Madam Speaker, I would like to advise the Chair that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Yellowhead.
Believe it or not, we are debating the estimates this evening. The portion of the estimates we are debating is the portion allocated to the health department. The health department budget is $2.7 billion for the current fiscal year. I am sure it will go up because the department has a lot of work to do.
The estimates of $2.7 billions were examined by the health committee. There were no suggestions from the committee for a change in the $2.7 billion allocated to the health department. The accountability for the spending of those moneys of course continues to be a subject of some debate.
The health department has come under scrutiny in two areas: one by the auditor general and the other t through a series of fairly well-publicized missteps on the part of the department. I would just like to talk about those briefly.
First, last fall's auditor general's report had five chapters relating to the health department. It had a number of criticisms on how the department operated and a number of suggestions on how the department could be improved.
One of the problems highlighted in the auditor general's report was Health Canada's non-compliance with the Canada Health Act. There was also a problem of information on the federal government's total contribution to health care. The auditor general in fact said that the federal government did not know its exact contribution to health care because it was wrapped up in the health and social transfers. The auditor general recommended that the federal government find some way to identify exactly what the federal government spent on health. I suppose this would at least be helpful in election campaigns when the federal and provincial governments are running competing ads as to who pays what and how much. My hon. colleague who just spoke mentioned some of those issues as well.
The auditor general was also concerned about research and development. The minister suggested, and was very proud of the fact and well we should be, that the funding for research and development was growing and that it was scheduled to double. However the auditor general said that the collection criteria and evaluation for projects to be funded by government research money were not consistently applied and suggested that they needed to be worked on.
The auditor general also looked at first nations' health and found that although he had given a pretty bad report card to the federal government on its handling of first nations' health in 1997, he found that in the year 2000 the department had “not made sufficient progress to correct the deficiencies in any of the programs under review”. He recommended again a sustained effort to implement his recommendations. We have not seen a lot of improvement over the last three years.
Of course first nations' health has been a serious concern for our country. All of us feel that the federal government is certainly letting down first nations people in this very critical and important area. We could speak for 20 minutes just on the problems with first nations' health, its mismanagement and the problems there, but time does not permit.
The auditor general also reviewed federal health and safety regulation programs. There were concerns about the need for reliable risk assessment and sufficient allocation of financial and human resources.
With respect to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the auditor general found that it had not properly resourced its food inspection programs based on risk, that actual levels of inspection were lower than expected in some cases and that the department lacked important information on the incidence of food borne illness in humans. This was hardly reassuring in light of the fact that there have been concerns about certain food related illnesses that could affect our population.
The auditor general also looked at the regulatory regime of biologics. This is something that the committee is studying as we speak, and I believe that study is going ahead well. However the auditor general emphasized the need for the department to develop clear criteria in determining which approach would be appropriate for a given situation as far as regulating and supporting the work of the new biotechnology industry.
It is important that parliamentarians carry out their duty to provide oversight on the spending and administration of a great deal of money. In the case of the health department, that amounts to $2.7 billion each and every year. That is a lot of money. Since the government's total budget is well over $150 billion, it is important that parliamentarians do not just sleepwalk their way into approving these estimates.
However, in the nearly eight years that I have sat in the House as a parliamentarian, I have not seen one single line of any estimate changed in any way by the House of Commons.
Either it suggests that the officials of each and every government department, and there are many, are pretty much infallible in their allocation and administration of these billions of dollars, or it suggests that the House is somewhat remiss in not being more involved and more proactive in the oversight of the administration of the spending of these moneys.
I cannot imagine very many democracies where members have this kind of responsibility. For eight years, and I assume it has been even longer although I do not know because I have only been here for eight years, not one budgetary line of a single department has been altered, improved or changed made by 301 members of parliament.
My first response to that observation is that we need to do a better job in overseeing the administration and spending of this money, particularly when we see in practical terms the administration falling short of some requirements that were made clear by the auditor general.
There are deficiencies in our health system. We see it in mercury levels in fish, in approval of drugs, in water safety and a whole bunch of areas where Canadians expect some protection and help. When we see deficiencies we need to look at the allocation of moneys to correct those deficiencies rather than just hoping they will happen.
As we look at the estimates I suggest that we need to do a better job. There are things that we could do to better allocate funds than the way they are allocated today.