Madam Speaker, it is an honour and pleasure for me to rise today in the House of Commons to speak to the motion introduced in the House by the New Democratic Party of Canada.
The proud legacy of this party is that of Tommy Douglas who brought into the country in Saskatchewan the first medicare system amid great opposition. It has been mentioned today by the member for Winnipeg North that he spoke about it at the time and said that we should never ever forget that once this system was introduced it would continue to be under attack. There will always be those waiting in the shadows who see money to be made in the health care system regardless of what it means for the health of Canadians.
I will be sharing my time with another member of the New Democratic Party. I know the Minister of Health would love to take 10 more minutes to try to clarify some of the muddy waters we have heard about already today, but I will be sharing my time with a member of my party who will be speaking to protect our health care or medicare system.
When the history of this place is written, I think historians will look back on budget 2000 introduced by the government and its effect on health care and say that it was a watershed budget, that it was a turning point in the history of the Liberal Party and Liberal ideology.
It was not long ago that the Liberal Party once saw a role for government in the lives of Canadians. That should not surprise to anyone because that is the attitude of Canadians; that is the ideology and culture of this country. That is why we had such proud institutions, such as the CBC and passenger rail services, as a notion that there should be a good standard of living for all Canadians and, more than anything, there should be protection of health care.
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona.
The ideology in the country was that no matter where we lived, whether it was in the east, the centre, the north or the west, we would be entitled to quality health care and equal health care. This is what made Canadians proud.
Over the last five to seven years the government has chipped away at those values. It has chipped away at the cultural institutions. It has chipped away at the notion of regional economic expansion. It has chipped away at some of the ideas of the founders of the Liberal Party, people like Monique Bégin and social scientists like Tom Kent. People who once had a role to play in that party do not anymore. Regrettably, the Canadian public tolerated that because we were told there was deficit. We were told that we had to sacrifice many things on the altar of deficit reduction.
Then the Minister of Finance began talking about how many surpluses he had and that budget after budget after budget resulted in a surplus. That is why I say this budget introduced this year marks a profound turning point in this country. The paltry sum of money allocated to protect health care in the country in a time of surplus means that the government has decided to support or allow the beginnings of a two-tier health care system. I predict it is something that Canadians will not allow to happen.
The federal funding to the provinces was once a real partnership. Today the Minister of Health and his parliamentary secretary talked about convening a meeting of ministers to work in partnership. The federal government has lost much of its moral authority to influence the way those policies will develop because of the reduction in spending. A partnership where the federal government pays 15 cents of every dollar to health care is, what we would call in the business community, a minority shareholder position. It is not in a position to influence the real direction of where health care will go. If it is not in a position to do that then it has abandoned the leadership role that is so necessary and that should be exercised by the federal government.
The transfer payments to the provinces have been cut and cut and cut. In 1993 the cash transfers to the provinces were $18.8 billion. The explanation for that was that the government had to fight a deficit. However, it has not been restored to the previous spending levels nor will it be restored. There is also no projection for its restoration to the same level of funding, at least not as far as the government's figures show and not as far as the government can foresee.
What we know is that the federal government has relinquished its leadership role and cut its funding to the provinces by about $4 billion or $5 billion from where it was in 1993. How have Canadians reacted? From every part of the country and from every political leader in the country there has been condemnation. The British Columbia minister of finance said “I must also say that the federal finance minister falls far short of the need for funding quality health care and education which British Columbians have told me is their top spending priority”.
The president of the Manitoba Nurses Union said:
This budget didn't go nearly far enough. Ninety million dollars is enough to keep the doors open (on health care) and not much more.
It's not really sufficient. It is a one-time grant and there is no commitment for long-term federal funding, and without that I don't know how we will protect medicare.
These are not partisan statements. This is not a member of the House attacking the government for political reasons. This is someone who works in the health care system.
The minister said that he will meet with the partners in health care. Let us see what they are saying, and they are from every political stripe. From my own province of Nova Scotia, Premier John Hamm said:
—the provinces were expecting the “full meal deal” on health care.... Instead, we got crumbs.
In my province, where we face a deficit of close to $500 million, the premier said that we needed a specific amount for health care and we did not get it.
The NDP finance critic in the opposition party in Nova Scotia called the budget a betrayal of Nova Scotians and suggested that it may work in provinces where there is a robust economy but not in the have-not provinces in the country. That is where the federal leadership is falling down. That is the betrayal to the country.
The Liberal leader, a former parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, Russell MacLellan, said that the $2.5 billion transfer increase was woefully inadequate and would accentuate real problems in health care in Nova Scotia.
Premier Tobin, another Liberal, the only sitting Liberal premier left in the country, said that this was woefully inadequate.
The list goes on and on. It is not just the New Democratic Party saying that there is a problem here. This transcends political partisanship. I will be watching very carefully to see how the Liberal members of parliament, the ones from the provinces where their own provincial leaders have condemned this budget in terms of health care, vote. I am sure their constituents will also be be watching.
As the leader of the New Democratic Party said today, the motion has been particularly crafted so that every member of the House who believes in a publicly funded medicare system can show their support to Canadians for that. It calls for three things, things that the Minister of Health has said here today and has recognized need to be incorporated in health care funding. It calls for more funding. I think the Minister of Health said in his own statement that we needed more funding. He said that it needed some ideas, and we have not diminished that. There is nothing in this resolution that says we are not open to new ideas.
What it says is that there will be “a substantial and sustained increase in cash transfers” to the provinces, which the Minister of Health has said he is prepared to look at. It further states “by taking the steps necessary to prohibit private for-profit hospitals and to stop the growth of private for-profit health services in Canada”. The Minister of Health has said that he is not favour of that either.
Given the fact that this resolution does not in any way contradict what the Minister of Health says he wants to do, I will be hoping and watching to see him stand in favour of the motion when it comes to the vote.