Mr. Speaker, thank you for reading aloud the very important motion on health care which the NDP opposition has placed before the House today. Every member of the House will have an opportunity to vote on it before the day is out.
I would like to indicate at the outset that I am very pleased to share my time with the member for Winnipeg North Centre, the hardworking health critic of the New Democratic Party.
The motion, on which every member of the House will have an opportunity to indicate where they stand before the day is out, deals with the undisputed number one priority of the Canadian people namely, health care, and more specifically the threat to health care that is currently a reality in this country.
This week we saw a budget introduced in which the government of the day indicated to Canadians that their priorities do not count. How else can we interpret a budget that makes available one dollar in tax cuts for every two cents allocated to health care? The government knows there is a serious health care crisis happening across the country.
In Saskatchewan in the 1940s Tommy Douglas took the first important step toward the introduction of a universal, publicly funded health care system for Canadians. He issued some very important advice. He said not to ever ever make the mistake of thinking that the enemies of a universal health care system will have gone away. They may have gone into the shadows, they may be hiding out, but there will always be those who take the view that they personally or their friends can benefit from a for profit health care system; a health care system that takes no account of whether people happen to live in a province where health care is available to them on the basis of need, or where people do not have money in their pockets to purchase the health care services they need. There will always be people who will want to benefit from a two tier health care system that looks a lot like that health care system to the south of us today in the United States of America.
That was very good advice, because we have today the political fight of our lives under way to ensure that we preserve and strengthen through change a universal public health care system, the single greatest achievement of Canadians. I think it is the very thing Canadians value most about being a Canadian.
Some may think that fight is taking place between the federal Liberal government and some Canadian premiers, notably the premiers of Ontario and Alberta. The Canadian people know better. Canadians know that the fight is taking place between those who value and will work to preserve and strengthen the universal health care system and those who place it in jeopardy. They know that those who have put it in jeopardy include on the same side of this battle the federal Liberal government of the day, the Conservative governments of Ontario and Alberta and others who would seize the opportunity that the federal Liberal government has created to tear down that universal health care system.
The first blow to that system was given in the 1995 federal Liberal budget but we do not have time to talk about how we got into this mess. As members of parliament elected to represent Canadians who value our universal health care system, today we need to stand and vote to preserve and strengthen that system. Every single member of the House will have the opportunity later today to indicate which side of this battle he or she is on.
Because we do not have a lot of time before that universal health care system slips away, in order to move quickly and dramatically we must take some very specific concrete steps. Our motion sets out three steps.
We must first take urgent fiscal action. That means restoring the cash transfers for health care to a minimum of 25% of health care spending over the next two years.
Second, the federal government must take the necessary steps to prohibit private for profit hospitals. We have to draw that line in the sand. The federal Liberal government knows perfectly well that Ralph Klein and his government have been busy moving in that direction. At this very moment they are preparing to take the next step that would allow for the operation of private for profit hospitals. It is the thin edge of the wedge. We have seen what has happened with eye clinics in Alberta. Canadians have had their eyes opened to what that means in terms of a two tier system. We cannot allow that to happen in Alberta. We cannot allow Mike Harris who is watching with glee to think he too can move in that direction.
Third, the federal government must stop other health services, such as home care from being privatized as well. In the province of Ontario the excellent home care services that were beginning to be put in place, beginning to be integrated into a comprehensive home care system have been torn down. Why have they been torn down? Because the federal Liberal government gave Mike Harris the permission he needed to do it. It cut so much money in unilateral cuts to health care starting in 1995 and still has not restored those lost funds. The Harris government said, “We are going to take this as permission to begin delivering home care at the lowest possible cost. We are going to shift it on to a private system”.
Excellent experience, respected health care and home care workers like the VON, the St. Elizabeth Society and the Red Cross have literally been thrown on the human scrap heap to make way for privatized home care. It is not a pretty picture.
Today every member of the House, including every member from the provinces of Ontario and Alberta who knows what an ugly picture that privatized home care is, has the opportunity to make it clear that he or she is prepared to stand and fight for what Canadians want, and that is a universal, publicly funded health care system.
We know that every member of the House understands that is what Canadians want and we know that the health minister will stand to say “Yes, but it takes money”. Then let us talk about the money. Yes, it takes changes. Let us talk about the changes. But let no member of the House use the excuse of cowardice or dithering or delaying to fail to stand in his or her place today to support the NDP opposition motion that is before us to strengthen and preserve through change the health care system for which Canadians have worked so hard.