Mr. Speaker, it certainly is a pleasure to rise and follow my colleague from St. John's, who I think has given an important history lesson with respect to how we got to where we are today.
The importance and the timing of the motion could not be better. I want to similarly congratulate my colleagues in the Bloc for having brought forward the motion. What it deals with is certainly the obligation that the federal government has to fund health care but as well the responsibility it has to respect the provinces' role in administering it, which is of course something that continues to escape most members, including the member opposite who is chirping right now.
The administration of health care within the Canada Health Act is certainly what Canadians benefit from collectively. Canadians expect and deserve to have the issue of health care financing addressed. The problem is that ever since the federal government slashed transfer payments to the provinces in 1995 those provinces have been frantically struggling to keep up with the growing demands of health care.
Health care now commands 54% of the entire provincial budget of Prince Edward Island and 47% of all program spending here in the province of Ontario. It is not an exaggeration to say that health care spending is crowding out the provinces' ability to focus on other issues such as income support, social services and housing. We see provinces struggling to keep their financial heads above water and they face the real possibility that some may fall back into deficit if the health care financing issue is not resolved.
In my home province of Nova Scotia, I am very proud to say that the Progressive Conservative government led by Premier John Hamm has balanced the budget, for the first time in 40 years. The government has had to make some very tough decisions, obviously, but it was backed into that corner by the fact that this federal Liberal government has been choking off the provinces by cuts to transfer payments.
The issue of fiscal imbalance is being quite hotly debated among economists. Let me quote from the caledon commentary from this past summer. Joe Ruggeri, of the University of New Brunswick, stated:
...if cost pressures in health care spending are moderate and CHST cash payments increase in line with the growth of nominal GDP, the provinces and territories as a group would experience potential surpluses in the future, but much smaller than federal surpluses.
There is not much encouragement for provincial finance ministers in this forecast, because this is really what I would describe as a best case scenario. It is based on health care cost pressures being moderate. We already know that this simply is not the case in most, if not all, provinces. In a number of areas such as drug costs, nursing care and home care, we have seen phenomenal increases in costs, and that is before we address the demographic challenges of an aging population.
My colleague from St. John's also referred to the very significant issue of out-migration from rural Canada, particularly in Atlantic provinces, I would suggest,and in fairness, in all provinces.
In my constituency of Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough in Nova Scotia, hospitals, like all those in rural Canada, are under extreme pressure and strain. The Guysborough hospital, St. Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish and the Aberdeen Hospital are being completely put under the gun to try to provide basic health care services. They are doing their best by being innovative and original and in many cases just simply making do.
The other question that is still not being addressed by the federal government is the shortfall from the federal cutbacks of 1995, which was not restored in 2000. The impact of that shortfall continues to be felt by the provinces and is the very reason that they are feeling the pressures that we see in the health care system today, pressures that are being experienced nationwide.
My point here is that it is really difficult to address other significant social policy issues when these larger issues of health care financing and the fiscal imbalance between a federal and a provincial government are outstanding.
There were some very important points made in the Romanow report and it is a welcome addition to the national debate. The ability to quarterback and in some ways implement some of the recommendations is now clearly in the lap of the federal government. Its ability to do so is something that we in opposition, and I suspect many in the country, question, because of the proposed reforms requiring tight cooperation with the provinces and the ability of the federal government itself to help coordinate that effort, and knowing that it is really the architect of the disaster and that the health care crisis is a net result of the $25 billion that was taken out of the CHST.
It becomes a question of credibility. It becomes a clear question of how can we expect the federal government to play its important coordinating role as the cash cow, as the source of funding, when it is in essence the architect of this. The government is the one that has put the provinces in this position. Therefore it lacks credibility. It lacks any significant ability to rally around with the provinces. It is tantamount to a pyromaniac coming into a person's living room, setting a fire and then saying that he will call the fire department.
To come back to the important issue here, the clear intention of Mr. Romanow's report is to look at the health care issue. It was an engaging exercise. It was something that Canadians certainly took part in. There were 25 million hits, as I understand it, on Mr. Romanow's website, coupled with the significant effort to travel and consult. It cost $15 million. We can put aside the issue of how many MRI machines that could buy or how that money might have been spent on health care. Yet many of Mr. Romanow's recommendations touched on the area of provincial jurisdiction, which is the focus of the Bloc motion.
There is a focus as well on the need for a strategy and the need for an allotment of money for specific areas. What we saw in other reports like the Kirby-LeBreton report that originated in the Senate and the Mazankowski report was a significant addition and contribution to this debate. What those other reports did that the Romanow commission report does not is they left open the issue of public funding of health care being enhanced by private sector participation by buttressing the public health care system, of course always done within the principles of the Canada Health Act. We will be watching what the current government does with the recommendations of all of these reports.
The constitutional division of powers must always be respected. The provinces have already balked at the issue of strings being attached. We are open to the idea of redefining and clarifying the principles of the Canada Health Act. We will closely scrutinize details of the definitions put to Parliament by the government.
As for the subject of the motion before us today, there is no disagreement from us about the fact that the current federal government is not doing its share in health care funding. We absolutely agree with the call for stable federal funding. During the 2000 election campaign my party proposed to add a sixth principle to the Canada Health Act, that is, one of stable funding for health care. We see now that the government is contemplating doing this. We know it is not opposed to poaching ideas; it has made a living out of doing that.
Our colleagues in the other place recently released the latest chapter in their study on the state of our health care system. Their conclusions, presented simply and straightforwardly, were that we need funding and structure. The health care system is not sustainable. If funding problems are not addressed and if serious reforms are not implemented, the system will continue to fail Canadians.
Our colleagues did not stop there. Rather than dance around the difficult issues, they have provided the government with concrete options to save our health care system, something that I would suggest is lacking in the Romanow report.
When it comes to the question of funding and the tool of funding, we are quite prepared to consider unbundling the CHST in the interests of transparency and accountability.
Finally, we do not object to a pan-Canadian agreement which includes provincial jurisdictions which are negotiated by the provinces and not dictated to by Ottawa.
We cannot emphasize enough that without stable funding, all of the other principles of the Canada Health Act are undermined.