Madam Chair, it is always a good time to look at health estimates and I think it is a good time for us to remind Canadians that we are ever vigilant in terms of getting value for their money when it comes to health. It has been an exciting year in terms of Canadians having an opportunity to speak and I think it was important for us to listen in the way we did. It really was about core Canadian values.
I think there are mainly four questions that will come out of this year of the cottage industry of commissions, particularly the Romanow commission. I think we understand that it is going to be extraordinarily important to understand that pieces of legislation will never protect the Canadian badge of honour in terms of our most treasured social program, that only when Canadians can have confidence in the system will they then be able to relax and not demand to pay.
What would be the strategy to restore the trust in the public system? I think we also then want to know what the strategy is to ensure that governments are accountable to Canadians. Do they know where the money is going? Do they know what value they are getting from the money? Are they getting healthier? Is the system getting fairer? As the minister knows, this is where we were dinged by the WHO in terms of the gap. Are we learning and investing in innovation to get a better system? Are we striking the right balance between treatment and prevention?
I think there is a third question Canadians have. How do we keep listening to them? If we do not want to have a commission every two years, how do we make sure that Canadians know that we will continue to listen to them, that we will continue to understand the trade-offs that they know must be made and that we will be able to continue to listen to their priorities and follow with a system that is relevant and responsive to their needs?
I think their fourth question is this: How do we keep more Canadians healthier longer?
In being able to answer that, I think the minister began tremendous work in her original work on the social union framework agreement. When the minister was in charge of it, I think all of us were thrilled with what came out of it in terms of transparency, accountability, asking citizens to set priorities and the ability to report to Canadians in a regular way. I think the first ministers accord then underlined how we would continue to do that.
Out of the first ministers accord, there are four areas that I think need to be interpreted and strengthened. On the minister's behalf, I would like to help her interpret them in the way I think that would be. In the recommendations, I think that this idea of Quebec council's on health and welfare with a new mandate would collaborate with the health council, but obviously I would hope that the minister, following the Quebec election, will now be able to re-engage the Quebec government with the ability to actually be full partners in the health council, including reporting on the performance of its health care system and health care in a pan-Canadian way that includes Quebec.
We want to make sure that in its statement the accord and the council would monitor and make annual public reports. We hope that means the council is free to report on anything relevant to the health of Canadians, not only that which is explicitly mentioned in the health accord.
We also are interpreting that publicly reporting through the FPT ministers of health obviously means that the council would be truly independent and a trustworthy council which reports publicly, leaving the governments the dissemination of the information to their constituents, but it must be a report that is transparent to all Canadians. Also, in including representatives of both orders of government, experts and the public, we assume that in the accord this means that although governments will select their representatives they will not be government officials, elected or non-elected; they will be government nominees who will act independently and are faithful to the terms of reference of the council, as the council of maritime premiers chooses its regional appointees.
I think that what Canadians expect from this council is an independent, trusted body that advises Canadians on the state of their health and on the performance of their health care system. The council must earn its moral authority by celebrating excellence, pointing out the opportunities for improvement and telling the truth. It must make recommendations, not policy. It has to be more than our collective conscience and the council must ask for good quality data and encourage a learning and collaborative culture that promotes ongoing dialogue.
We hope that what will be supported is a council that uses information of the same quality and reputation as that of Statistics Canada, that it will interpret that data with the rigour of the Auditor General and that it will make recommendations as important as those of the Bank of Canada. We think Canadians must see that the health council of Canada has an important mediating effect on the previous intersectoral tensions that have hindered the progress toward an integrated system of health maintenance and care in which the public good and cost effective, world class results are paramount. We think that the data coming from CIHI is good as it is, but we hope that the council will be able to commission the new data it will require and the research that is not currently available from places like the CIHR.
What we hope is that the collaborative culture that we have seen in this recent SARS outbreak could be practically bottled, such that we would never again see the spectacle that came out of that first ministers meeting where people actually were calling to deal with the next prime minister, those kinds of absolutely inflammatory statements. It has to be an ongoing relationship.
As we have discussed, we would love to think that we could move the fed-prov relationships into something like the VISA model, where feuding financial institutions are able to come together on a common IT program, a common governance and even decide what colour the card is. It is amazing to think that if feuding financial institutions can do this we are unable to do this as a country.
It is important that the federal government go to the table, as the minister said, as the fifth biggest provider of health care in this country, with our own problems in aboriginal health, the military, veterans and correctional services, and we go there to share best practices and to learn from one another. The council is not to be big brother. It is not to be a watchdog. It is to be a place where positive--