Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity, as others have, to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and to also extend best wishes to all members of the House present today.
It is a pleasure to speak in the debate in terms of the prebudget, the prebudget consultations that are occurring and to put a few comments on the record with respect to my views and the views of my constituents.
There are a number of issues that the government has to consider as far as the budget is concerned. Many of the issues, which affect Canadians from coast to coast to coast, have to be addressed in the budget exercise. Frankly, from that standpoint I do not envy the role of the Minister of Finance. There are many competing priorities and a lot of demands to fulfil.
The issues that I think have captured the attention of most Canadians are health care, our urban environment, the environment itself, the quality of our water and the quality of the air we breathe. The issues of defence and security have also been of concern to a great many Canadians.
On the issue of health, a great deal of concern has been expressed by the people in my own riding. As the member of Parliament for Nepean—Carleton, I initiated a couple of exercises which I thought were very successful in terms of getting out to the community and talking about the Romanow commission and the views of constituents on health issues. I say they were successful because each meeting attracted probably over 100 residents. We also surveyed the residents on health care issues and received between 2,000 and 3,000 responses. I cannot remember the precise numbers but it was very significant for the number of questionnaires that were sent out.
What came back from that exercise was a number of recommendations which we put together in a report and sent off to the Romanow commission. My staff, who were kind enough to look at the Romanow commission report and at our own report, came to the conclusion that there were some similarities between the two reports. I can actually say that there were quite a few similarities, certainly in terms of the issues that Canadians are thinking about these days, in particular the people of my riding.
On the issue of health promotion and healthier lifestyles, both reports were virtually the same in drawing attention to the matter of public health, occupational health and safety, and disease prevention versus medical care. These are I think very important to most Canadians.
There is the issue of nurse practitioners and the need to dramatically increase the number of nurse practitioners. The Romanow report says something that is fairly similar.
The changing composition of health care workers and the fact that we have more women doctors these days than we had in the past is another issue. We know that women doctors are in a very difficult situation in terms of trying to balance the needs of the home with the needs of a professional medical practice. That means that they are, by necessity, spending less time in the medical practice in terms of trying to juggle their responsibilities. That in itself presents some significant challenges that we have to recognize.
One of the things we noted in our report was the morale of nurses right across the country. We had nurses speak to us from national associations, as well as nurses who have worked in various parts of the country, even nurses who have worked in the United States. What they said was that the morale of nurses in Canada was certainly low. They said that nurses were feeling undervalued and that governments across the country would have to deal with that.
I do not want to go into too much detail on that aspect of things, but I can say that health care remains a key priority for the government to address.
I was only one of about six MPs to do a consultation and produce a report for the Romanow commission on the state of local health care in my riding. I am very pleased with the extent to which Mr. Romanow reflected those concerns in his report.
We have had, in terms of the debate, two major reports, the Romanow report and the Kirby commission report. Ultimately the government will have a pretty tough job of balancing both, especially in terms of the cost. I certainly wish the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health, the Prime Minister, and all those who will be responsible for the negotiations that will have to occur with the provinces in terms of making some tangible improvements to our health care system, which is something that everyone recognizes has to be done.
On the issue of cities, I served as a municipal councillor for nine years with the City of Nepean and subsequently with the regional municipality of what was then Ottawa-Carleton. The challenges faced by our cities is something that we have to recognize as needing federal attention and support. We have recognized that in the past by virtue of our infrastructure programs, but there is a lot more that can and should be done to improve the functioning of our cities, to improve our cities as engines of economic growth and to ensure that the quality of life in our cities is maintained to the point where we continue to have, in my view, some of the best, most livable cities in the world.
What do we need to concentrate on in that respect? We have to concentrate on things like transportation systems. We have to concentrate on waste disposal, certainly from an environmental standpoint. We have to concentrate on how our cities are designed in terms of ensuring that the quality of life within communities is such that they continue to be great places to live. That will, I believe, require federal support in some measure.
I served with the board of directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. From my standpoint, the FCM is one of the leaders working nationally and internationally on quality of life issues relating to urban areas. We would do well to continue to listen to groups like the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in terms of designing federal policies that really have an impact.
I would be remiss if I did not say a few words with respect to the defence budget. As chair of the defence committee it is incumbent upon me to make a few comments with respect to the sort of support that many of us hope will be in the next budget coming down in February.
With respect to the recommendations that we made last May in our report, “Facing our responsibilities: The state of readiness of the Canadian Forces”, I have to go back to one of the primary recommendations, which says that Canada has to get its defence spending off the bottom of the major NATO countries. We are at a level of 1.1% of GDP right now. The feeling of the committee was that we have to move that figure up to approximately 1.5% to 1.6% of GDP over the next the next three years.
Before I forget, Mr. Speaker, I did want to make note of the fact that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Durham.
There have been some suggestions, especially in a recent report, “Breaking Rank: A Citizens' Review of Canada's Military Spending”. It is probably one of the most disappointing reports I have ever read in terms of its suggestion that really all of the push for more defence spending is coming from a bunch of retired generals and a couple of parliamentary committees.
I think the push for more defence spending is coming from the people of Canada, who are recognizing, and who have recognized over the course of the past few years, that we have been working the men and women of the Canadian Forces too hard, that there have been too many deployments, that we have sent them on many difficult deployments over the last number of years, and that some of the equipment that the Canadian Forces is using is well past its prime.
Some of the equipment is good, there is no question about that, but we do have to make substantial investments in equipment replacement. I cite as an example that we are going to have to replace our supply ships in the navy and we are going to need to replace our destroyers, which are almost 30 years old.
My time has expired, but I am hoping that there might be some questions, especially on the defence issues so I can talk about the defence budget a bit more.