Debates of March 20th, 2000

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition signed by a number of Canadians, including from my own riding of Mississauga South. It is on the subject of child poverty.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that one in five Canadian children live in poverty. They remind us that in 1989 the House of Commons passed a resolution to seek to achieve the elimination of child poverty by the year 2000.

The petitioners therefore call upon parliament to use budget 2000 to introduce a multi-year plan to improve the well-being of Canada's children. I think we have seen that the government has done just that.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[The Deputy Speaker]

When the House broke for question period, the hon. member for Red Deer had four minutes remaining to him in the time allotted for his remarks.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was summarizing the fact that the Liberals are the ones who have destroyed the Canada Health Act. They are the ones who have destroyed the accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and universality of the health care program. They are the Kevorkians of health care.

What are the solutions? One solution is obviously that of funding. There is a need to return that funding. Over the 10 year period from 1993 to 2004 the Liberals have cut $36 billion from health care. We need co-operation between the provincial and federal governments, not using the axe as a hammer and not staying with the socialized state run health care system which was good in the 1960s but is not good in the 21st century.

We only have to look at today's newspapers to see what the government is doing with the provinces. Whether it is the health minister and his drive-by smear or the Prime Minister promising the status quo on health care, over and over again there is the attack on the provinces.

We are 23rd out of the 29 OECD countries when it comes to technology. Germany, Sweden and other countries have looked at new and modern methods of surgery. They are putting us in the dark ages in comparison. One only has to visit hospitals across the country to find that out.

We need to stop scaring people and stop using emotion. We need to stop threatening two tier U.S. for profit health care. Everybody is opposed to it. Let us make that clear and stop scaring seniors in particular.

Let us talk about the waiting lists. Let us talk about technology and the shortage of specialists. Let us talk about the brain drain. Let us talk about what we are going to do about long term care patients and the fact that one in ten Canadians today are over 65. In 25 years one in five Canadians will be over the age of 65. These are the real problems which members should be talking about and for which we should be trying to find solutions in co-operation with the provinces instead of constantly hammering the provinces.

We need to fix the Canada Health Act. We need to talk about clarifying the role of the provinces and the role of the federal government. This has to be looked at with an intelligent approach, not based strictly on emotion but based on an unsustainable system where the status quo is not acceptable.

We need a results based health care system, one that is centred around the patient. We need patient centred health care where we worry more about the patient than we worry about the system. If we start from this grassroots basis we will deliver a health care system people will be happy with.

Above all we have to encourage provinces to try pilot projects. Maybe Bill 11 in Alberta is not the answer. At least the federal government should want to try new things as pilot projects and not threaten the provinces to cut off the funding. We cannot smear the provincial governments. It is not the way to build co-operation.

I ask the government to stop playing politics with our health care system. Let us find some solutions.

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member for Red Deer arises from comments which he made in closing his speech. He said that maybe Bill 11 in Alberta is not the answer. Perhaps the hon. member could elaborate on that.

Many of us are deeply concerned about Bill 11. We believe that this is a very clear assault on universal health care in Canada, that it is an attempt to introduce a two tier American style health care system and if it is allowed to proceed by the federal Liberal government, it will result in the death of medicare.

The member for Red Deer has said that maybe Bill 11 is not the answer. Does he or does he not support Bill 11?

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, certainly I support Bill 11. I think it is the way to go. We have to try new things. When people say they are opposed to it, we have to ask them if they want the status quo. Do they want to have medicare as it was in the 1960s, a socialized, state run hospital system along the lines of those in North Korea and Cuba? Are those the kinds of health care systems they want or do they want to modernize the system? It should be a pilot project. We should try it.

The premiers are forced into coming up with these ideas because there is no leadership from the federal government. That is what is wrong. Whether it works or not, the point is they are trying to fix the system which is unsustainable and the status quo is not an option. And if it does not work, we will try something else.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about solutions. His first solution was to throw more funding at it.

The member should refer to the excellent report, which was two years in the making, of the National Forum on Health. It found and observed among other things that at least $11 billion in our health care system was not being spent wisely and that it was important that Canada seek to rationalize the health care system to ensure that our valuable health care dollars are being spent wisely in the system.

The member also said that we were all against two tier health care. I am not sure that is quite right in view of the fact that his own colleague, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, has announced his proposed leadership of the new Canadian alliance and is to run precisely on a two tier health care system, one for the rich and one for everybody else.

I think the member ought to do his homework and get his facts straight.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, certainly after listening to the first part of the member's comments, he should talk to the health minister and check out the use of medical dollars the right way. We agree 100% with that. There is waste. There is accountability required but the government has cut $25 billion from the cash transfers to the provinces. That is too much. Obviously that needs to be restored.

As far as a two tier system, I will repeat that I believe that pretty well every member is opposed to two tier U.S. for profit health care where the rich have one type of health care and the poor another. Whether one of our party's members or one of his party's members decides to go off on his or her own and promote health care for the rich is totally up to that member. Everybody has a right to do that. This party's position is it is opposed to two tier for profit health care.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we can listen all we want to the member opposite say that he rejects a two tier American health care system. I can say that his very leader at the Ontario Hospital Association convention not so many years ago preached precisely that. I can quote person after person in the Reform Party who is prepared to stand and talk about a two tier Americanized system. To hear the member opposite caterwaul away and talk about their not being in favour of two tier American style medicine and health care is totally erroneous. He should look at what his party members and his leader have said in the past. Then he would know.

Not so long ago, on February 23, 2000, the Reform Party had prebudget discussions. What did Reform members talk about in terms of how much money they would put into health care in Canada? The answer is a big fat zero. If you were so intent in putting health care money in, why at that time did you not indicate that you were prepared to do so? Talk about duplicity. It is outrageous.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member knows he must address his remarks to the Chair.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously it is the government that has created a two tier health care system that has been going on for years. It is multi-tier. Some 50% of people in Ontario have to go to the U.S. for cancer treatment. That is two tier. Thirty per cent of patients in Rochester are Canadians who are paying. There is the fact that the WCB jumps the queue. There is the fact that so many others can jump the queue.

Obviously it is the government that has created the two tier health care. It is the government members who have to be responsible for the destruction of health care. They are the ones in government, not us. And when we are, we will fix that health care system. There will be funds and we will review that program.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Waterloo—Wellington.

I am very pleased to join the debate for a number of reasons. I am glad that attention is being drawn to the serious problems in the administration of some parts of HRDC. My concern stems from my view of the importance of what Human Resources Development Canada does in this country.

The motion suggests that funds should be diverted, channelled away from HRDC to the provinces for health care. I said I thought HRDC is very important. Health care is very important. The matter that we are addressing, the way grants and contributions are administered, is very important. The motion by the Reform Party suggests to me that it lacks vision on at least two grounds.

The first one is the thought that these HRDC funds have nothing to do with health care. This is a lack of vision as to what true health care is in Canada. It has been shown that when the economy is good and booming and people are working, people are healthier. It has been shown that when young people can be made to feel confident or when older people can be made to feel confident, they are healthier.

It has been suggested that we divert these funds from one area to another, from human resource development in Canada in its true sense to health care in the provinces. This is some sort of a facade or a smoke and mirrors exercise the Reform Party is going through. In fact HRDC programs are a critical part of health care and, by the way, a critical part that the federal government plays.

That brings me to my second area of lack of vision on the part of the Reform Party. I just heard the previous Reform member talking about it. I believe in partnerships with the provinces, but this is the only level of government which can work in the national interest promptly and effectively and which can reach into any part of the country where there is a problem and solve it. From the other point of view, it can reach into any part of the country where something good is happening and help the rest of the country to take advantage of it.

To blindly transfer funds to the provinces is not our duty, even though I believe in partnerships with the provinces. As we all know, transfers to the provinces now are larger than they have ever been in the history of Canada. There are substantial moneys being transferred.

It interested me this time when there was a considerable increase in the transfers to the provinces and the transfers were described as being for higher education and research and for health care. That was because one of the things the federal government is trying to do is to improve education and research across Canada so that our people are better prepared for the new economy and can take advantage of it, so that our economy will boom, and so that our people will feel better and as I said at the beginning will actually be better. We will need to spend less on hospitals if the economy is actually functioning.

We transferred those moneys. The budget says higher education, research and health. That is what it was for. I have heard nothing from the provinces about higher education and research. That includes, by the way, health research. I have heard nothing. They have simply complained that the money transferred for health care at the present time was not sufficient.

It is on these two grounds: first from the point of view that health will be improved by moving these moneys from Human Resources Development Canada to the provinces and, second, from the point of view that the provinces in some miraculous way can manage these funds better than the federal government.

Although it is not directly relevant to the debate, I want to give one example of something that has occurred in the last two years. I think members opposite pander to the provinces. I have great respect for the provinces, but those members forget their duty is in the national interest at the federal level.

I just want to mention putting our elementary schools on the Internet. One might ask what that has to do with today's argument. I for one know that the elementary schools are absolutely and entirely within provincial jurisdiction, and so they should be. The thought of the federal government, this House, trying to run the day to day operations of an elementary school in Peterborough frightens me, but that does not stop me from saying for once that the federal government has to reach into our elementary schools and do something about bringing them into the modern era.

The government did that. On our own we reached directly with federal involvement into the provincial jurisdiction. We put every elementary school and all other schools on the Internet. That is a federal government acting in provincial jurisdiction in the national interest. That is what I think we should be doing in health care.

Certainly we should transfer our share of the funds, but we should first of all have some idea, some plan as to where those funds would go. Second, we should not do it, as this motion suggests, by gutting the rolls of the federal government in human resource development, the development of the human resource of Canada across the country.

I most truly recognize that there are problems with the management and the operation of some of the grants and contributions programs in HRDC, but I think this motion is against the national interest and, as I have tried to explain, will not help health in Canada.

To make these points, if I might, I have a list of every one of the grants and contributions in my riding in the last year or so. This list was published five or six weeks ago in two local newspapers. It occupied two pages in those newspapers. People read it with great interest. With great openness the people of Peterborough have been able to study these grants and contributions to see truly what they mean.

These grants and contributions are very important to me. It is very important to me that these grants be properly managed. I do not want it to be that the files are lost or that there is something wrong with the way they are being administered. Nor do I want these grants and contributions being made to unsuitable and inappropriate projects. I just do not.

This is simply one list, the list for Peterborough. We all know that opposition ridings in some areas of these grants and contributions have received far, far more than the ridings of government members such as me.

Let me look at the very first one on the list. They are not in any alphabetical or other order. The first one is Community Opportunity and Innovation Network Peterborough. That is an organization which deals with young people in all sorts of ways by training them in computer skills and things of that sort. In particular, in recent years it has been teaching them and encouraging them to become entrepreneurs in our community, to develop companies on their own. At least one of those companies has become an international company already.

The next one on the list, and I am just going through it in the order I have it here, is a local training board, a provincial-municipal-federal operation. Among the many things it does it conducts apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeship programs nowadays are largely with smaller businesses, smaller workshops.

If I go through this I see others working with the homeless in a very practical way. I see another where jobs are created to help all Peterborough businesses operate better in the international marketplace. We see Junior Achievement, Kawartha Lakeshore, a widespread area. Again it is youth entrepreneurship that we see there. Another one deals with helping elementary students, as I mentioned before, think out their career options more effectively. Another one is working with the municipalities of Peterborough on emergency preparedness and creating various jobs.

I know my time is limited. I could mention the John Howard Society, which I have just done. I could mention the conservation authority, which also trains people through these programs, and a whole variety of other groups. My point is that in Peterborough these are good programs. In Peterborough these programs are well administered. I deplore the fact that the Reform Party would like to gut this area of federal government activity on the fake premise that in some way it will help health care in Canada.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member says the Reform Party wants to gut these programs. It is utter nonsense. We are saying that the funding for these programs should be frozen at the same level as it was this year, which is $13.3 billion. A $13.3 billion program is pretty healthy. We are simply saying that, instead of putting more money in it this year. By the way, an extra $2.5 billion was put into grants and contributions last year so this is hardly a program that is in peril of its life. Instead of putting another $1.5 billion in it this year, it should be put into health care.

What are the government's priorities? The member tends to give us the impression that its priorities are these grants programs. Government members talk about more funds being spent on that. I think the government is completely out of touch with the people of Canada.

The people of Canada do not want more grants and contributions so the government can use them for political purposes. The people of Canada are terribly worried about our health care system and about the fact that there is not enough support for it. Yet the government is blustering and puffing and blowing about a simple suggestion to free spending on grants and contributions, which is already fat enough with $3.3 million a year being spent on it, and does not want to put $1.5 billion into health care. I invite the member to explain to Canadians why another $1.5 billion into health care is so repugnant to him.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question. At the beginning of my speech I made the point that this is an effort to divert moneys from HRDC into the bottomless pit of provincial health care as it stands at the moment.

I heard one of the member's colleagues say previously that something needs to be done about the way health care is managed. Do we take money from a set of programs which already has objectives and is serving useful purposes and put it into a bottomless, formless pit by just throwing it to the provinces? My answer to that is no.

I was mentioning the grants in my riding. The Victorian Order of Nurses and Home Care get support from this. Trent Valley Literacy, one of the literacy groups in our community, helps adults and younger people become literate. These are worthwhile, known programs. Why freeze or divert moneys from these programs to something we do not yet know? We heard the discussion about the bill in Alberta. We do not yet know how best to spend the moneys or how best the moneys will be spent in different parts of the country.

I see employment assistance programs, first step workshops for people who have great difficulty getting employment to help them get the first job. These are important programs that are operating now. The diversion of these funds to provinces like Alberta which are moving toward private sector health care is inappropriate.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have heard many strange things from the other side of the House, but this is the first time I have ever heard health care referred to as a bottomless pit. That has to set some sort of record.

I do not think the hon. member for Peterborough has begun to understand the motion. He keeps going back to HRDC, and well he might, but the motion refers to grants and contributions of all kinds. We are talking about that $13 billion manure pile which is out there to help the friends of the Liberal Party. We are not just talking about HRDC. That just happens to be the goût du jour measure.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Madam Speaker, this manure pile includes the Ontario March of Dimes, which helps people find jobs; the Canadian Hearing Society, the Rural Women's Economic Development Group, which helps rural women develop their own businesses; and targeted wage subsidies for disadvantaged youth. That is what the manure pile the member refers to contains.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important and hugely interesting debate for all Canadians wherever they live in this great country. Health care is a very important issue and Canadians expect all levels of government to take a keen and important interest in this kind of issue because it is so important not only to individuals but to the families of Canadians.

I am a farmer and still live on the family farm. When I heard the member opposite talk about a manure pit, it really rankled me a little bit because, as the hon. member for Peterborough indicated, we are talking about money for students and money for the disabled. We are talking about money for important initiatives that the Government of Canada helps to fund. It is quite something to hear Reformers talk about manure. All they are noted for is a lot of crap.

Having said that, this particular motion is really insincere. It is replete with duplicity and hypocrisy.

On February 23, under solution number 17, the members of the Reform Party had their chance to spell out in the prebudget alternative issues what they would do in health care. What did they say? They said that it would add zero dollars.

Today, with their smiling faces and great duplicity, they have stood and pretended to defend medicare, to defend what Canadians hold near and dear, our health care system. It is galling to hear Reformers talk the way they talk because we know what they stand for. They stand for two tier American style health care. No matter how they protest, no matter how they caterwaul away and try to pretend that they are not up to their necks in an American two-tiered system, they are.

Canadians see through these people and through their hypocrisy. Canadians, quite frankly, reject that. I can quote the Reform Party leader and member after member who have over the past little while talked in terms of American style health care and a two-tiered system. We are not going to take it. Canadians will reject it and the government stands firm.

When we brought the budget down this past February, it was clear that we not only had a commitment last year of $11.5 billion, but we had a commitment this year as well. We gave another $2.5 billion over to the provinces and territories to use as they saw fit. They could spend some on education. They could spend some on health. They had the ability to use the money in a very meaningful way and with great flexibility built in and know that the Government of Canada would be there for them when it counted.

When the Minister of Health meets with his territorial and provincial counterparts in May, we will have an opportunity to bring the partners and stakeholders together on this very important issue and see where we will go in health care. It is not always about throwing money at the system. It is about how best to approach the system and make it work better into the 21st century.

There are all kinds of ideas that need to be looked at. Three come to mind very quickly. First, is there a better way to provide primary care in Canada? Primary care and its delivery are important topics that we need to look at. I am pleased that the Minister of Health and his counterparts in the territories and provinces will do precisely that. They will take a look at how best to approach that very important area.

Second, how best can we take a look at home care and community care, and are there national standards? Is there a standard that can apply to Canada in terms of how best to provide that? As the House knows, that is an important and integral part of the health care delivery system in Canada. We want to examine that.

As chair of the Standing Committee on Health, I can tell the House that I have been very involved in that debate and that process. I have attended conferences and have talked to people across Canada on how best to deliver that to Canadians in a good, positive and meaningful way. With our aging society, that will be the way of the world and the way of the future. We need to ensure that we have a system in place that instead of being a patchwork system across Canada, will be in the best interests of Canadians and their families.

The third thing I want to touch on in terms of what the health minister and his counterparts in the provinces and territories should look at is the whole issue of accountability.

Canadians want the health care system to be accountable. We need to look at that and we need to put in place the checks and balances that will enable us, in a very meaningful and positive way, to have a system of accountability that makes sense to ordinary Canadians.

We will take a look at that and we will do it in a way that underscores the commitment of the Government of Canada, unlike the Reformers who would gut the system, who would add no cash to the system and who would tear the system apart because that is what they are known for and what they are good at. At every opportunity those people opposite have tried to pit region against region, province against province and group against group to tear at the very fabric of Canadian society.

We do not have to go very far to see that. They are always trying to chip away at the institutions of our great country. Instead of, for example, celebrating the supreme court and the fact that our supreme court is considered around the world to be one of the finest, what do they do every chance they get? They tear at the very fabric of that great institution. Every chance they get they try to tear down the values of Canada and tear away at the very symbols of our country and they do it in the most outrageous sense.

It struck me not so long ago that this was the party that was going to bring a fresh start to parliament. What did we see the Reformers do? The first thing they did was call in the limousine and move into Stornoway.

What was one of the next things they did? They marched up and down these grand halls of democracy with mariachi bands, burritos and all kinds of stuff sticking out of their mouths, denigrating the halls of parliament. Canadians see through that. Canadians will not stand for that kind of nonsense from a party that claimed it would bring a fresh start to parliament, that claimed it would bring fresh air and a new way of doing business in parliament.

The flag flap was another interesting debate. I distinctly remember the member for Medicine Hat taking the Canadian flag from his desk and throwing it unceremoniously to the centre of the floor of the House of Commons. A fresh start, they say, a new way of doing business, they say. The flag flap, the throwing of the Canadian flag on the floor of the House of Commons, the marching up and down the hallowed halls of democracy in this land with mariachi bands and sombreros, imagine. Where was the leader at the time of the Nisga'a treaty? He was in Mexico sunning himself on the beaches. Imagine the duplicity. Imagine the hypocrisy of these people.

We see this again today when they come in with crocodile tears talking about the health care system and what they want to do. Canadians see through it. Canadians will not stand for what they stand for. They will reject it every time.

Reformers cannot even get their act together. They are so far on the right wing that they do not even know where to begin to get their people rallied because they do not know how. They, along with this motion, will ultimately be thrown into the dustbin of history where they so duly belong.

We on the government side will continue to protect the values of Canada. We will continue to protect the health care system that we know is important. Canadians look to us to provide that. They look to the federal government to give the kind of leadership necessary in this very important area. We will continue to do that. Unlike the Reformers, we will do it with honour and with dignity for all Canadians.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been listening very quietly here to a little bit of unparliamentary language. I heard the word hypocrisy used. I heard the words lack of honour used. Coming from the most corrupt government in the history of Canada—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I believe the hon. member has just gone into debate. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is pretty clear that the Liberals do not care about health care. They only care about denigrating their opponents, the people who are trying to hold them accountable. That will not work. Believe me, Canadians can see through political rhetoric and they will see through that shameful speech we just heard. This is the party that just called health care a bottomless pit. It is on the record today. That is the party opposite, the government party.

The member talked about pitting province against province and causing divisions in the country and yet his government is making unremitting attacks against other provinces, such as tearing down what Ontario is doing and making attacks against Alberta. This is the government that has attacked other leaders in the country who are trying to clean up the mess it created in health care.

The motion is very straightforward. It says that we should freeze the support for the grants and contributions program that has proven over and over to be badly managed and abused.

In today's headlines alone there were five or six instances of poor management, mismanagement and shocking misuse of public money, yet the government resists giving any more money to health care. It would rather put more money into these programs; $13.5 billion is not enough for it. It wants more. It does not want to put more money into health care. Instead of defending that with logic, it simply tears down the opposition.

I see no honour and no dignity at all in the government, and neither do Canadians.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting how they can dish it out but they cannot take it, these holier than thous. It is interesting to hear them get up on their feet and talk about honour and dignity.

We stand for honour and dignity. We do not stand for the dishonour of simply grandstanding to carve out a name for ourselves, as I suggest the hon. member is doing. Instead of going off into some flighty la-la land like she has been doing for the last little while, she should concentrate on the facts. The facts are crystal clear but, oh no, she does not want to do that. That would muddy the water too much and it would not get her grandstanding message across.

This member and all Reformers opposite should take note of the importance of the transitional jobs funds and other HRDC measures that we put into place. Instead of pulling apart and trying to pit group against group and region against region, they should be celebrating what we are doing for aboriginals, students, the disabled and community groups across our great country.

A number of Reformers actually took time to write the minister and to lobby on behalf of their constituents, and yet here they do the big flip-flop. Yes, they say that they have lobbied on behalf of their constituents but that politically they now have to oppose it and grandstand like they have been doing for the past seven weeks.

Canadians see through those people over there. They see who they are and what they represent. Canadians will have no part of it.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, there were comments made a minute ago about resist and about giving more money to health care.

In 1996 the National Forum on Health went to the Prime Minister and asked for $1.5 billion, and he gave it to them. Last year all the premiers came to Ottawa and said they needed $2.5 billion. The Prime Minister gave them $3.5 billion, $11.5 billion over three years, and in this budget an additional $2.5 billion. Premier Harris today has half a billion dollars sitting in the bank. He can use it yesterday.