House of Commons Hansard #34 of the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was protocol.
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, we have no intention of administering the health care system. That is not the role of the Government of Canada.
Our role is to work in collaboration and partnership with the provinces and territories. Our role is to help fund the system. Our role is to ensure that the five principles of the Canada Health Act are respected, and where necessary enforced, because they represent fundamental values of all Canadians regardless of where they live.
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC
Mr. Speaker, health care stakeholders from Quebec are worried. Lisa Massicotte, spokesperson for The Québec Hospitals Association said that there should be no strings attached to funding and that it should be up to the provinces to decide how these funds are used.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister understand that Quebeckers want health care services to be administered and provided by hospitals, physicians and nurses, not federal bureaucrats, and that any decision along those lines would be ill-advised and inappropriate? The government has already done enough harm to the health care system.
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, I find this question very interesting.
Far from dictating how any province or territory should deliver its health care system, it lets in the province of Quebec for example, $239.3 million to be spent in relation to medical equipment. That money was transferred to the province and in fact the province used that money to purchase new medical equipment. We did not dictate what equipment or where it should go. The province however took the money very happily.
There is $133 million under the primary health care transition fund. Again--
Réal Ménard Bloc Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC
Mr. Speaker, will the Deputy Prime Minister finally admit that his government's cuts to health care are largely responsible for the problems being experienced across Canada and that his duty now is to fix the mess by reinvesting in health care, not by tromping into health care management?
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, again let me reassure everyone in the House and all Canadians that the federal government has no intention of micromanaging the health care system or, as the hon. member suggests, tromping or tramping, whatever his word was, in relation to the provinces' responsibilities regarding the delivery of health care.
We are committed to working in partnership with the provinces and territories. I believe that is what all Canadians want. They want the bickering and the fighting to stop. They want us to work together to ensure we have a renewed health care system.
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, Romanow's diagnosis is clear. The prescription is convincing. The treatment plan is comprehensive. Romanow has set out this plan based on solid evidence and Canadian values.
The health minister says she supports the values, but does she support the prescriptions in the report that flow from those values?
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, Commissioner Romanow has worked for some 18 months and has talked to thousands of Canadians in one form or another around the future of a renewed health care system. I hope the hon. member is not suggesting that I or anyone is in a position today to analyze in detail the multitude of recommendations that Mr. Romanow has outlined.
We as a responsible government will take up his report. We will review those recommendations. As early as next Friday I will begin discussions with my provincial and territorial colleagues.
Alexa McDonough NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I want to genuinely congratulate the government on having the foresight to appoint the Romanow commission. However, I am deeply disturbed and I am sure Canadians are going to become more and more disturbed as they see the finance minister already out undermining the report and the health minister, in her earliest responses, doing the very same thing.
Does the government have the fortitude to move urgently on implementing the Romanow recommendations?
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, let me reassure the hon. member that the government has the fortitude to work with the provinces, the territories and all Canadians to ensure that we have a renewed health care system based on Canadian values. Canadians want a publicly financed, accessible, high quality system. That is what we will work toward to ensure.
HealthOral Question Period
The Speaker
Order. There seem to be a lot of private discussions going on particularly at the far end of the chamber. Perhaps I could encourage hon. members to move to the lobby for that purpose. There is a lovely lobby just out the other side of the door.
The right hon. member for Calgary Centre has the floor. I hope I will be able to hear him more easily.
Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Mr. Speaker, I can recommend that lobby. I live very close to it.
The government has now received two reports on health care. The ball is in its court. I have two questions for the acting prime minister.
First, when does the Government of Canada expect to table new legislation on health care reform in the House? Second, when the Prime Minister meets with the premiers in January, will he present them with a detailed federal proposal as a basis for discussion and will that proposal be made available simultaneously to Parliament and to the public?
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, let me reiterate that the discussions around the development of a plan for the renewal of our health care system will begin in the federal-provincial-territorial forum next Friday when I meet with my colleagues. Finance ministers will be meeting in mid-December. Obviously this will be an item on their agenda.
All of this leads to a first ministers meeting at which one hopes, and we certainly expect, that the Prime Minister and his first minister colleagues will be able to sign off on a plan for the renewal of health care and will be able to agree to dollar amounts to ensure--
Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Mr. Speaker, the question was whether the Prime Minister would be taking a position and, as a basis for discussion, whether that would be made available.
I understand the government will not have had the time to review the Romanow report in detail, but I want to ask about the principle of one specific proposal.
Commissioner Romanow is recommending that Ottawa be bound by legislation to pay at least 25% of health care costs. Is that a position that the Government of Canada is prepared to consider?
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, as I have indicated, the Romanow report has many recommendations. We will consider them all in detail.
In fact, it is much too early to make concrete predictions or decisions around either total dollar amounts that we might very well put into a renewed health care system or the funding profile of those new dollar amounts, but quite clearly those are important discussions, which will begin next Friday with my colleagues, will carry on with my colleague, the Minister of Finance, and his colleagues, and ultimately end with first ministers in January.
Charlie Penson Canadian Alliance Peace River, AB
Mr. Speaker, the finance department's announcement of a 10¢ cut in employment insurance premiums would have been better news if it would have offset the hike to the CPP premiums for 2003. They are going up substantially in 2003.
The net result of today's announcement is that the tax burden on Canadian workers and employers will rise by almost $100 million next year. That is the wrong direction.
Given that the EI account has an almost $40 billion surplus, why will the Minister of Finance not reduce EI premiums further so that Canadian workers and employers will not face a tax hike just after Christmas this year?
John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today that we were able to indicate to employers and to employees an over $800 million reduction in EI premiums for next year.
Since 1993, year after year we have announced reductions in EI premiums. It is a pattern that is well established. It is a pattern that will continue. That is a big change from the bad old days of the early nineties when, in spite of a recession, EI premiums were going up very sharply.
Charlie Penson Canadian Alliance Peace River, AB
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line, and the minister should know this, is that Canadians will have less take home pay this year as a result of this CPP hike. That is the bottom line.
Canadian employers will have less money to invest in new equipment and training to improve productivity.
Why does the finance minister think it necessary to continue building this massive EI surplus rather than giving Canadian workers and employers a tax cut?
John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, I actually do agree with the hon. member that we want to continue giving Canadians a tax cut. That is why we continue to implement the largest tax cut in Canadian history, which was announced in October 2000: $100 billion over five years. That is real money.
Pierre Paquette Bloc Joliette, QC
Mr. Speaker, when the Liberal government took office, it made drastic cuts in health funding. We can now see the results of this measure. The whole health system is suffering from chronic underfunding.
Could the Deputy Prime Minister tell us why it was so simple and quick to make cuts in health funding, but now, in order to correct this government's mistake, it would take structures, bureaucracy and the federal government's involvement, when its sole responsibility is to put money back into the system to make it work better?
John Manley LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is trying to oversimplify the complexity of a national health system. Today, we received Mr. Romanow's report. This is a serious piece of work. The report deals with a very complex issue, and we are committed to doing our share.
This is a job that involves not only the federal government, but also the provincial governments. Together we believe that we must build in Canada a health care system based on Canadian values that are clearly understood.
Pierre Paquette Bloc Joliette, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Romanow report opens the door to dozens of federal interventions in health.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister realize that the burden of proof rests with this government? It must demonstrate how the health system will work better with more structures, more bureaucracy, more reports, more statistics and more conflicts with those who already manage it in the provinces and in Quebec.
Anne McLellan LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, but nobody is recommending more officials. Nobody is recommending more bureaucracy.
In fact, what we want to do is work in partnership and collaboration with the provinces and territories to ensure that every dollar spent on health care, as many of those dollars as possible, is going to front line delivery to improve the quality of health care for all Canadians.
Let me reassure the hon. member that we on this side of the House have no intention of trumping, in the language used by the previous questioner from the Bloc Québécois, on the ability, on the authority, of the provinces to deliver--