Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Niagara Centre.
The Speech from the Throne was, in essence, a speech on social justice which is the kind of thing that motivated me to get into public office in the first place.
I will begin by talking about the issue of health. I was quite pleased to see in the Speech from the Throne that health care is being given prominence and that the government intends to move quickly after the Romanow report. However I want to underline a few things.
First, it is important that the government ensures that universal access to health care continues to be the case and, in fact, improves the system as we speak today. We cannot afford not to afford a universal health care system.
The other thing I want to point out is the issue of privatization. I do not support and never will support any form of privatization in the health care system. In fact, I believe we have gone a little bit too far in some areas as we speak. If we look at other countries, such as the U.K., Italy or others where privatization has been allowed, private clinics begin to have all the equipment because they are for profit and general hospitals end up doing less and getting less and less money. People are being encouraged to go to the private clinics if they want better health care. A two tier health care system in this country is not acceptable. Privatization has already crept into our system.
Accountability is another issue that is extremely important. We must demand that accountability is put back into our system. In the health care agreement of September 2000, the Government of Canada transferred $1 billion to the provinces for diagnostic equipment. Not all of that money was used for that purpose. In many cases it was used for things like mattresses, pressure cookers and other things. In Ontario some of the money went to other things and a lot of the money went to the private sector. One company in Ontario is registered in the stock exchange. Ontario just recently announced the opening of 20 new private clinics.
As we saw, the House leader of the Canadian Alliance was quite happy to pay $775 to get ahead of other people in line. However that does not shorten the line. It just allows people with money to get ahead of everybody else. Quite frankly, it is time that kind of thing stopped. It is absolutely appalling what is going on in the country with the Alliance encouragement and support.
The Canada health and social transfer does not work because there is no accountability built into that program and it must be changed. We used to have the Canada assistance plan which had some accountability, and I think it is time we brought that back.
I would like to go on to the issue of children and families. Child poverty in a country such as Canada is not acceptable. We cannot continue to tolerate it. I am glad to see in the Speech from the Throne that the government intends to increase the child benefit plan. Currently, with the work of MPs, including myself, we have $2,500 in income support for low income families for the first child and $2,200 for every child thereafter by 2004. That needs to be increased and I support that wholeheartedly.
Early learning and quality child care are also extremely important. We all know that the development of the brain starts from the time the child is in the womb, but certainly from the moment the child is born the development is very rapid. Without proper stimulation, care and early learning, the development of a child from zero to six years does not happen properly. Many children do not have the proper start in life. This is very important.
Many other countries in the world have already brought early learning down to two or three years olds in full time care. Quality child care is essential to eradicate poverty in our society.
When we look at the issue of affordable housing, that again goes to the eradication of poverty. Without child care and affordable housing we cannot really address poverty in our society. It is time we looked at universal access to child care and not piecemeal approaches to the issues of early learning and quality care.
The targeted measures for low income families caring for severely disabled children to meet the needs of the child and family is an extremely important part of the Speech from the Throne, and I am very pleased to see that.
The throne speech also talks about cities and infrastructure. The cities in our society need to be financed in a sustainable way for the long term. I am glad the government is prepared to finance infrastructure for a 10 year program and that it is making a commitment to affordable housing.
Transportation and public transit are two important issues but I would like to see some discussions being held on a long term, sustainable financing arrangement between the Government of Canada, the provinces and the cities. This is fundamental to the survival of the cities and the programs they offer people.
We have been dealing with the issue of terrorism. We have had speeches recently from the President of the United States with respect to Iraq and our soldiers have been in Afghanistan. Development, however, is the only way that I believe we can in fact eradicate terrorism in the long term. We cannot address terrorism unless we eradicate poverty in the world.
If we look at some countries in Africa, thus far AIDS has killed more people than all of the wars put together, the first world war, the second world war and the Korean war.
Assisting countries in the world and making them stronger is important. The assumption sometimes is that they are all corrupt and therefore why waste the money. Yes, there is corruption and weaknesses in governments. In Africa many countries are moving toward democracy. Some of them are weak but, nonetheless, they are moving in that direction and we must be there to work with them. It is not an issue of charity. It is an issue of partnership. We must give them the kind of assistance and support they need to ensure they can take their people out of poverty.
If we had not abandoned Afghanistan to the rule of the warlords I do not think the al-Qaeda would have been able to do what it did with that country. I commend the government for doubling the funding for development and for going in that direction. It is extremely important that we continue to commit ourselves to equity in our world because we cannot continue to ignore the suffering, poverty and desperation that some people in our small global planet live in. That is not acceptable.
I am glad to see that finally we will be able to begin to address the issue of credentials of foreign workers. We talk in the House a great deal about the brain drain but we never talk about the brain waste. We bring thousands of immigrants into Canada, and so we should, but we bring in people with skills, university degrees and with extremely high levels of education and training who cannot get their credentials recognized.
We have a shortage of doctors and yet we have hundreds of doctors in Ontario who cannot practise medicine, even though they have passed the exams in Ontario, because they cannot get internship space. It is appalling when we have people in parts of the country who do not have access to proper medical care and assistance.
I wholeheartedly support the ratification of the Kyoto accord. Climate change and the environment is not a minor issue. It goes to our health care and to the very core of who we are as a society on the planet. We cannot afford to lose the future of the country.
There are people who say that Kyoto will denigrate or destroy our economy. We used to say those things when welfare was brought in. We said that it would destroy small businesses. When we brought in other measures to minimize pollution in the past again we said that it would kill business. The reality is that if we are innovative, inventive and if we truly want to do this, we can create jobs and be ahead of the game by selling technology and innovation from Canada. Other countries are beginning to do it and we must be ahead of the game if we truly want to succeed in what we are doing.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the ratification of Kyoto and encourage the government not to back off on that one.