Absolutely, the candidate from Bay Street. What do candidates from Bay Street want? They want to get their tentacles into the private health care market. They know that this is a lucrative market. It is an $82 billion golden egg and they want it. Tom Long wants it, not for the good of the public sector, but for commercial interests. As Dalton Camp said so well, when we are talking about Tom Long or Mike Harris, we are talking about the beginning of a concerted effort to change health care from a public interest to a commercial interest.
Then of course there is the other leadership candidate, the member for Calgary Southwest, who has said in this House, and I have no doubt he has said it along the campaign trail, that we should look at private sector health care. We can go right back and trace the whole history of that individual and members of the Canadian Alliance, and the Reform before it. All they ever talked about was opening up the Canada Health Act to allow private for profit health care. All they have talked about is the need for private interests to get their hands on the health care system, and my goodness, would it not be more efficient and would it not be better?
I do not need to quote all of that again. I have put those quotes on the record before. We have quotes from the member for Calgary Southwest. We also have quotes from the former health critic, and we have quotes from the present finance critic of the official opposition in response to the last budget. When we were leading the charge in terms of the weakness of the federal budget vis-a-vis the health care crisis, the finance critic of the Canadian Alliance said publicly on February 29, 2000 “Obviously we are going to have to look beyond the money and start to entertain some private sector solutions”.
There is no question that we need this debate in the House, but we are very suspicious of the motives behind the motion. What does this party mean when it talks about the system? What does it mean when it says the system is not sustainable? Is this party refuting everything that was ever studied in terms of our health care system?
Looking at the most in-depth review of our health care system in recent times, the National Forum on Health in its report “Canada Health Action” clearly states “We believe the health care system is fundamentally sound”. What is behind the Alliance motion? Is it questioning the system, that the medicare model is not sound? Is there a hidden agenda? Is this a clever way to create an illusion of concern for health care, all the while advancing the agenda of that party?
The health care critic said that he has solutions which he will present. We are really looking forward to those solutions, because all we have heard from those members to date are basically three models, and they are all variations of the two tier, Americanized style health care theme. One is that we go to the welfare model. Those of us who have the money would pay for our own and look after ourselves. For those who do not, we would make sure they have health care. There would be one system for the wealthy and one for the rest of us, and we can be sure who would get the best quality health care services.
The second option they have presented, which is equally suspicious in terms of any kind of integrity in its argument, is the notion of a parallel private health care system, with the argument that this would take pressure off our public system and, lo and behold, we would have a much more effective and efficient system which would be able to meet the needs of all Canadians in the future because those who could afford to pay would go their own way. They say this, notwithstanding the fact that every study on the issue of private for profit institutions in health care and any study done on private parallel health care models shows absolutely and unequivocally that it is not more cost effective, that it is not more efficient and that people get left behind and fall between the cracks.
The third suggestion we sometimes hear from the Alliance members is something about a voucher system, that we should scrap the transfers and give everybody money and they can go out and buy whatever they need. This is just like what they have advocated for education.
How would this build hospitals? How would it build community clinics? How would it provide public health care? Who would pay for it? Where would people go if they have the money and there is no infrastructure? This is equally fallacious in the arguments because all of it would end up being a two tier health care system.
I ask members of the Alliance, what do they really mean when they talk about the present system not being sustainable? Do they mean medicare? Do they mean universal public health care? Or, do they mean something else? Do they in fact question the very root of Canada's health care system? Are they running counter to the sentiments of Canadians and throwing those longstanding values to the wind? Are they in fact advocating something that Canadians absolutely abhor and would be repulsed by if it were put on the public agenda? Are they trying to advance an agenda in a clever way, pretending to create concern for health care, when in fact they are not?
Getting back to the Liberals for a minute, it is too bad that we are not here debating a constructive proposal, an initiative to respond to this crisis. All the Minister of Health does is stand in this House and say that there is no crisis. He uses the report put out by the provincial and territorial health ministers just last week to say there is no crisis.
He uses the report selectively, even though the report clearly leaves the impression that, with the rising costs in our health care system, we know that we could still manage the needs in our health care system if the federal government provided the leadership we have been calling for for so long.
Perhaps in pure fiscal terms one could say that there is no crisis. We have argued that if the government put the money where its mouth is we could sustain our health care system. To say there is no crisis in health care is to totally deny the feelings, the sentiments and the experiences of Canadians. The Liberals cannot do that. They cannot stand in the House and say there is no crisis.
How could they say that to someone who has spent time on a gurney in a hallway waiting for medical attention? How could they say that to someone who has had to be shipped to the United States for cancer treatment because we do not have the specialists in this country? How could they say that to the families who are spending more and more out of their own pockets to cover prescription drugs and home care? How could they say that to the Canadians who are now paying, on average, $36 per month for prescription drugs because the Liberal government has refused to advance the value of a universal health care system?
It is a shame that we do not have this government advocating a serious position in this parliamentary session. It is too bad the Minister of Health did not have the courage that Monique Begin had in 1984 when we had a similar crisis. What did she do? She brought legislation to this House. She addressed the issues. We had the debate and we moved forward.
I want to acknowledge the work of my colleague, the hon. member Winnipeg—Transcona, who was the health critic for the NDP at the time. He did an enormous amount of work to ensure that the concerns of Canadians and the threats to medicare were brought to the attention of the government. He worked actively to hold the federal government to account and to push for the kind of changes we finally saw in 1984 in the Canada Health Act. That should be a lesson to the Liberals.
In his speech on March 29, 1983, the member said:
This is one of those rare opportunities one is presented with in political life, and I hope there are more, when one has been able to follow a political issue through what we might call a chapter in history—in this case of medicare. I believe that chapter began in 1977. What we are seeing now is an effort on the part of the federal Government to shore up and correct some of the consequences of the mistake it made in 1977—
It is too bad that government could not have been here today in this parliamentary session with a similar piece of legislation—with an initiative to deal with the crisis at hand. What have we got instead? This spread of mythology and propaganda about how transfer payments have not really been cut and all the money has been put back. It is creating more and more antagonism at the federal-provincial level, instead of leaning toward a more co-operative approach.
What do the Liberals have to gain by continually denying the fact that there is a shortfall? The Liberal government took the biggest single bite out of medicare funding in the history of this country in 1995. What do they have to gain by saying that money has all been put back when it has not? That is where their selective reading of reports comes in.
Let us look at the report which the health ministers delivered last week entitled “Understanding Canada's Health Care Costs”. The report clearly talks about the shortfall. There is no question that there is a $4.2 billion shortfall. What do we have to gain by not admitting it and getting on with the job? It seems pretty straightforward if the government has the money, but it is obviously waiting for an opportune moment, probably an election. Why does it not do it now when the crisis is at hand and we can get on with the job?
Why did the government not stand up to bill 11? Why did it sit back and say, time and time again, that it was going to study it and take action when it had to? The bill has now been passed and still the government has done nothing about it. It is now going to wait to see how it will be implemented.
It is too late. It is over and finished. The Liberal government and the health minister will go down in history as being responsible for overseeing the death of medicare. I say to them that they should wake up, start the debate and do something today. Action is what we need, not more of the rhetoric that we have heard time and time again from the health minister.
I do not need to tell members our position. We have advocated time and time again, not just for money to be added to the health care system, but that a twofold obligation and strategy on the part of government is required. The government needs to at least keep its word in terms of restoring transfer payments and bringing some stability to the federal-provincial table to allow provinces to deal with the critical situation they are facing right now.
However, we need more. We need leadership from the government to actually reform, renew and strengthen our medicare model. We have presented idea after idea on how to achieve that. We have talked about how one has to look at health care on a continuum and ensure that coverage is there for people who are in the hospital or outside of it. We have talked about the need to address the root causes of ill health and trying to get the government to deal with the fact that poor health comes from poverty, and on that, we note the recent statistics and this government's record. Ill health also comes from people living in deplorable housing situations or on the streets. It comes from a lack of clean water, which we see on many of our reserves. It comes from many things and the government sits back and lets it happen.
We have called on the government to do some very specific things when it comes to renewing our medicare model. We believe that the medicare model is sustainable. We believe that with financial commitment and political leadership we can sustain our health care. If we look at all the studies, we know that when we invest in community care and preventative measures, and when we ensure that home care, pharmacare, community care and maybe even dental care are provided, we can sustain the system. Would this not mean people would be less of a drain on our health care system in the long term?
Our system is one of the most cost effective and efficient in the world. Let us keep it that way. I agree with the Alliance, we do have a crisis. I agree that we do have serious problems but it is not the public sector aspect of our health care system. It is because 30% of our health care system is now in private hands. It is because drug costs have gone through the roof. It is because the government and Alliance members, with their complicity, have not stood up to the multinational drug companies that have a hold over our health care system.
There are many things we can do and much that can be done. I hope that in presenting this motion the Alliance is genuine and sincere, and that it will state today that it is committed to the medicare model, that it will work to make it sustainable, that it believes in a universally accessible public health care system, and that it will join with us in championing this cause and ensuring that health care, the number one priority of Canadians, is addressed and addressed soon.