Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Richmond--Arthabaska for the opportunity to join in the debate. It will probably sound like I am supporting the government when I read some of the statistics. I will move to the task of attacking or criticizing the government later, but I will attempt to put into perspective some of what is facing us as a nation. I will attempt to leave some of the politics outside the equation for the time being.
Health spending in Canada has been growing at a faster rate than ever in the last 25 years. It is expected to exceed $1 billion this year. Figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information estimate that health care spending will reach $1.25 billion this year, an increase of 6.9% from last year. That follows an estimated 7.1% increase in the year 2000.
As a proportion of gross domestic product, spending has risen to 9.4% from 8.9% in 1997. In comparison the U.S. spends 12.9% of GDP and Germany spends 10.3%.
The problem goes beyond the borders of Canada in terms of what countries are experiencing around the nation. Compared to some of the more advanced and developed countries, Canada ranks fifth among OECD members in the amount it spends on medical services. Yet it ranks well down on the list of most quality categories based on OECD reports of 2001.
The low ranking of Canada's health care system on the OECD's quality scale is consistent with the rank of 30. In other words, Canada is in 30th place according to the World Health Organization. We have some fundamental problems. The question is how we resolve them.
This is the first substantive debate we have had in the House since September 11. Obviously health care has been pushed off the agenda of the House for obvious reasons. The problem has not disappeared. It is still out there. The government has have taken very few measures to address the problems. Spending continues to grow, quality care continues to erode, and according to the statistics I have just cited our ranking continues to go down in terms of other developed countries in the world and quality care given.
There is a number of reasons for it. Let us talk about the Romanow report. I know my colleague has mentioned it, but the Romanow report identified the erratic and unstable funding that has been a hallmark of the government. Again we go back to the 1994-95 budget when the government unilaterally gutted the system without consulting anyone, particularly the provinces. That threw the system into a crisis from which it has yet to recover.
The crises is one of the points that Mr. Romanow remarked on in his report. The system cannot survive if we have an erratic or unstable funding process where at the whim of the federal government money is simply taken out of the system.
In the run up to the last election we proposed that if we were to go beyond that we would have to consider options. One was to add another principle to the five principles of the Canada Health Act. We suggested in the election of 2000 that there should be a sixth principle which would be predictable sustainable funding for the system.
That means governments could plan for the future, which is something they cannot do today simply because year to year they have no idea how much money will be in the system and whether or not it will be taken away by the government.
When we get into these debates unfortunately Canadians' eyes gloss over in the sense that they have heard it all before. They have heard it from me. They have heard it from our critic. They have heard it from every member of the opposition when we are on our feet talking about health care.
It is almost as if the government knows what it has to do yet it refuses to act. I go back to the words of my colleague from Richmond--Arthabaska who asked what is new. I think every member of the House would give Mr. Romanow the respect he deserves. The Romanow report is just one of many reports with the same sort of underlying theme. We have had Romanow. We have had Mazankowski. We have had Fyke. We have had Clair. We have reports coming out our ears.
The government's position, if I could summarize it, is basically to wait it out. It will wait for Romanow's report to be completed and then it will act on it. The time clock is ticking away.
About a year ago the health minister of the province I come from said we were about six inches away from the wall. We are in big trouble in that province. We are in big trouble in all provinces. It has nothing to do with the have or have not provinces. Regardless of the individual wealth of the provinces they are all in trouble.
The Romanow report came down, and what is new? He outlined in his interim report four recommendations. We could boil it down to four ideas. Are any of them new?
First, he said we could start by putting more money into the system. That is not new. We know and the statistics I cited show that has happened to a degree. We can argue about how much the provinces put in, how much the federal government put in and whether tax points count, whether it is 14% of the total or whether it is 25% from the federal side. We will accept the argument the government made that we will not go back to 50:50 funding. We know that is not possible. We will argue over the percentages until the cows come home, but we will not return to the good old days.
The second point Romanow made was on adopting medicare user fees. That one has been discussed around this place for years and in all the provinces. Some of the provinces brought them in only to abandon them.
The third one involves more private health care. It is another one that has been discussed in the House and argued by the premiers in their home provinces.
The fourth one is about making the system more efficient. How can we make the system more efficient? There are many ideas out there that we could all buy regardless of political stripe.
I was struck yesterday by the individual responsibility of Canadians in terms of making the system more efficient. Administratively we can do that. When we examine the role of nurses and doctors and how the system works, certainly a lot can be done and a lot has been done.
A point was made to me by the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation that was on the Hill yesterday to bring members of parliament up to date on what is happening within the organization and to educate us in terms of heart disease and what we can do.
The point that was made to me dealt with the individual responsibility of Canadians and what we can do to create less of a drain on the system. If the system is to improve we can do it by better lifestyle practices as individual Canadians with simple things such as diet and refraining from smoking. Some 80,000 Canadians a year die of heart disease and related illnesses brought on by that. Many of them could be eliminated through individual responsibility.
I will leave it at that. It is an interesting debate. As our critic said, we are prepared to accept the motion. I look forward to questions and responses and the continued debate throughout the afternoon.