Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome everyone back. I am glad to be here with everyone else.
The Speech From the Throne, which was given yesterday by the Governor General, but of course is the Prime Minister's thoughts and ideas on where he wants to take the government in the next period of time, was an excellent speech. It covered many topics that were of real importance to Canadians. In my opinion, the Prime Minister probably gave the best throne speech since the early Trudeau era. He was really visionary. He talked about a map for Canada.
The Guelph Mercury phoned me and wanted to know how we were going to pay for all this. That was a good question and it is a question that is not answered in the throne speech. A throne speech is something that maps out where a government sees itself going. It is a good thing to have a strategic plan, a vision, a map.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for York West, who has been instrumental in the throne speech. She worked on a special task force to recommend to the Prime Minister that he look at funding our cities in a different way.
What we have been doing with infrastructure has been a tremendous success. The City of Guelph has benefited from it greatly, as have cities, communities and rural areas all over Canada. However, more is needed. As the member for York West said in her task force, new ways of doing business need to be looked at. My policy planner from the City of Guelph really welcomed this inclusion in the throne speech.
One of the things I have been most interested in over the last three to four years has been the health care issue. I have certainly spoken on it time after time in caucus. I have written to the Prime Minister a number of times on the issue and have spoken with the ministers of health. I really feel that Canada needs to continue to have a first rate health care system.
A national poll on health care, which, oddly enough, was released today, stated that 85% of Canadians across the country were very happy with the delivery of health care. However that is not to say that there are not problems. There is no question that communities, such as mine in Guelph, and Kitchener and in many areas around, are short of doctors. It is a serious problem.
I know this is a provincial issue. I also know that my counterpart, the member from the legislature in my area, actually led a task force on this. However no solution came out of that, and I do not think that is good enough. I think people have a right to universal health care. We say they do and I think they do. I think when one cannot get access to a general practitioner that is not fulfilling everything that all governments want to fulfill in every province across Canada.
My hope is that in this throne speech, with the desire to do more for health care, we now will look to working closer with the provinces, to get them to do things like opening up rather than capping the medical schools so tightly, and to try to find other avenues to help bring in more general practitioners, perhaps from other countries, to help service Canada.
There is a multitude of things that need to be discussed and explored to fix this bottleneck. Will it happen overnight? Probably not. Should we be trying harder? Yes, we should.
The other thing I have seen for quite some time as a problem in health care, and I have spoken on it a number of times, is the waiting lists to see a specialist if some help is required. That is serious. If people are sick or someone in the household is sick and that person is unable to get in to find out what the problem is, they become afraid. They do not know what is happening. These are two very concrete areas that are governed by the province. We have little say over this.
As a federal government we need to push the provinces harder and try to help them find solutions.
I also want to say that my experience with doctors, nurses and the staff in the hospitals has been tremendously positive. I was at St. Joseph's Hospital recently for the opening of a new unit. Many of the staff at St. Joseph's are nuns. I told them that somebody was watching over the hospital. I told them also that I believed in angels and in this hospital I had seen angels helping the sick.
The people who do this on a daily basis and give of themselves, the doctors who go out in the middle of the night, the nurses who stay after their shift to help someone or come in after someone has died or go to the funeral, are the people who really care and genuinely make a difference in society day after day, sometimes by the minute. I think they are tremendously undervalued and not thanked.
I want to thank them all for all they do on a daily basis to make our health care system what it is. We all know the health care system is nothing without the people who work in it.
In this particular initiative of the throne speech health care is paramount to me. I want to see movement. I want to see the provinces opening up avenues to help us get doctors. I want to be more responsive, even though 85% of people say that this is a good system.
I recently did a survey in Guelph on the health care system. I found that it was consistent with this 85%. The people in Guelph spoke of the system as generally very good. They said that some reorganization was needed to increase efficiency and effectiveness. They also said additional resources were needed, but not at the expense of other priorities. My constituents were concerned about user fees and paying for quicker access. My constituents believed that quality of care and timely access to services were the two most essential aspects of health care.
I found that my survey was very much in line with the national survey. I am pleased to say that the people of Guelph are right on the money as usual. They know exactly what is going on.
In the Speech from the Throne the skills and training at the University of Guelph of course are very important. On the subject of the environment the throne speech spoke of 10 new national parks.
These are all things that are a road map to make our lives as Canadians better. I ask the House this. Is this not what a throne speech is all about?