore proposing a series of amendments whose primary purpose is to emphasize the importance of respecting respective jurisdictions and to reaffirm that provincial jurisdiction takes precedence over federal jurisdiction when it comes to health.
Investment in research and development is necessary and very much desired in hospital and university research circles. In addition, it is important that Quebec receive its fair share of federal research and development grants.
In recent years, Quebec has been seriously neglected when it comes to research and development grants and it is high time that the federal government restored the balance by ensuring that additional funds are made available to researchers and universities so that they can pursue their work.
Historically, it is known that Quebec receives only 14% of federal government research and development spending with respect to infrastructures. However, it is well known that research grants are awarded on the basis of merit. It is also important to note that, under the peer assessment system, approximately 30% of grants go to researchers in Quebec. It must therefore be recognized that Quebec's researchers are good at what they do and that they excel, particularly in the fields of mental health, cancer, and genome and biotechnology research.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the Bloc Quebecois is in favour of increasing research and development budgets by creating virtual institutes and that it has supported this principle at second reading.
The federal government must respect the specific characteristics and strengths of researchers in the regions of Quebec in order to focus on their successes and their skills in the areas in which they excel.
The Bloc Quebecois says yes to the creation of a flexible and multidisciplinary structure to facilitate the organization of health research. The Bloc Quebecois says yes to increased R and D funding in the health field. The Bloc Quebecois says yes to all measures of such a nature as to provide more security to our researchers and to slow down the brain drain. The Bloc Quebecois does not, however, say yes no matter what the price.
We set two preconditions: the government must put an end to its diversionary tactics and re-establish the transfer payments, and it must respect the jurisdiction of Quebec and of all the provinces with Bill C-13.
We all accept, and understand, the urgency. But care must be taken to ensure that democracy does not suffer once again. We have had our fill of government urgency creating great upheaval in the entire process of this House and of the standing committees. Our duty as parliamentarians forces me to remind hon. members that the Bloc Quebecois is not prepared to vote in favour of just any bill, even one that acknowledges that the researchers of Quebec need funds.
In closing, I wish to state that the Bloc Quebecois is offering its co-operation to the federal government in getting this bill amended so that it will really serve the development of health research, while respecting federal-provincial divisions in jurisdiction and impacting on the health of the people of Canada and of Quebec.
If, however, our amendments should be rejected, then unfortunately the Bloc Quebecois will have to vote against this bill on third reading.