Mr. Speaker, for the record, we support the establishment of the Canadian institutes of health research. Listening carefully to the previous speakers, most parties support this bill, but not without reservation. The reason for this is the cynical use of politics which the Prime Minister has displayed in recent years with regard to health care. It makes many of us nervous, especially if we look at the budget which was recently brought down.
When I read the budget and listened to the Minister of Finance introduce it, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was not an election budget. Why? Because health care was the missing equation in the budget with the paltry $2.5 billion over the next three years that was committed, which will be split between health care and education. That will mean that most provinces will get enough out of the new budget to run their systems for an average of two or three days a year for the next three years. The Liberals just simply paid lip service to health care.
Getting back to the issue before us, I have some problems with the establishment of the institutes. One of my problems is the cynicism which we see in the Prime Minister's approach to health care. He has created a problem and he knows full well that he has the capacity to fix it. He probably will, just slightly before the next election, probably on the eve of the next election, which is rumoured today to be called for October 16. We can expect some recurring announcements in the health care field between now and the end of the summer. The Prime Minister has created the crisis and now he is going to employ Machiavellian politics to fix that very crisis to make himself popular. I do not think it is going to work.
We have a problem with the construction of the institutes. For starters, all of the appointments will be made by the Prime Minister. At page 6 of the bill, line 21 states: “The President of the CIHR shall be appointed by the Governor in Council—”. What does the term governor in council imply? It simply means that the Prime Minister, along with the cabinet, will appoint the president. What it boils down to is that I do not trust the Prime Minister to make these appointments. I do not think any of the other party members on this side of the House do either.
The interesting thing is that the governing council, of which there will be no more than 20 members, will again be appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada.
Many of the amendments that we have put forth in this bill address that very concern. We think these changes are necessary to the bill and will result in the Prime Minister consulting the health community before these very appointments are made. We actually defined in my amendments what we mean by the health community. I think we have to get away from one man determining how this institute will be set up.
One of the things I mentioned in committee was that this is not new in terms of what other countries in the rest of the world have done with institutes like this in the past. In fact, this is modelled after the U.S. example. The biggest difference in the U.S. example is that the president of the United States does not appoint the president of the institute, nor does he appoint the members of the institute, that is the governing council. That is a very important point and I am glad the member picked up on that. The United States operates under a different system. What it has effectively done is depoliticize the process.
I would like to see that done in this bill but the government will probably just give short heed to the amendments on the floor that would actually change the way this committee is structured and the way it is set up.
The other thing is the fact that once this body is established, we have no idea how many institutes there will be. We do know there will be virtual institutes but we have no idea how many there will be and what they will be. There is no indication in the bill what the government is considering.
I think what the Canadian people are demanding today is transparency in everything. What we would expect as opposition members is to see some openness in the selection process so that we in the House can have some input and that the medical community can have some input. There is no evidence of that in the bill. I would say that is the essential flaw in this piece of legislation before us.
We do favour the replacement of the Medical Research Council with this institute. However, if we are going to make a change, let us make a change that will work to the benefit of the health community. I believe the health community and the health care system in this country have suffered greatly under this administration, going back some seven years.
Mr. Speaker, you were sitting in that chair when the government took the biggest cut ever from the health care budget at the expense of every single person in Canada. Now we have a health care system that is under siege because of the neglect by the government. Now we will see the use of what I call Machiavellian politics in the next short number of months to fix a system that the government broke.
What it really boils down to is that I do not trust the Prime Minister hand-picking who will sit on these institutes and then exerting influence on what institutes will be established and how the governing council will function.
I think this is open to some debate within the House. I would love to hear some of the other members address those very concerns over the next few minutes.