Madam Speaker, I find it rather interesting to be told over and over that my party has chosen not to speak to the bill, since I like to hear debates. I like to hear people's arguments. I like to find out what they have to say. Because I do not have a prepared speech I wanted to hear the points of view of different members before I got up to speak. It was rather unfair of my colleague to say that the Alliance has chosen not to speak just because I did not get up immediately after the member. I think that was an unfair comment.
I would like to make a few comments. We have had some experience recently with the medical system. The issue in the bill before us, as the member who presented it has said, is to make sure that health care is available universally for people in Canada.
My family has had some recent experience with the medical system. I saw my mother suffer for eight hours waiting for health care for a fractured hip. This happened on the day of my dad's funeral. I know where I would put the money for health care. I would make sure that competent staff is available so that health care is available in a timely manner for someone suffering as my mother did. It was distressing for us to leave her in the hospital while we went to my dad's funeral waiting to know what was going to happen. Nobody was able to look after her. After eight hours the hospital finally decided to move her by ambulance over Saskatchewan's roads to the Regina hospital. Very frankly, that caused us more distress than the fact that we were to attend my dad's funeral. I do not think anyone would argue that a viable health care system is high on everyone's priority list. I do not think there is an argument there.
With respect to the availability of healthcare in the provinces, it is very interesting that this member should have this bill. I had a visit from a constituent, a couple of years ago now, who had the misfortune of having a heart attack when he was visiting his relatives in Montreal. He was in the middle of a heart attack and needed health care, but before the hospital would serve him he had to post a bond or give the hospital a cheque. The hospital in Montreal would not accept his Alberta health care card. It was not an issue of language at all. He had to write the hospital a cheque before the hospital would look after him. He came to my office to complain about this. He asked if this was what the Canada Health Act was about and wanted to know what was meant by universality. We checked into it and found that there had been a little glitch in the system.
I support the member when he says that health care should be available. Maybe I should not be throwing out ideas just off the cuff because someone is liable to say it is Canadian Alliance policy. I want to emphasize that it is not. It is a question, though, that we should ask.
There is a massive intrusion by the federal government into our health care system. As my colleague from the Bloc said, the government did it originally by the simple brutal application of its spending power. It was able to tax Canadians. It was able to give money to the provinces for health care. The government originally put 50% into health care and there was hardly a province that could say it would not participate, because that is an awful lot of money. Over time the government has so eroded its health care contributions that some provinces are receiving less than 15%. Less than 15% of their health care costs, in some cases, is derived from the federal government.
Now I am putting out a little feeler. Maybe we should seriously start considering changing our Constitution so that we in fact have a national health care system. Perhaps we should change our Constitution so that the federal government does have a role to play. This would ensure that Canadian citizens, when they go from Alberta to Quebec or from any province to any other province, can present their Canada health care card and receive proper medical service right then and there, no questions asked, instead of having this interprovincial thing.
I also hold the federal government totally responsible for the fact that it has been unable to negotiate between parties, between the provinces, so that there would be a full accession to the universality clause in the Canada Health Act. It has to be there. If we are going to have a Canadian health care system that meets the needs of Canadians, then we had better be able to go anywhere in Canada, present our card and say, “I am entitled to this kind of service”.
I also want to say something with respect to the language part of the bill. In hospitals I have visited, I have observed the need to be able to communicate. That is absolutely critical. In one instance I am thinking of right now, there was a person who spoke neither of Canada's official languages. I would like to say, with great respect for the particular hospital involved, that it bent over backwards to find a person who could interpret from the language of the person into, in this case, English, so that the communication between the doctor and nurses to this individual who could not speak either language was facilitated.
I saw the same thing not long ago at the airport. A person spoke neither English nor French and a member from the Air Canada staff spoke to her in German. I know just enough German to be able to understand that it was German she was speaking, notwithstanding that was my first language. Over the last 40 years, I have lost it.
I would like to say it is true that if one wants to retain a language over time one has to take extraordinary measures. In my family that is very obvious. Our family came to this country not speaking English. Now all my cousins, all their children and mine, and all the grandchildren and everyone are fully unilingual English and almost none of them speak German. We lost that language because we were assimilated into the English language. If one's goal is to maintain the French language, then yes, one must take extraordinary steps to maintain it and that is a whole other debate.
I am very pleased to participate in debate on the bill. I found the debate very interesting and certainly it is an issue that we should pay a great deal of attention to, particularly on delivery of health care services to all Canadians regardless of where they happen to be at the time within our country and irrespective of their ability to pay.