Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that you compensate for my inabilities. I am surrounded by people who do that for me and I really am appreciative.
I would like to say at the outset that Bill C-17, the act we are now debating, is an act to amend the Budget Implementation Act, 1997. This is an act that has been around for almost four years, and we are now going to amend it. It deals with the implementation of the 1997 budget.
Over the last number of years we have had a number of these bills. About a year or so ago we debated an implementation bill that extended back 10 years. It just so happens that the finances of the government are done with the announcement of them in a budget by the finance minister and that makes them law. Then afterward we do it. We tax the people and take the money from them. If the budget includes the giving of grants the money is given, and so on. Eventually we get around to passing what we have actually done.
It seems to me that perhaps some of these things should be done in a more expeditious manner. We would not have the problem of people not really knowing where they stand on different issues.
I would like to talk a bit about Bill C-17 and about the whole idea of budgets and finances of the government in general.
First, one of the features of the bill is it increases funding for research and development. I do not think there are very many Canadians who would not acknowledge the importance of research and development. As a matter of fact over the centuries our standard of living has increased based on the things that people have invented and discovered. Sometimes these discoveries are by accident and sometimes they are very methodically carried forward with years of developmental research. Finally, they zero in on exactly what needs to be done to achieve a certain goal, for example, in the health area.
Many decades ago I remember reading about Madame Curie who invented the x-ray. An interesting thing happened. She put a uranium source in the same drawer as some film and lo and behold the film was clouded. Therefore, she was able to deduce from that that the radiation from the source caused an effect on the film which is of course a chemical reaction.
That was the beginning of being able to analyze what was going on in a person's body, whether healthy or ill. Usually of course this is done for reasons of illness or for injury. We are able to examine what is happening without having to perform surgery. Many times, especially over the last 40 or 50 years, it has still been necessary to perform surgery to see what was going on.
I remember a very pivotal event in my life when I broke my ankle on July 1, 1968. I was out with a bunch of boys at a children's camp. I was acting as a counsellor for a couple of days. I took these boys out for a hike and we jumped a fence. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, if you even want to contemplate that. It conjures strange images I am sure when thinking of me jumping a fence, but I did. Unfortunately, when I landed I was in a twisting motion and my ankle broke. I had to hobble back to camp. It was quite a task for a guy my weight to get back since I have always been heavy. It was probably close to a kilometre from where we were to get back to camp. I had to go all that distance on one leg with a makeshift crutch because these little boys could in no way carry me. I am sure everyone understands that.
When I got to the hospital, my leg did not have to be cut off. Although one of the guys at the youth camp had suggested it as soon as I hobbled into camp. He said to some of the others “Hey guys, get the axe. We have to amputate”. We had a little laugh about that.
The first thing they did at the hospital was to x-ray my leg. They determined the ankle was broken and proceeded to put it into what turned out to be an extremely painful cast. I suffered for six weeks in a cast. It was almost two years before my ankle was back to normal. At the best of times my ankles have to work pretty hard in order to carry the burden that is assigned to them. As a result of research they were able to determine how bad my ankle was damaged without having to cut the skin open and get in there and probe.
However, in my own short lifetime I remember a number of occasions where people have had an illness or an injury.
In order to diagnose it they had to do what was in those years called exploratory surgery. It is still done occasionally but much less now. What started out as medical research leading to x-rays many years ago has since developed into other diagnostic tools, including audio diagnosis, CAT scans and magnetic resonance imaging or MRIs. All these different techniques for getting a picture of what is inside a person are very useful. These techniques are a result of very careful research, development and testing.
The question is where the money for the research should come from. I was an academic earlier in my life. I went to university and those were probably the best years of my life. I had more time then, and I say that with all due respect to the pages who are very busy now as students. I had more time then to read books just for the fun of reading them than I have now with the business of life that happens when one accepts adult and family responsibilities and all other things that go with them.
In my career as a student and later on as an educator in a technical institute I always felt that there was a proper role for the use of public funds to fund research and development. One example would be the academic research environment in a university working in conjunction with perhaps the Medical Research Council of Canada. In Alberta we have a very strong Alberta Research Council in Edmonton and Calgary. I am specifically familiar with the one in Edmonton but there is also one in Devon. Each one does different kinds of research and some of it is the medical research I have already talked about.
A lot of research goes into the processing and refining of oil products in Alberta. The council looks at more efficient ways of using energy so that our non-renewable resources are treated carefully and we do not run out of them.
These research projects are very worthwhile. Although there is a proper role for the funding of many of these projects by private enterprise, and that happens big time, there is a role for the use of public funds through the universities, through the research councils and through all the different granting institutions we have developed in the last number of years.
One thing that has happened in Bill C-17 is that there will be an addition to the Canada foundation for innovation. Whereas before it had $500 million in its budget based on the mini budget of the Minister of Finance last fall, the bill would now add another $750 million, making the total $1.25 billion for research. That part of the bill is very worthwhile.
I am rather surprised that you are giving me a signal for time, Mr. Speaker. It was my impression that I had a 20 minute time slot and I am prepared to speak for 20 minutes.