Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise and speak to this motion today. I find the motion takes a strange direction. Rather than have a negative approach, why do we not have a positive approach? Why do we not say what we can do and not what we cannot do? Why do we not say what we need is to replenish the health care system back to where it was in 1994, or 1995 at least, rather than where it is now, where there is such a crisis in health care and no one knows whether they can get a doctor, whether the doctor who comes to their community is going to stay, whether he is going to leave and what is going to happen? It is the same with nurses and all other health care workers. It is a crisis.
If anyone thinks health care it is not in a crisis they are certainly operating under false pretences. It is clear to all of us. It is certainly clear in my riding where a site was prepared and the foundation laid for a new hospital years ago. They have been gathering information and money for seven years and are still in the planning stages for this hospital. We are still having trouble putting it together because of the reduction in transfers for health care funding from the federal government.
The federal government unilaterally began cutting health care funds when it was the number one issue. Health care is the one thing that ties the whole country together. Every region, every province and every culture depends on our health care system.
We have been proud of our health care system in Canada. It has been the model that many countries have used as the example upon which to build their health care systems. Then the Liberal government, which has always prided itself on having a social interest and a social conscience, just sucks the system dry. It has reduced funding steadily year after year and then makes these tiny, insignificant motions to try to pretend it has put money back into health care. However, it has not fooled anyone.
The premiers have not been fooled. They are all calling for health care to be the number one issue for the federal government to address. Every community is asking the federal government to re-invest in health care and to work with the health communities to come up with a better system to resolve the issue.
What happens when the federal government withdraws its funding? The provinces then have to explore other areas. They have to experiment. They have to become innovative. If the funding was back at former levels, the province of Alberta would have no need to do what it has done, and other provinces would have no need to explore the other innovative angles and efforts they are trying to experiment with now.
I come from a rural area in Nova Scotia that has a lot of small communities. We used to have several hospitals in my riding but they have continually been reduced. They have been turned into clinics, into senior citizens' homes or into something like that. Meanwhile, these communities are losing their health care system. When a community loses a hospital or a health care facility, or when a facility deteriorates and does not maintain its standards because it has no money, then the doctors leave. It is very important for doctors to maintain their practice and to have the ability update their technical knowledge and training.
Health care is a work in progress. A doctor never finishes training in health care, especially with the recent developments in technology, genetics, health care, medications and treatments. Today doctors have to maintain their ability to compete by continuing their education and everything else.
The doctors in my riding are faced with obsolete hospitals and equipment. The money is not there for the new technology and new equipment that is need to treat the patients and for the doctors to continue their training.
The waiting lists are incredible. A short time ago I visited one of the main hospitals in my riding. The hallways were filled with patients in beds waiting to get a room or just to get into the hospital. The waiting room was full of patients who could not get a doctor. When they did get a doctor he or she was a stranger.
For decades people had family doctors who they could become familiar with, get to know, feel comfortable with and trust. Health care is a very personal thing. Today people do not know their doctors because the doctors change so fast. When the doctors realize that the workload is too much and the responsibility too great they pack up and go somewhere else. They go wherever there is more money, less work, less hours, more people to share the burden and a much higher quality of life for doctors. We lose our health care workers. We lose our nurses. What I primarily run into is the loss of doctors, the turn over in doctors and the shortage of doctors.
In my job as a member of parliament, I deal a lot with Canada pension clients, Canada pension disabled clients, worker's compensation victims and people who need but cannot access the health care system. They cannot get the help from the doctors because the doctors do not have the time to deal with these issues. If it is not an urgent issue, the doctors will not deal with it. They deal with the patients who need help right away. Meanwhile, these people who are disabled and are applying for disability, or need help in worker's compensation or need specialists to qualify for pensions to which they are entitled, cannot get support from the health care industry because they are just too busy.
Recently I talked to a person who had a bad accident. The person is totally disabled with broken bones and organs that are damaged. He cannot get his doctor to write a report because the doctor is just too busy dealing with people who need care right now. I have asked the doctor on two occasions to write us a report. I do not tell him what to say, but we need a report from the doctor and we cannot get it. That goes on and on.
Just when patients get to know their family doctor, the doctor changes or moves. This creates a lot of stress for people, especially seniors and disabled people who have effectively educated their doctor about their problems, their ailments, their lifestyle and their situation, and then they have start all over again. When it happens again and again it becomes even more stressful.
All we can say about this motion is that it should be a motion to restore health care funding. That is the solution. Yes, other changes are needed but they are not going happen without the money to back up the innovative ideas that are necessary. There is no question about that.
It all boils down to the fact that the government has reduced the funding to the provinces and then tells the provinces that they have to honour the Canada Health Act but does not give the leadership nor the funding.
How many months, years and times has the issue of health care been brought up in the House of Commons? The Minister of Health continues to say that they are working on a plan and that they need ideas and leadership. The ideas and the leadership are supposed to come from the government. It blames everybody else for the problem but itself.
The fact of the matter is that the problem starts right over there with the Department of Health and the Minister of Health because they will not make the commitment to health care, which we have always had in this country, to maintain the health care system of which we have been so proud for so many years. It is not complicated. All the government has to do is to restore the funding to 1993-94 levels and most of these problems will go away.
I do not disagree that health care is changing really fast. Technology, medications and treatments are changing at lightning speed and they have to be baked into this whole process, but without the money that will never happen. Until the government makes a fundamental decision to re-fund health care, all these ideas that the minister speculates about will never see the light of day without the funding, the research, the development, the technology and the tools to work with.
We are siding with the premiers of all the provinces. I do not remember this ever happening before, but all the provinces have now united in one stand and are demanding that the federal government restore the money to health care that it has taken away over the years. I have never seen this happen on any other issue, not immigration, not transportation, not anything except health care. The federal government should listen to the premiers and respect what they are saying because it is actually the provinces that deliver the health care.
The provinces and the provincial ministers of health understand the problem and they know what the solutions are. They are calling on the federal government to restore health care funding. It is not complicated. They are on the front lines of this whole debate. They know what the problem is and they know how to solve it. They have spoken very clearly with one voice.
I just hope that the federal Liberal government will get the message to stop stalling and to do something. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year there are two issues in the House that get stalled, one is the health care issue and the other is the helicopter issue.
Time and time again the federal government says that it is developing a plan and exploring the options. The Minister of National Defence has now said that the file is moving. Is that not what he has said?