Madam Speaker, after listening to the debate today, one really wonders where we start in this story. From my point of view the fact is that Canadians think that the health care system needs change. I as one Canadian and all of my colleagues believe the same. Before I go very far, though, I want to make clear that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Mississauga South, a very eloquent speaker. I want to make sure that he gets his time in.
Every Canadian believes that the health care system is in disarray. We have heard in Ontario, the wealthiest province in Canada, of people sitting in hallways unable to get service or to get a hospital room. We have heard of a shortage of doctors. We have seen small communities that do not have doctors. We have seen emergency rooms overloaded and unable to handle the calls coming in. We have seen flu epidemics and the doctors system unable to deal with that.
We at the federal level have been very concerned about that, particularly just after we decided to transfer $11.5 billion more to the provinces so that they could deal with these emergency situations. It is my understanding that many of those dollars ended up in the coffers of the Ontario government.
The Ontario government saw fit to take the money and spend a bit of it. It put $700 million into a bank account to raise interest rather than deal with the emergency for which the money was set aside. It drew the money out of the federal account and put it in a bank account to raise interest. When we are worried about an emergency we should deal with the public fairly and meet its needs.
As a result I think it made many of us on this side of the House wake up. We woke up to the fact that the provinces run the health care system. They control the hospitals and medical spending. They control the institutions that train doctors. They have an opportunity to move an agenda which they are not doing.
My colleagues across the way are suggesting that we should transfer $1.5 billion from training areas and put it into health care. I would guess that is an honourable approach if $1.5 billion will solve the problem.
Many of us on this side of the House think there is another solution. We must sit down with the provinces to look at the problems in health care. We must decide how to train more doctors. We must decide how to provide more hospital beds. We must decide how research can take place.
The provinces are asking the federal government not to get involved in their administration. It is a tragic mess. The government will be blamed for not giving the provinces enough money, but they do not want to work with us in providing a system that will work across the country.
We on this side of the House believe very strongly that it is not just a money issue. It is far more than a money issue. It is an issue of proper planning and changing our approach. It is an issue of dealing with home care. It is an issue of dealing with drugs. It is an issue of dealing with doctors. All these issues must be discussed on a fair basis with the federal government, which is funding a tremendous amount of these costs. Yet once we turn the dollar over to the provinces we lose total control. We have no control at all.
Before we turn more money over I think it is critical that we sit down with the provinces to develop long term plans that will make sure Canada is going in a safe direction. We cannot look at the Ralph Kleins of this world who are creating their own disasters. They are pushing for privatization in the health care system which will inevitably leave the rich with the service and the poor with no service. We all know this.
We have been fighting the right wing element in the country for 50 years over these kinds of issues which says that we should give the service to the rich; if they can pay for it, let them pay for it. Then what does the poor get? What remains. No, that is not fair.
The Harris government is sending people for cancer treatment to the United States instead of spending the $700 million that is in the account on proper materials to provide this care. Harris is not a person to be trusted in this business. The frank fact is that our health minister has to sit down and work out a plan.
Let me turn to the Reform motion. It is an interesting one. Reformers are suggesting that we should take $1.5 billion and put it into health care. They are also suggesting that the $2.5 billion in the budget was not enough. The total money they are asking us to put in the budget for health care is $4 billion.
It was interesting to read the Reformer's solution 17 in their prebudget recommendations. They suggested that spending only increase by $1 billion in all programs in Canada. In other words, why after the election when people are talking about health care are they suddenly saying that we should spend $4 billion on health care alone when before the budget came out they had a position that the total spending on all programs in Canada increase by $1 billion? It does not make sense.
They asked for increased spending on the RCMP, increased spending on defence and increased spending on almost every federal program. They were asking us to put money here, put money there and put money over here. Now they are saying put $4 billion into health care when their whole approach was a $1 billion total spending increase in Canada. That appears to be a pretty big two-face to me.
Let us stop to think about the positions Reformers take. They come back week after week saying that their constituents told me to do this so they are jumping over here. Long term planning is something Reformers have never done, have never adequately faced the demands of and will never do accurately. That is why the Reform Party will never be the government of the country. Reformers bounce from pillar to post. They change with the drop of a hat. They never stay consistent with any of their policies, and yet they say that as somebody changes their mind their policies will change as well.
I have difficulty with what Reformers are proposing today. I have difficulty with one of my colleagues across the way stating that we have not put money into health care. Our total dollar spending in 1993-94 when we took government was $37 billion. This year with all expenditures put together it will be $39 billion. We have increased spending in health care and education by $2 billion since we have taken office. We cut initially but all the extra transfers coming back have increased that budget.
There is a twisting of the truth, and that is too bad. The reality is that federal and provincial governments need to sit down to work out the health problem in the country, and not do it by just sending money to the provinces.