Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vancouver Kingsway. I would like to begin by acknowledging the member's response to that last question. Certainly there are difficult cases. It is one of the matters that I would like to talk about in my brief time to address this prebudget debate.
I have often thought that the measure of success of a country is really the measure of the health and well-being of its people. This is precisely the point the member made. We have to look at the condition of our people. We cannot be a successful country if we have those who cannot participate fully in our society with the dignity and the well-being that all Canadians deserve.
As a Liberal, I am fundamentally committed to protecting the rights and freedoms of the individual, but also to do what I can to promote the dignity, the health and the well-being of Canadians.
As we go through this process, we know that the finance committee has done extensive cross-Canada consultations with Canadians to see sector by sector, interest group by interest group, the kinds of things that they would like to see in an upcoming budget. Ordinary members do not often get a chance to address maybe things that they would like to bring to the attention to Canadians or those aspects which affect the dignity, the health and well-being of Canadians.
I will acknowledge that improving the funding of the health care system is an important priority. It will be in the budget and we will accept that. I also believe there is a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of Canada, of our sovereignty, et cetera, and that those must be protected. We will see those things in the budget.
There are a few things that we have to acknowledge. We live in a society which some say is an aging society and may have consequential impacts to an aging demographic.There is a concern that health care costs will increase. Pension costs will increase, the CPP and the OAS. We should look carefully at the things the Romanow and Kirby reports have raised with regard to health care and understand that we are in a transition period where the baby boomers are moving through the system and pressures will be coming up.
I have always thought, and I think I have suggested to people, that we should never stop asking our government what it has done for us lately. It is fine and well to suggest that we have had five or six balanced budgets or surpluses, paid down debt and saved interest, et cetera. Those are good things. We have a hold on the fiscal situation. However each new year brings with it a change in the fiscal conditions in which we operate. It brings other factors into play that might not have been in play in the prior year, for instance, the whole emphasis on responding to the impacts of September 11. Therefore we have to respond to those.
As we look at our budgeting process, it is not simply good enough to ask what our top priority is and then put all the resources there. It would be fatal if we were not to continue to sustain important programs, the services to Canadians which they require to live in dignity, health and well-being.
In the brief time I have I would like to raise a couple of suggestions that I hope will catch the attention of the Minister of Finance as he considers the budget, which is expected early in 2003.
One issue has to do with a subject called fetal alcohol syndrome. Fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects are the leading known causes of mental retardation in Canada. I could speak for a long time on this subject. However one fact is that 50% of the people in the prisons of Canada suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome or other alcohol related birth defects. This issue deserves the attention of the government. I look forward to seeing something in the budget to ensure that we address at least the public education aspect of informing Canadians of the risk of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on the lifelong health of a child.
The second issue I would like to suggest the finance minister consider is the creation of the position of physician general of Canada. The United States has the position of surgeon general. Members may wish to check the website of the surgeon general. They will find that individual in this position changes every four years.
The position is filled by an imminently qualified person, totally respected within their community, within their profession, et cetera. The surgeon general is separate from the health department. The individual makes pronouncements, produces information and answers questions in simple language for children, families, seniors, the disabled and for those who have a disease and want to know a little information and where to get more information. This is a public information service.
I hope we give serious consideration to this in view of the fact that in recent days we have had matters such as the relevance of breast self-examination and mammography and the controversy as to whether it makes any sense.
Another controversy is with regard to hormone replacement therapy and whether there are consequences which would be worse than doing nothing at all.
Those are the kinds of things a physician general could do. The issue of whether it be tainted blood or some other important health issue, including fetal alcohol syndrome, could be matters which the physician general of Canada addressed. The issues could be put in the form whereby Canadians could look at them, consult on them and, in lay terms, see the arguments and the facts. Maybe they could be given the information they needed to make good decisions for their health.
Finally, I would like to suggest that we consider making Canada pension plan benefits and participation in the Canada pension plan system available to stay at home caregivers. When people withdraw from the paid labour force to care for children, someone who is chronically ill, disabled or aged, they leave jobs. They no longer have earned income on which they would pay Canada pension, which means they lose the disability coverage that the pension plan provides. As well they lose years of earnings on which their future pension would be based.
Those who withdraw for pregnancy purposes have a provision known as the child rearing dropout which at least ensures that they are not penalized for withdrawing from the labour force. I believe we should recognize unpaid work, caring for those family members who need help, the aged, children, the disabled and the chronically ill. We should recognize the value they contribute to our society. They should not penalized or lose years of service that would allow them to have continuity of disability coverage and to earn a greater pension to which they would be entitled in their retirement years.
These are but a couple of items that we might want to consider. I know if I had the time, I would talk a bit about homelessness and what we could do there. There are many root causes. In fact children account for 28% of the homeless in Canada. These are children who have been alienated from their families. Of those, 70% have experienced physical or sexual abuse.
If we really care to address social problems such as homelessness and poverty, we have to look more carefully at the root causes of those. We have to understand that simply giving money will not be a lasting solution. It is like the old adage, if people are given fish to eat, they will enjoy one meal. If we teach people to fish, they will feed themselves for the rest of their lives.
Let us start looking at the fundamentals. I hope we will see some of these initiatives in the upcoming budget.