Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity this morning to talk a little about some of the initiatives in the throne speech.
It is interesting for us to follow the speeches that occur after a throne speech. Frankly, they tend to be rather general, and often somewhat negative when coming from the opposition, which is understandable. In fact, a throne speech is really about vision. It is about the vision that the government has. Some may not share that vision. Members opposite or members of the media or some Canadians may not share that vision, but clearly that is what it is.
There are a number of key points announced in the throne speech that I think deserve some analysis and some discussion. It would be interesting if we could ever do it without the partisan flavour, but I doubt that is possible, frankly.
The first point in the throne speech states that we will put in place a health care system to meet the needs of Canadians today and in the future. I think we all know that the number one issue for all Canadians is our health care system. We are also well aware that Roy Romanow is in the late stages of his cross-Canada study and will be releasing a report with recommendations.
I believe most Canadians have faith in Mr. Romanow. He actually, as we all know, comes from the seat of medicare, the province of Tommy Douglas, and I always like to give credit where it is due, of the New Democratic Party and the CCF, its forerunner, who started public medicare. They sure did. As a result of that effort, all Canadians I think appreciate the fact that Mr. Romanow is doing a very thorough analysis on the health care system.
The reality of the health care system is that when it started it was indeed fifty-fifty between the provinces and the federal government. However, what was covered in that fifty-fifty agreement was fundamentally physicians and hospitals. Since that time, provincial jurisdictions, which is their right as they are duly and democratically elected to represent their provinces, have expanded the coverage of medicare to go well beyond the initial agreement of providing fifty-fifty funding for physicians and hospitals. I do not dispute if they want to put certain services in Ontario or in Alberta. They have every right to do that. They are answerable to their constituents. That is one of the strengths of the federation of Canada.
However, it would not make sense to me that a provincial government could simply announce to its community that it is going to add certain things to the envelope of health care and then just expect that the federal government, regardless of who is in office, will agree and will again split the cost fifty-fifty. That is why the Romanow commission, in my view, will be examining the services that are provided under health care. It will be examining the ways in which health care is delivered. It will be examining, I hope, such things as people who are in beds in hospitals when perhaps they should be in beds in long term care or acute care facilities. They should not be taking up space in a hospital, which means that when the emergency room floods, when all of the people come in during peak hours in an emergency room, there are no beds for those people so they wind up on stretchers in the hall. Do we build hospitals with the capacity to run at peak in an emergency room setting 24 hours a day? I do not think anyone thinks that is necessarily the efficient way of delivering hospital care. As well, at the same time that many provincial governments have increased the envelope in terms of what is covered, they have also reduced the funding.
I do not really want to get into a battle on whether the provinces are right or the federal government is right. I hope sincerely that what the Romanow commission will accomplish for all Canadians is to once and for all depoliticize this entire health care system.
We need a system in which Canadians, regardless of their income, regardless of their age, regardless of their status, whatever it is, have access to basic primary care so that they know, when they take their injured child to any emergency room in any hospital in any community in the entire country, they will receive fair treatment. I do think there will have to be very hard decisions, and not just about funding.
I am sure that everybody's solution to health care is just that the federal government should put more money into the pot, but the reality is that we also have to examine the way we are doing things, the way we deliver community health care. Could care be better given at home in many instances? I think we all know that it is possible and that it should happen more. Could care be given cooperatively, with the Victorian Order of Nurses and others who do wonderful work spending more time going into the home or a seniors' residence and keeping these people out of the hospital infrastructure in the country?
That is not to say that they should be left to suffer in any way. In fact, we want to ensure that their treatment is first class and readily available, available in a way that is not only the most comforting way of delivering health care to them but the most economical way. Because at the end of the day, while we all wrap ourselves in the emotion of the health care system, the taxpayer has to pay for it. I think the taxpayer expects the federal government, every provincial government and every hospital board to be able to deliver services at a fair cost and certainly in an efficient manner.
My second point on the throne speech is one that is very important to me. It deals with the need to help children and families break out of poverty and ensure that all children have a good start in life. As we approach the Thanksgiving weekend, I think we all recognize, particularly in this place but across the country, that we have a lot to be thankful for. At the same time as we celebrate Thanksgiving, we have to realize that there is an anomaly in Canada. We still have too much poverty. We still have families struggling. We still have single moms without housing.
Recently I was astounded to read about a young woman who lived in a YWCA shelter. I also saw an interview with her when I was in Calgary a couple of weeks ago. The reason she was being interviewed is that she had a job. Every day she gets up out of her bed in the shelter, the people at the shelter make her a lunch to take to work and she goes off to work as a receptionist in a dentist's office. I could just see the thrill in her eyes. She was just so delighted to have a job. She does not want to be on welfare.
Let us imagine this. I was astounded to see that someone who is living in a shelter actually has a job. That is not the sort of typical image we think of when we think of people living in shelters, so I did a little more research. I found out that over 50%, an astounding figure, of the people who live in shelters in the city of Calgary go to work every day. Some of them have kids. They send their kids off to school and they go to work.