Mr. Speaker, I believe that the budget should reflect the Speech from the Throne. I am reminded of another budget today and that is the one in 1995 in which we had some major cuts. I believe that a good many of those cuts affected the social programs in this country. Canadians paid dearly for the fact that we had deficits which we now no longer have.
Since then, we have invested in programs in research and we have also had some major tax cuts. For instance, corporate taxation in this country by 2005 will actually be lower than that of the United States. Most people do not know that. Budget 2000 cut $100 billion of individual taxes.
We have consistently continued to pay down the debt. We had a plan where we said we would spend fifty-fifty, 50% on debt reduction and tax cuts and the other 50% on program spending and social spending. Quite frankly, I do not believe that we have actually maintained that fifty-fifty split.
It is time to reinvest in Canadians and reinvest in people. It goes without saying that one of the areas is the health care system.
We have just had what is probably the most important report since the Canada Health Act was introduced. The final report of the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada should not be used as a discussion paper for high level chats among Canada's ministers of health. That report is a blueprint, an action plan. The sooner we get on with the job of implementing it, the better it will be for the health of all our citizens.
I firmly believe that we must implement all the Romanow report recommendations in order to leverage real change in the health care system. We must not cherry-pick bits and pieces. Social policy, if implemented piecemeal, is like a four-legged stool; if two legs are removed, it will fall apart and it will not stand up.
The report is very holistic and addresses some very fundamental changes that need to be implemented immediately.
Canadians want and need a truly national, more accountable and comprehensive health care system, a reinvigorated system that truly reflects the Canadian values that are at the heart of our system.
I support the creation of a national health council to help foster collaboration and cooperation among the provinces, territories and the federal government.
Furthermore, I support and push for the implementation of a new dedicated cash-only Canada health transfer to be enshrined in the Canada Health Act. The CHST does not work. There is absolutely no accountability in it and it is hard to trace where the funds go. It is important that we have the health transfer fund and I support that wholeheartedly.
I also fully agree that diagnostic services should be explicitly included under the definition of insured health services in a new Canada Health Act. I also support the recommended introduction of pharmacare and home care, along with a greater emphasis on prevention and wellness.
I was very disturbed to hear that most of the provinces have rejected out of hand accountability and some other recommendations of the Romanow report. Their position is unacceptable and is most definitely not in the best interests of the citizens of their respective provinces.
Only one province, Saskatchewan, had the maturity not to be self-serving. Saskatchewan believes that Canadians are looking for their governments to provide comparable services to Canadians wherever they live. For these reasons, Saskatchewan does not agree with a call for unconditional funding. To that I say, right on.
I call on all the provinces and territories and the Government of Canada to put Canadians first in this process. I ask them to build a first class health care system for the future and to ensure the modernization of the Canada Health Act by expanding coverage and renewing its principles. I call on them to take immediate steps to protect Canada's health care system from possible challenges under international law and trade agreements.
Commissioner Romanow said that medicare is sustainable if we are prepared to act decisively. He compared the cost of our system to that of other countries and found that spending in Canada is on par with most countries in the western world.
Medicare in this country, as far as I am concerned, is also an economic program. It definitely is an advantage for investment in the country, not to mention the benefits to our people. I hope we will move swiftly on that.
There is another area in which I think it is important that we invest. It should be noted that I am not talking about spending but investing, because if we do not invest in Canadians, we will not be able to reap the kind of economic benefits that we wish.
Another area in which we must invest, and we have talked about this many times before in the House, is early learning and care. It is high time that we acknowledged the fact that there are thousands of children in Canada who are not getting the best start possible in their lives. There are parents who cannot go to work because they do not have child care, but every child, whether the parents are working are not, should have access to early learning programs, and child care is early learning. A quality, nationally regulated child care program is essential. We are behind most western countries at this point with respect to this issue. I think it is time for us to wake up and address this.
Another area is the issue of child benefits and income support for families. We started this some years ago and I was very involved. We have increased the income support for families but we must increase it even more. We must ensure that children are looked after. As has been said before, children are not poor by themselves. They are part of families that are poor.
During the finance committee's hearings across Canada, the recommendation by most organizations was that we should be looking at reaching a threshold of $4,200 per child very soon. I support that wholeheartedly.
We must remember that the children of today are the future of tomorrow, and addressing child care, child benefits and income support also addresses the issue of health and health costs in the future.
The other area I would like to talk about is housing. Affordable housing is in a major crisis. We have not built affordable rental housing units for a very long time. We just recently signed agreements with the provinces to build new affordable housing but that is only a start. I believe we must have a long term, sustainable program for affordable housing. In Toronto the waiting list for seniors is 10 years. It is impossible for families and seniors to have proper housing, so to the health of children and to the health of families goes substandard housing. Affordable housing is extremely important. I cannot even imagine my childhood without having had a proper, secure place to live with my family.
The other area that we must address, as I follow along on the people in whom we must invest and who I think have paid a major price for reaching our deficit situation, are our seniors.
The guaranteed income supplement is not meeting its target or it is not helping all seniors. We have about 647,000 unattached seniors who are living below the poverty line. In fact the poverty rate for unattached seniors has gone up in the last couple of years to 48.7%. Most of these seniors are women. It is important that the GIS, guaranteed income supplement, be increased to meet the needs of unattached seniors who live below the poverty line.
In Toronto, probably for the first time in a long time, we have seniors who are living in shelters because the guaranteed income supplement gives a person the maximum of $11,800 a year. A one bedroom apartment in Toronto costs about $800 or more per month. By the time a person has paid the rent I am not sure there is much left for food or for medicine. We now have seniors who are having to choose whether they eat and whether they buy certain medicines or not. Where do they end up when they become ill? They end up in the hospital.
Again, this goes to health care, to prevention and to wellness, and, in the long term, it saves a great deal more. I encourage the government to look at increasing the GIS. This was in the finance committee's report to the government and I hope it will be addressed.
We must also ensure that we deal with cities in Canada. Cities have to be funded properly. They need long term, sustainable financing to address the social programs that they have been asked to address. A great many things have been devolved to the cities but the property tax base cannot deal with all the problems. In the meantime, we must start with infrastructure, public transportation and housing to be able to work with them to have a sustainable program to address the most urgent needs for the cities.