Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin.
It is my pleasure this afternoon to join in the debate on the 2003 budget, the budget implementation act, Bill C-28. This gives me a good occasion to talk about the recent budget tabled by the Minister of Finance last month and some of the important measures that are in this bill.
There are a variety of topics that I am interested in and are covered in the budget including things like health care, infrastructure, defence, the environment, and many other issues, such as help for the homeless people in our country.
The budget process is the most important process of the year for the federal government and budget day is the most important day because it is the day when the decisions are announced on a process that begins many months before. In fact, shortly after the previous budget is announced the process begins for different departments, different interests, and different groups who have ideas about what should be in the budget. Whether they be groups of members of Parliament or groups in departments, they begin their initiatives to get their priorities included in the budget process by trying to get as much funds as they can for the initiatives they want to see funded.
When the budget day is announced, it is the accumulation of a long process of working through all these priorities and announcing what the priorities are for the government, and how the resources of the government and taxpayer dollars will be spent that year. It is an important day and an important process.
This particular budget was important in a variety of ways. First, it was important in terms of health care. I had a number of meetings in my riding of Halifax West in January of this year to talk about health care. I had a series of four forums across different parts of Halifax West and heard from people in my riding about their needs and concerns: to make health care our top priority and to keep health care a publicly paid system. They did not want a private system of health care. People in my riding have strong views about this and strongly stated that they want to maintain the publicly paid and publicly delivered system.
The increase in transfers for health care to the provinces in the federal budget was very satisfying. It was good to see that. Of course, we always want to see more money and the government puts in as much as it can. We must recognize that health care, while it is the number one priority of Canadians, is also one of many priorities. There are other important priorities like the environment, our cities and many other things.
Let us talk about some of the things that the budget did in relation to health care. It provides, for example, a five year, $16 billion health reform fund. This is the key to this because I heard, throughout the forums that I held with people in Halifax West, that people wanted to see the kind of thing that Roy Romanow talked about in his report. They wanted to see money being put into health care to buy change, to make a better system, and to build a system that is more sustainable for Canada.
That is exactly what this $16 billion health reform fund is all about. It is for the provinces and territories to target primary health care, home care and catastrophic drug coverage. Those are certainly areas of concern that I heard about from people in my riding. I also heard about it elsewhere, whether in letters to me, e-mails, or from people I run into at the local mall or wherever. These are big issues, particularly in relation to home care. I had a lot of people call me with their concerns about caring for elderly people, about getting home care for themselves, and about not having an adequate system in our province of Nova Scotia.
The problem in Nova Scotia has some similarities to the rest of the country. There are challenges in home care across the country, but I can tell members that in our province, where we have a $13 billion debt for a very small province, there is no question that it is a crushing burden on the ability of the provincial government to pay for services like this. Now, there are things that the province could do better, perhaps provide better services and do a better job on home care, but there are things this money would enable the province to do that it could not do before. Nationally, this $16 billion would be very important in terms of helping move forward the area of home care and other areas, in particular primary health care.
In fact, I am going soon to a clinic in the north end of Halifax which is already an operating example of primary health care in action. I look forward to seeing that because it is important to look at new ways to do things which will make more sense, provide better long term health care and also provide us with the maximum bang for our buck in our health care dollars.
Another item that is part of the health care expenditure is $9.5 billion in increased cash transfers to the provinces and territories over the next five years. That is important because clearly the provinces and territories have their own challenges to face in terms of meeting their current needs. It is one thing to put money in, change the system and create a better system. However, while we create that new system, we also have to maintain the existing system and obviously pay for the acute care that is so important to Canadians.
There is also an immediate investment of $2.5 billion through Canada health and social transfer to relieve existing pressures in the health care system. That is immediately, in this fiscal year which ends in a few days. That will be very helpful in the current fiscal year.
There is the $1.5 billion over three years for a diagnostic medical equipment fund to improve access to publicly funded diagnostic services. One vital thing is these funds are not only to be used to pay for new MRIs, CAT scans and even PET scanners, which I have learned about recently, but they also will be used to help provide new technicians and doctors who are trained to manage or to run these systems and to interpret what the diagnostic systems tell them. It is important that we move forward in this area because clearly one of the big concerns people have is waiting lines.
Not only is it important to have more people trained to run these machines and interpret and work with the machines but it is also important to co-ordinate better the system of using these machines. One thing Mr. Romanow talked about was this. How long people wait to get an MRI or CAT scan is not always a question of how many are available or how long the wait is overall. Sometimes it can be a question of people's doctors and how long their lists are. Really there ought to be more co-ordination among hospitals and doctors. There needs to be a better information system so that people are in line one after another and not depending on which doctor they have. There should be a proper system to get them there as quickly as possible. I think this will help to do that.
Another item is $600 million to accelerate the development of secure electronic patient records. One thing we heard through the process on the review of health care in Romanow report and the Kirby report was that patient information was not always shared properly. There needs to be a quicker way to do that. Putting money into electronic records will help doctors share information quickly with other doctors or hospitals. It will get information to a person's file quickly so medical personnel know about their health background and will enable them to help more quickly and avoid problems as well.
Another item is $500 million for research hospitals for the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Clearly putting money into research in a health care area is another priority for Canadians and another area in which they think is very important for us to spend.
I know I only have a short time left and there are many other issues I would like to cover. There are so many other things that are funded in the budget. I am pleased that I could talk about health which is clearly the top priority of Canadians. However there are other things we should talk about for a moment.
I want to talk about infrastructure because the budget provides more funds for infrastructure. I would like to see more over the long run. I hope we can increase those funds in the coming years. In ridings like mine, Halifax West, it is probably the fastest growing area east of Ottawa. The growth is not being met with the kind of facilities we need, whether it be roads, rinks, schools or various other kinds of facilities. We do not pay for schools through this program, but obviously there are other kinds of things which would be important to assist a growing area like mine that needs those kinds of facilities. Therefore I am pleased to see the increased investment on top of the $5.25 billion already allocated in recent budget for infrastructure.
After my work on the Prime Minister's task force on urban issues, I see this as a very important area. We have to keep working on this.
I am pleased to see money for the environment. I want to see us put more money into things like transit. I look forward to progress in these areas.