Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on a budget that I am extremely proud of as a Liberal, mainly because it does exactly what Liberals do: we achieve a balance.
The hon. Leader of the Opposition said immediately following the budget speech that this was a miracle, that we had achieved a balanced budget. A miracle is something that happens rarely and perhaps only once in a lifetime. When something happens repeatedly every year for eight years, it becomes a trend. It is not a miracle anymore. Those trends can only occur when there is extremely good fiscal management. It is based on prudent management and long term financial planning. We have achieved eight years of miracles, year after year.
The combination of sound fiscal policy and funding for enhanced social programs create opportunities for all Canadians, no matter where they live, to achieve their fullest potential is at the core of good Liberal public policy. The budget recognizes the essential links in a good economic and social policy. It recognizes that investing in skills, in health, in education and in early learning provide the tools that are necessary for productivity, for economic growth and quality of life here at home and for competitiveness globally. We know that by investing in those thing, we are investing in people who will be the engines of growth for any government over the 21st century.
Again, I am proud of this strong and visionary Liberal budget.
We have heard many members speak of these elements in the budget. Many Liberal members have spoken proudly of it. I will not go over all the elements of the budget about which many people have spoken. I want to highlight some aspects of the budget that are especially exciting for me mainly because they are issues that are of personal interest to me and are of interest to my constituents, and they are issues on which I have worked for a long time.
I want to speak as a physician. I am very proud of the $41.3 billion. At the first ministers conference, it was agreed to stabilize the health care system and to put in place the changes needed in the structure of health care to make it sustainable over the long term.
A lot of that also has to do with new planning in health. We always have heard people say that it is not only good enough to deal with people when they are sick, but we want to prevent them from getting sick. The budget has money in it for public health, for health promotion and for disease prevention.
Also $5.5 billion of that money will go toward dealing with a decrease in waiting times, working closely with the provinces and territories to do so. Some of that money will be used for research. Good research informs us as to what we need to do in the future and it tells us when we are achieving our outcomes. Therefore, we are developing indicators with that as well. Of that money, $110 million will go to the Canadian Institutes for Health Information to develop databases and information on performance of some of the issues of wait times.
Part of decreasing wait times has to do with health and human resources planning. If we do not have the people to deliver health care, then we know wait times will increase.
Of that money, $250 million over five years will go toward working with the provinces to support actions in the areas of health human resources and to develop those human resources. This means doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, lab technicians, all the people who work in health care, the team who makes health care occur. The money will go toward developing those new human resources. It will deal with wait times initiatives. It is obviously will deal with performance reporting. As the great Yogi Berra once said, “if you don't know where you are going...you might not get there”. We need to develop good indicators and good benchmarks. This money will do that.
The budget also provides $75 million over five years to accelerate and expand the assessment and integration of internationally educated health care professionals to address not only wait times, but to address many things such as the critical shortages that we face in health care and to deal with the fact that we have Canadians and immigrants who trained somewhere else who are unable to work and are either unemployed or under-employed in their professions.
I heard the hon. member across the way from Calgary—Nose Hill speak to this issue. It really saddens me that the hon. member has not taken the time to look at the complexity of the issue and to understand it well. This is not a quick fix. We are dealing with many stakeholders.
We are dealing with provinces that have jurisdiction over human resource development and over the hiring of human resource personnel. We are dealing with regulatory bodies that define standards of practice and assessment and getting people into practice models. We are dealing with labour. We are dealing with private sector businesses. We have to deal with language training. We know that recognizing the credential and getting the piece of paper alone is not enough. We have to have bridge to work initiatives. We need expanded language training.
In the 2004 budget we put in $68 million for bridge to work initiatives for foreign trained workers. We put in $20 million a year for enhanced language training.
The budget now builds on that. It has put in an extra $78 million specifically to deal with bridging to work, which means internships and all those things such as working with the provinces to put foreign trained persons, once they have been assessed and done their exam, into spots of internships and residencies where they can develop competence and skills pertinent to Canada's expectations and quality of care and need. That is an important step.
Also, $100 million of the $280 million that has gone into citizenship and immigration for integration will go specifically to developing a portal so that future immigrants who wish to come to Canada can assess themselves before they get here. They can look at the things they need to do to upgrade their skills, working with universities here and in their country of origin, so when they get here, they can go straight into a job.
This is forward thinking. This is dealing with immediate issues, with mid-term issues and with long-term planning. That is what makes the budget so extremely exciting.
When everyone expects people to waive a magic wand and suddenly do things, they do not understand that we need to respect our stakeholders and our partners and work with them so we can develop the right kinds of answers.
There are other things that excite me about the budget.
We have been giving a fair amount of money to help nurses move into developing their practice competencies, to deal with developing a whole lot of benchmarks on how to plan for human resources, how to deal with the global pandemic, with home and community care and with current nursing placement capacity.
That is money which goes to practical solutions. It will make things happen. It is not airy-fairy. These kinds of things can only be developed, good practical solutions, when we work respectfully with our stakeholder partners to develop good public policy, and not decide it can be done alone just because we happen to be government and can waive a magic wand.
I also wanted to touch on something else that is exciting about the budget. My riding is home to a large number of seniors and disabled persons. The budget has taken this issue and looked at it in a very thoughtful and careful manner. As I said earlier, the Liberal government not only thinks about putting programs into place. Those programs are aimed at assisting Canadians to have the tools they need to realize their potential.
Therefore, we have put into and given $6 million in capital to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to help it digitalize its collection and extend its library services. Therefore, the visually impaired will have access to information and learning which is key to assisting them play their role in Canadian society and to realize their potential.
I could go on as I am so excited about this budget. It deals with caregivers. It talks about how to assist the sandwich generation, like myself, who deal with seniors, with parents, with children who are disabled, with the chronically ill. It helps them with the tax structures in which there are tax credits for some of that work.
One thing we know is the money for the GIS and for the seniors horizons program will help seniors live a good quality of life. It will help them to have access, to be mobile and move forward.
I want to quickly touch on the arts. The arts community will be given $860 million, which will build infrastructure in the arts.
Not only is the arts the soul of this country, it is the fourth largest industry, hiring over 900,000 Canadians each year. This means that we are balanced in our planning. We are looking forward to the future and helping more Canadians play their role in that future.