Debates of Nov. 28th, 2006

Opposition Motion--Health Care

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague and challenge some of the things he had to say with regard to this motion, which suggests that there are broken promises.

He also then he went on to explain what we were intending to do as government when we first got into office. First, we were going to sit down with the provinces, which we have done. Second, we were going to try to work with the provinces to establish wait time guarantees, which we are doing. Third, we were going to do pilot projects to actually comply with those issues, which we have done as of last week. It is not that we have broken anything.

I want my colleague to understand this as I ask him a question. In the last election campaign, we stood up on December 2 and said that we needed a health care guarantee in this country, but that was not a brand new idea. It is an idea that was put forth by the Kirby commission. In fact, a Liberal senator's report recommended it. The Mazankowski report and the CMA and others suggested it many years prior to the Kirby report.

However, we have a debate today on a motion that was actually introduced in the House on September 26, eight months after we formed the government, saying that we had broken promises to the Canadian public. I find it absolutely appalling that we would be playing politics with an issue like this, with such shallowness, and appalling to come into the House and spend a whole day debating what is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, the government should be embarrassed to be bringing forward a motion like this, so--

[An hon. member]

The opposition.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I mean the opposition. Will the hon. member of the opposition commit to working on behalf of Canadians to make the care guarantee actually work in this country instead of the nonsensical rhetoric that we have heard from him in his deliberations and that we see in this motion?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague referred to us as the government. I am not sure if he is going back a year or ahead a year; it could be either one of those.

My colleague was on the health committee last year and I understand he is now the chair of that committee. My suspicion is that he is a very good chair. I thought he was a very reasonable member of the health committee last year.

He said that his party promised it would do all these different things but maybe did not achieve action if I understood it correctly. I am actually reading from the press release from the now Prime Minister. It went through all of those things and then said that the process would begin immediately after the election and would conclude in 2006. Unless there is some sleight of hand, that is not going to happen. The health care guarantee he spoke of was in a Liberal Senate report. Senator Kirby and Senator Jane Cordy, who is from my riding, worked on that. The idea of a health care guarantee was brought forward in their platform and we brought it forward in ours. We believe it should be honoured. We would assist people in getting the care they need in Canada in a publicly funded setting. That may be the difference in the two plans. It is not a new idea.

I come from a province where waiting lists in some areas are much shorter than they are in other areas. I believe it makes fundamental sense. It shows why the federal government is the government that has to take some leadership in this area so that Canadians have better and more equitable access to health care across this country.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, please excuse the interruption to the proceedings on this important opposition motion. There have been discussions between all parties and I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Orders or special Order, consideration of the Business of Supply for today only, Standing Order 81(18)(c) shall be amended by replacing “6:30 p.m.” with “6:00 p.m.”, and “10:00 p.m.” with “8:00 p.m.”.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Does the hon. chief government whip have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion--Health Care

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to speak to the motion that has been brought forward by the opposition. The motion deals with one of the institutions that Canadians have come to expect to be strong and secure, and that is our health care system.

I will begin by commending the Minister of Health, a new member of Parliament who came here with a great deal of expertise, tenure and experience as the former health minister for Ontario. We have certainly appreciated the leadership he has provided. Canadians have been enriched because of it. I also want to thank others who for a long time have been advocates for strong health care. Certainly in the six years I have been here, the member for Yellowhead has done remarkable work. He is a strong advocate for a health care system that must deliver results to Canadians. The parliamentary secretary to the health minister, the health committee and the Conservative Party have made this the number one issue and priority. Those three specifically must be commended for their hard work.

Canada's new government understands that Canadians expect all levels of government to work together to get things done for families and taxpayers. Canadians understand that there are different levels of governments and that they may be from a different partisan perspective, but Canadians expect these governments to work together where and when they can to provide services.

Canadians expect practical health care programs. Canadians not only expect that programs exist and that there is help when they need it, but that the programs are properly managed. There is no doubt that our health system works for many Canadians. When Canadians get sick, they go to a doctor or clinic and they receive the attention they need. When they need medicine, they can access prescribed drugs.

Canadians have a degree of confidence in the system that we enjoy in Canada. Canadians believe that strong health care is one of the institutions that makes Canada what it is. It is a publicly funded health care system that can deliver when needed. They have a degree of confidence in the system, but full confidence is what Canadians deserve.

In Canada we have a pretty good system where people pay their taxes and governments provide most with satisfactory health care. Canadians have lived up to their side of the deal. They pay their taxes year in and year out. Canadians know that come the end of April, their taxes are due. There are forms to fill out and accountants to visit. Canadians understand that they have responsibilities as citizens of this country to keep records of income and expenses. They fill out their tax forms and pay their taxes on time. They understand that if they do not pay their taxes on time, there will be repercussions. Canadians know that certain measures are in place so that people will pay their taxes on time.

Canadians have not been getting the value that they deserve for their money. That is why every other day we read in the newspapers about the health care system, the need for more money, the lack of doctors, the wait times and all those kinds of things. One of those indicators has been very clearly that health care wait lists are still too long. We have talked about it. The opposition, the former government, has talked about it, but these health care wait lists are still too long.

Canadians deserve better. That is why the government is working with the provinces and territories. That is why the government is working with all our health care partners to establish patient wait time guarantees, to establish a framework where individuals will understand that they can receive the help that they need.

By doing this our health system will be more accountable to patients, not process. The health system will be more accountable to the health care consumers, the patients, not to the providers. Canada's new government is committed to a patient centred approach when we refer to the delivery of health care in Canada.

What exactly is a wait time guarantee? The wait time guarantee has two basic elements. First of all, there is a specified timeframe in which medically necessary health care services are delivered, a timeframe that says this is what can be expected. Canadians have paid in to it through their taxes and they will receive health care by such and such a time. Second, there is recourse. This says that alternative options for care are offered to patients if the system fails to deliver medically necessary health care services within the specified timeframe.

Obviously, different patients in different situations will have different needs. In all processes a certain degree of flexibility is needed. There should be a maximum acceptable wait time based on the anticipated clinical outcome.

We need to bear in mind also that wait times can occur at different points in the treatment process. This is not a wait time from the time the patient goes to the clinic or the doctor for the first diagnosis. This is different times in the process where waits or a logjam, so to speak, can occur.

The wait for an appointment with a specialist after referral from a family doctor may be one area where a wait time can begin. Another one is the wait between the specialist appointment and surgery. The patient has gone to the family doctor and has been referred to a specialist and there is a logjam to see the specialist. If the patient needs surgery, there may be a wait time to see a surgeon. The patient may have had one or two wait times already. Another is the wait for diagnostic imaging.

There are all those different places in the system that can frustrate and hinder Canadians as they seek medical attention. To the patient, undue delay at any of those steps is unquestionably stressful and maybe even more than that, it might be a detriment to their health.

For that reason, patient wait time guarantees must be based on three things. First of all, they must be based on certainty, they must be based on timely access and they must be based on recourse. Given that Canada has only recently taken on the challenge of seriously reducing wait times, many people may not be familiar with the terms as we use them. Let me define them for Canadians.

Certainty seems to be a fairly straightforward concept. It means that Canadians feel confident that they will get the care they need. They will get the care they need regardless of the diagnosis before them. Certainty means that they will get the care they need regardless of where they live.

We could spend a great deal of time talking about the frustrations of rural delivery of health care, where many of these individuals are required to travel two or three hours to the capital or to a large centre where they can find that type of service. Again, this all adds to the frustration of wait times.

Certainty means that they can feel confident they will get the care they need. Timely access means that Canadians feel confident they will get the care when they need it. It is important in health care not only that we assess the difficulty, diagnose the problem, but that they get the care when they need it.

Recourse means Canadians know that should their wait for care be at risk of running past medically acceptable wait times, the system will respond by evaluating the care needed and/or offering alternative options, such as transferring doctors or facilities.

At the present time, probably every member of Parliament has received letters or calls from individuals who are caught up in these wait times. They question what recourse they have. They question if they should be running here or running there and if somebody is watching out for them. Are their family doctors on their case file? Are they aware of the frustrations that individuals are going through? What recourse do they have?

There are two kinds of recourse. One is patient triggered recourse which we see when, for example, patients, who are forced to wait too long for services, file complaints with the tribunal. They file complaints because, in some cases, they fear what their diagnoses are and the amount of time they have had to wait. Others feel that this is not right, that we have a health care system in which we should have confidence. Therefore, they file complaints with the tribunal because they want the system fixed. This is patient triggered recourse. This recourse can be needlessly stressful for those individuals who are trying to fix something in the midst of trying to heal or to get relief from the disease, the pain or the needs that they have.

We also have system triggered recourse, and that is different. Under a program of automatic system triggered recourse, when a patient's wait time extends past the medically acceptable treatment timeframe for his or her condition, the system itself flags the case. At that point, the patient's condition could be re-evaluated and the patient offered alternate options, such as another doctor, another facility or another jurisdiction. This is the kind of patient centred approach Canadians want to see. It takes the frustration out of the hands of the individual, who is going through this difficult time, and it puts it on to a system.

Imagine a system in which, once a patient requires care and is put on a waiting list, different mechanisms are automatically initiated by the system and they become available as a patient's wait time increases.

First, patients are put on a centralized waiting list. Appointments with various health care professionals are clustered together. Electronic call backs are automatic. Patients have access to a patient navigator, a real live human being who is watching their case for them, perhaps a clinical nurse. This navigator lets them know where they are in the queue and advocates for them any adjustments to their position in the queue, based on their health status. They ensure that they are there for the patients as well as the system, which is very aware of their frustrations and their needs.

The good news is that system not as far off as we may think. A number of provinces and territories have already begun to move this way. They are providing some of those forms of system triggered recourse, such as centralized wait lists and patient navigators in certain clinical areas.

My colleagues today have risen in the House and have spoken about how Canada's new government is investing in health care for Canadians.

Budget 2006 reaffirms the government's commitment to provide predictable and growing funding through the Canada health transfer to the provinces and the territories. The annual 6% escalator on the Canada health transfer means that the government will provide an additional $1.1 billion to provinces and territories this year and $1.2 billion on top of that next year, and that will continue to grow thereafter.

This funding is leading to reduction in wait times across the country. It is not going to completely solve the wait times. Money does not solve every problem, but there are some very positive examples in every region of the country where this government's efforts, in collaboration with provinces and territories, has made a real impact.

My colleagues have also spoken of the government's commitment to work with provinces and territories, to recognize the jurisdictions that those provinces have and to help establish patient wait time guarantees.

Some people wonder how we can move ahead with guarantees at this time. To that we answer, how can we not move ahead with guarantees? This was one of the priorities on which the government campaigned. This was one of the priorities that we will deliver.

We say to all governments across Canada that wait time guarantees are crucial. Wait time guarantees need to be part of every equation when provinces come to deliver health care. Wait time guarantees are the next logical step to providing patient centred care and they clearly build on the reforms and innovations already under way in all jurisdictions.

We are in a situation in Canada in which the legal context of providing timely health care has shifted. After last year's Supreme Court decision on Chaoulli, new legal challenges will undoubtedly emerge in the future. Already an Alberta resident is challenging provincial legislation that does not permit private insurance for publicly insured health services and alleges a denial of his charter rights. The point there is obvious. A guarantee, or wait list or access to a wait list is not access to health care.

If progress is not made on improving patient wait times, Canadians will see the courts as their only recourse. This will leave the courts to manage our health care system based on individual circumstances rather than on the health interests of the public at large.

It is clear to us that governments now have a chance to take effective and distinct action to mitigate this risk on their own terms. I believe governments, not the courts, should be setting health policy in the country. It is clear to us that governments have a chance now to take effective and distinct action to mitigate this risk on the government's own terms, on Parliament's terms.

It is important to protect a strong public health care system. It is important to recognize patients at the centre of that system. By setting defined lines for guarantees and by offering recourse options to patients whose waits exceed these timelines, governments can provide certainty to patients in their access to the health care system. They can offer Canadian system supported options for timely care, ones that do not involve seeking legal counsel to turn to the courts for assistance. I strongly believe that declaring guarantees with recourse is the best way to move forward.

Canadians deserve to feel that they receive excellent health care and also certain that they will be provided with options for recourse when wait times become an unreasonable risk to their health.

We will continue to work with provinces and territories to reduce wait times for Canadian families and taxpayers through properly managed programs. The Minister of Health has invited health officials and experts from across the country to the sharing success conference this fall, where they will have the opportunity to share best practices and important learnings gleaned since 2004.

Within one year's time, our Minister of Health believes provinces and territories should be in a position to state their intention to establish a guarantee in critical areas such as cardiac care where progress has already been made. Then too, we expect to continue to make progress the following year as well.

By spring 2008, legislation requires the federal Parliament to review progress in implementing the 2004 health accord. We believe that by that date all jurisdictions should be making progress toward establishing wait time guarantees for other essential health care needs.

The opposition brought this motion forward because it is the group that has caused more frustration to health care over the years than anyone else. That is why it is a pleasure to stand in the House today and offer the opposition measures in which health care can be improved.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the issue of wait times guarantee is interesting. On December 2, 2005, during the election campaign, the Prime Minister laid out the concept of the guarantee. He said that patients must receive treatment in medically acceptable maximum times for a publicly insured service that was not available in their own area and that they must be given the option to receive their treatment in another hospital or clinic even outside their home province. He also said that it would be based on the recommendations of a Senate committee, which was done by Senator Kirby, and it would be implemented immediately.

I do not believe it has been implemented immediately. The health minister has basically said that the moneys necessary for a health wait times guarantee is included in the health accord, signed by the Liberal government and the provinces in 2004, the $41 billion health accord to provide for wait time benchmarks. The Prime Minister said it would happen immediately. It has not happened.

How could the Conservatives make a promise in December 2005 that was in fact delivered in 2004?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is wrong. Health care was either the top priority or the second priority during the election of all parties. First, most people were talking about the corruption of the former government, of the Liberal Party of Canada, because of the sponsorship scandal. However, health care is always an issue when it comes to elections.

The member is partly right when he said that we made it a priority and that we made certain clear commitments during the election that this was what we would do. The Conservative Party did make it health care a priority. After 13 years of neglect, the Conservative Party said that there were certain things we should come to expect in health care. One of them was timely delivery.

The Conservative Party also recognizes that there are jurisdictions and that delivery of health care is the responsibility of the province.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The Prime Minister said it would be delivered right away.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

The hon. member across the way said that we would do it right away. Right away, we got together with the provinces. Right away, we sat down with all territories and provinces and said that the wait time guarantees was the first step in solving much of the problems with health care.

Provinces are buying into it. Jurisdictions are recognizing this all around the world. I read an article this morning from Sweden. The Swedish government took a look at how health care was delivered. It said that certain benchmarks had to be attained. The very first step it took was to say that if people could not get health delivery in a hospital, they could pick any hospital around the country to get it.

We immediately sat down with the provinces and the territories to talk about wait time guarantees. We also, almost immediately, consulted with the provinces and said that we wanted to begin pilot projects. The member for Yellowhead stressed that three things had happened. We sat down with the provinces, we made wait time guarantees a high priority and we have brought forward with pilot projects, which will be come forward very quickly.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my hon. colleague. He is a colleague of mine in Alberta who represents the wonderful riding of Crowfoot. I know that we both identify with some of the pressures and stresses of the delivering of health care in rural ridings.

When it comes to the patient care guarantee, it is not only something that doctors have endorsed, the Canadian Medical Association brought forward a recommendation on this a number of years ago and actually did some polling on it. We also have the support of the courts with the Chaoulli case which actually said that individual Canadians must be able to access health care when they need it because the government made that commitment to the people of Canada and they pay for it.

However, more important, the people of Canada support the care guarantee that this government has brought forward. In recent polls that I have seen, 85% or more support a care guarantee.

When it comes to the care guarantee in rural Alberta and understanding the dynamics and the problems of it, my colleague, who is from rural Alberta, knows that we deal with this in a micromanagement way all the time because we must travel a considerable distance to access health care services.

I wonder if my hon. colleague could explain to the House a little more about how it works in Crowfoot and how it should work right across this country.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is not working as well as what I think it will in the next few years given that this government has put such a high priority on health care and that it seems to have much of the formula that is needed to deliver health care properly.

I see the wait times guarantees as a tremendous bonus for the people of rural Alberta and rural Canada because this tells them that regardless of whether they are a block from the University Hospital or a major city hospital, or two or three hours from a hospital, there is a wait time guarantee.

More to the point that the member has made as to what we can expect in the future, we can expect a lot more in the future because over the past 13 years we have fallen to such a low standard that we recognize that the waits have just become unacceptable.

It must have taken years for our once strong system to become as dilapidated as it clearly has. It has not taken decades. It has taken maybe 12 or 13 years. Millions or billions of dollars in taxpayer money must have been diverted from it. That is what most people think. Did the former government soak out billions of dollars from health care? No, not hundreds of billions, only $24 billion or $25 billion, which is why it is not at the level that it could be if it had proper commitment all down through those years.

Here we are today debating a motion penned by a Liberal from Ontario basically asking to strip it of its partisanship. The motion reads “That, in the opinion of the House, the Conservative government--” should “--reduce medical wait times and...provide the necessary funding and resources to achieve the goals of the First Ministers' accord on health care renewal”.

That was not the opinion of the Liberal government when it was in power for 13 years. Now, all of a sudden, the Liberals found this idea for a supply day motion and decided to make it look like they believe in what they are talking about.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know the federal wait times adviser said that there should be much greater use of the information technology, including electronic patient records. He also said that health administrators should use the latest techniques developed by industry to manage complex systems, including a branch of methods known as the queueing theory.

Other suggestions include a public awareness program to give people realistic expectations and to have a panel recommend additional wait time benchmarks beyond the five priority areas. There is also a recommendation that we pay attention to gender issues, that women often wait longer than men for care and that there are reasons to believe that aboriginal people may not be getting care as promptly as others.

I would like to know what kind of action is being taken to implement these recommendations, especially when it talks about children who need mental health services often having to wait the longest time with the most tragic results because of that. Could there be a description of what kind of--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Crowfoot will have about 45 seconds to respond.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in all fairness, this is the first time I have heard that wait times are longer for one gender over another gender. Part of the Canada Health Act says that there is universality, accessibility and all those things. It does not differentiate between one gender and another or one ethnic group and another. We expect there to be a high level of acceptance for all Canadians.

This government's approach to health care has four main points. First, it needs to have a consumer focus, a patient focus, which is the primary reason that we set up a formula for health care.

Second, it has service levels in primary care. In primary care there is a certain level, wait lists, health care and information for citizens and patients. Those are important in how we deliver health care and this government is committed to making health care better for all Canadians.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am eager to speak to this motion because the amount of wordsmithing that we are hearing from the government is incredible. Those members call themselves the new Government of Canada but there is nothing new about the government and nothing new about its policies.

The hon. member who just spoke talked about history and about the 13 years of Liberal government, et cetera. I want to talk about history. The last federal Conservative government left this country in a mess because of ideological Conservative policies. I will not even go into the deficit and the huge debt. I want to talk about the impact of the ideological policies of the last Conservative government on health care.

When we came in as a government in 1993, we found the health care system in a mess. One major reason for that was because the last Conservative government did an ideological thing that the present Conservative government is committed to. We have heard those members muse about it. The last Conservative government decided to cut cash transfers for health care to the provinces and replace it with tax points. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that in order for the Canada Health Act to be implemented it depended completely on cash transfers to the provinces. When tax points were given to the provinces, the federal government's ability to implement the Canada Health Act was taken away. That started with a Conservative government.

When the former Liberal government came into power, over 10 years we replaced over $75 billion in cash to the provinces in some form or another, including transfers to reinstate that base of health care that the last Conservative government had completely gutted and destroyed. Let us talk about history because I am thrilled with our history.

Now let us talk about wait times. Our government put in over $75 billion in various forms of cash transfers to the provinces to help bring health care back up to scratch. We put in $41.3 billion which contained $5.5 billion specifically dedicated to wait times and the problems with wait times. We knew this was something all provinces had to work on together so the provincial ministers came up with a 10 year plan. That plan was tabled in 2004.

I want to tell the House of the progress on that file in that one year since the plan was reinstated. In 2004, when it was decided that provincial ministers would come up with a 10 year plan, the CIHR, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, arm funded eight projects with regard to this. In July 2005, we appointed a federal adviser, Dr. Brian Postl, to coordinate the 10 year plan. In November 2005, Health Council Canada brought in recommendations on how to create a national pan-Canadian framework. In December 2005, true to their word, the premiers came up with the benchmarks and there was a lot of movement on the wait times file by our government.

When the premiers came up with their benchmarks in December 2005, as promised, and all that money had been moving into the file for projects and things were moving nicely, an election came. We heard during the election a promise from the Conservatives that they would deal with wait time guarantees. This is the kind of doublespeak that the government excels in.

What does wait time guarantees mean? The words “wait times”, “wait time guarantees”, “wait time benchmarks” and “wait time lists” are being bandied about as if they are one concept but they are not. They are all specific and different concepts. Wait time benchmarks require clinical information and clinical guidelines in order to set them up. We know that one of the problems is the fact that the government has done nothing.

What have the Conservatives done since they came into power with its big wait times guarantee promise, the promise that we hear everyone across the way crowing about? They make it sound as if it is a great deal that they are offering. What did the new government do in the budget? It repeated the Liberal government's $5.5 billion promise, the money that we actually gave to the provinces. It repeated the same $41.3 billion that we had put in our budget. It just repeated everything that we as a government put money into and then said that they had done it. They did not. This is a sleight of hand. This is wordsmithing being played.

Since then, what exactly has the Conservative government done? It has promised guarantees. Let us talk about guarantees. The guarantees the government has promised have legal implications. It means that if it does not deliver to the patient the ability to have access to surgical interventions, diagnostic equipment, health human resource professionals, and the things required to deliver health care that patients need when they need it and in a timely manner, there are legal implications.

What did the government say it would do? It said it would send people to another country if necessary. We know that in all likelihood the other country will be the country to the south, the United States. What a great idea. Canada is going to send its patients to another country that charges 5 to 10 times the amount for interventions and diagnosis than we do in this country. What a great piece of fiscal cleverness.

It is a costly thing to do instead of putting money into doing what the Liberals promised they would do, which was a guarantee that would be contained within Canada. That was in keeping with the work Liberals had done throughout 2004 with the provinces, which said that there needed to be a pan-Canadian database. We needed to know what other provinces were doing so we could shift Canadians across this country within Canada. Liberals were talking about how to deliver guarantees within a public health care system. The money that we put into wait times was within a public health care system and it was only for publicly delivered care.

The Liberal government was very clear in what it did. It had a very clear timeline and it showed progress. Now all we hear is talk. Liberals hear their own budget being repeated in the present government's budget, which is kind of cute, and now we hear talk about guarantees. Nothing has been done about guarantees.

What is interesting for people to note is that bringing down wait times is not just about giving money. Things need to be done about health human resources. There are not enough doctors, nurses, technicians and technologists to work in operating rooms, to see patients, to do the diagnoses that patients require, and to have access to diagnostic equipment. None of those things are possible without health human resources.

The Liberal government had a plan in 2004, which I am proud to say the then prime minister had asked me to set up. It was to work with the doctors, nurses and health care providers of this country and put money into increasing the amount of medical and health care personnel. That is a key part of wait times that we were working on as well. There were 14 departments in the federal government working on this.

I asked the Minister of Health, when the Conservatives were elected, if he would continue this plan and he did not even seem to know what I was talking about. He passed it on to his bureaucrats and they did not know what I was talking about. That plan has vanished. So much for health human resources, which is a key part of wait times.

If there is no equipment for X-rays and medical imaging, et cetera, how are people going to gain access? There is no new money. The government had an opportunity to put new money into its budget, and I reiterate new money, for equipment, the infrastructure for providing surgical interventions, and the required diagnostic equipment. Timely health care cannot be provided without those things, just like it cannot be provided without health human resources. The government has done nothing.

I would love to know what it means by the word “guarantees” when it is not putting the basic pieces in place that would bring down wait times. The wait times issue is very important and the concept of benchmarks is so important that the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which has been doing the projects on a peer basis, on a scientific, clinical and objective basis, has been given no new money either by the government. The commitment we have is to talk.

Finally, there is talk by the government about what it is doing with the provinces. The government has been downloading to the provinces since it was elected. In 10 months it has handed the problem to the provinces. The Liberals were working with the provinces.

We were committed with $5.5 billion to continue to help the provinces, as partners, with money that was necessary, with resources, with the things that were needed, to get the provinces to do this kind of work, to bring down their wait times. Nothing has been said about that. Downloading to the provinces is an ideology of the last Conservative government. It is an ideology of this Conservative government. Let us devolve everything to the provinces. Let us not talk about one Canada.

If we are going to talk about how we can move people across this country to get the kind of care that they need when they need it, we need to talk about a pan-Canadian strategy.

The federal government has to have a key role, not just a talking role, not just a lot of blather that we hear spoken in this House of Commons about what it intends to do, what it thinks it is doing, but something that has teeth in it like our government strategy.

We put real dollars into this strategy. We put real money. We were developing health human resources strategies with real new money in 14 departments. We were developing agreements with the provinces on projects. We had put money into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

What is even more important is that in July 2004 the medical profession came onside. It knew that our government was committed to this issue. Seven specialty bodies that deal with diagnostic equipment and surgical intervention came together in August 2005, just about three months before this government called an election. The NDP helped to do this, so never mind about that party talking about how committed it is to health care. It knew that this was a government that was working on it with teeth, with money, and with real action. Yet, it decided that, no, this was not important enough, let us get an election because polling was everything that was important. So, when I listen to people in that party speak about how committed they are to anything, I just have to wonder whether they think that Canadians are really stupid. We are talking here about real work that needs to be done.

Where is this government if it is not prepared in its wait times guarantees to actually even listen to the report of the Wait Time Alliance? These seven medical professional bodies, that we talked about, made recommendations. What is this government going to do about those recommendations? Those recommendations talked about creating a steering committee on wait times strategies that would develop the plan.

The Wait Time Alliance asked this government to develop a pan-Canadian approach to collecting wait times data. Has this government done it? I do not know. Because with out it, the guarantees are meaningless.

Has this government done anything about setting realistic targets to meet the benchmarks? Is it working with the clinical people who are the only ones, and the CIHR, to set those benchmarks? Is it doing it? No, it is not. Because it has done nothing to fund those bodies. Is it monitoring any progress toward reducing wait times? It is not. Because it has not even decided what it is going to do. It is just merely talk.

Has it established a targeted health research program in order to monitor, evaluate, and ensure that the times are being met and that we are not setting unrealistic times? None of that has been done.

Talk is cheap, especially when the Conservatives are using another government's budgetary money that was put in to deal with this issue. Talk is really cheap because they continue to reiterate what the last government has already done. They have used the last government's money which it had put in the budget. They have taken it on as if it is their budget. They have just repeated it all and they have repeated empty words. And this is my concern.

Everyone talks across the way about caring about patients. Let me say that I cared about patients for 23 years and I know that what a patient wants is a deliverable, a real result. We do not achieve real results if we do not put in the resources, if we do not put in all of the equipment that is necessary, and if we do not deal with the health human resources.

There are three million people in this country who do not have access to a primary care physician. When they are sick, they have no one to go to. There is no one there to fulfill the need for diagnostics because we do not have enough technicians. Yet, I have asked this government about what it was doing about health human resources. It does not even know what I am talking about. It is as if this is a foreign concept. Yet, this government talks about wait times guarantees. What does it understand by that? I do not think it even understands the concept. It is just a set of words.

The government talks about benchmarks. I think it has ignored the Wait Time Alliance benchmarks, which were absolutely necessary to have that clinical input. It was put in and ignored.

There was money for infrastructure to have new MRIs, to have surgical procedures, and to have the equipment necessary, but it has never been done. The provinces need the assistance in terms of funding to be able to do that.

In fact, I listened to the Minister of Health speak very glowingly about what the provinces have been doing. Those provinces have been doing those things with part of the money that the Liberal government put in place, not only in terms of health human resources but also those pilot projects that needed money to do this. Then the government speaks about putting in a few million dollars here and a few million dollars there.

There is absolutely no real commitment. Canadians have listened to this wordsmithing and this talk upon talk. I want to hear from the government that if it is going to talk about doing this, what exactly does it mean to do? Will the government put its money where its mouth is? Do the Conservatives actually understand what is required of them? I have heard none of them speak to this.

I have just heard warm, fuzzy statements about “we care about patients,“ and “we have kept our promises”. The government has kept no promises that I know of. Canadians know that their list of broken promises litters the Canadian countryside, especially with seniors and income trusts who no longer have any money, money they invested in good faith.

The government only uses a lot of words. I am here to say that we have heard history across the way. Everyone has talked about the 13 years of Liberal government. In those 13 years the Liberals put in real money. The previous government gave over $75 billion of real money and real cash to the provinces to give them what they needed to do the things they needed to bring health care up to scratch. The Liberals actually did it.

We now see a repeat of what went on in the last Conservative government. I do not know how many times a Liberal government can come in and mop up the mess that is left by past Conservative governments. I do not know how many times the Liberals are going to have to come in and dig us out of a hole and then begin to reinstate money for health care, reinstate money for research and development, reinstate money for infrastructure, and reinstate all of the things that have been gutted by past Conservative governments. It is almost too frustrating for words.

Yet, it is happening again. I have listened to it. I hear it. I watch what is going on. As a physician I wonder what this all means. I listen to this rhetoric and we know that the patients are not fooled. I meet with people regularly, past patients of mine, and groups in my riding to talk about health care. They are not fooled. They keep saying, “What is this all about? We have no new money. We do not hear of any new programs. We do not see anything new happening”.

The provincial ministers of health are beginning to ask the same question. They say that the government has been in power for 10 months and nothing has happened but talk. There is only cheap talk.

In spite of what is being said across the way, patients are continuing to suffer. The government listens to no one. It is a tightly controlled ship. The decisions come from one place only. When doctors, nurses and health care professionals give advice to the government, it is ignored. Nothing has been done. Twelve months later none of the recommendations have been listened to. We have seen this. I am not making this up. We can all read the Wait Times Alliance report. Nothing has been done as far as the report is concerned.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research are also deeply concerned. It is not able to keep its commitments because there is no new funding for it to do the things that it needs to do. There is a pittance of a few million dollars thrown into a hat. These are the people who are key if we are to get wait times down. They are key to setting the kind of clinical guidelines that benchmarks require, appropriate guidelines, not something that is pulled out of the air.

Let me give an example. We hear that actually one should wait 10 weeks, according to the benchmark set, for radiation for cancer therapy. The medical professionals and those people who understand this issue say that no, it is only supposed to be six weeks.

What are we hearing? We are hearing that there is no real clinical input into benchmarks being set. We need to talk about the fact that we want to deliver appropriate health care for people in a timely manner when they need it. That is what patients want. They want to know that when they are sick and their family is sick that they can go and see a health care provider who will diagnose what is wrong with them. They want to know that they can get the tests that they need done in an appropriate manner, quickly enough so that they can know what is wrong with them. They want to know that the interventions that they need are going to be there for them when they need it.

For 10 months the government has done nothing but talk. It has taken our money as the past government and thrown it back at everyone else and has put nothing new into the system, so let us get real here.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I sense there is a credibility gap here. In fact, there is an odour wafting through the House and it is emanating from that member's desk. It is the odour of hypocrisy.

I remind the member that for 13 years it was her Liberal government that slashed over $25 billion from transfers to the provinces, much of that in the area of health care. Under the regime of her Liberal government, health care wait lists doubled. They were not reduced.

Despite all the blather we have heard from that member, would she please tell us how she can defend such an appalling Liberal record? How does she expect that kind of an appalling record to be remedied in the space of the 10 months in which this government has been in power?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the word “credibility” coming from the Conservative government is very funny indeed.

Prior to my becoming a member of Parliament in 1993, I worked very closely with the Canadian Medical Association on this issue. One of the things that we kept protesting against was the last Conservative government's gutting of transfers to the provinces that would have kept health care afloat. It was years of the last Conservative government's gutting of the cash transfers that brought us to this point.

When the Liberal government came into power in 1993, first and foremost, we had to pay off the deficit of $43 billion. We did not gut any health care. We had to pick up the slack. What the member does not obviously understand, and I accept that he probably does not have any understanding of the health care system, is that the result of the Conservatives' cutting and cutting and cutting of the health care transfers over the years led to an increase in wait times. We were left holding the bag that was left by the former Conservative government. We infused over $75 billion of cash in one form or another to the provinces, the most recent being the $41.3 billion that we put in. Prior to that we put in $24 billion.

We were the government that set up the Romanow commission. We were prepared to put money in to solve this problem and to really put teeth into it.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, if the hon. member makes a second speech, we will not have time for questions.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I thank the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville. I am capable of managing the time allowed for questions and comments, but seeing that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre is finished, I will recognize the hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. The member, who has been here since 1993, was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of health and has been very active in the health file for a very long time. As such, she knows exactly what has happened in health care.

During the election campaign, the Conservative Party promised a health care wait times guarantee. On December 2, 2005, the current Prime Minister announced unequivocally that the Conservative plan would be implemented right away.

The health minister has been silent on the file. In fact, he actually said in a public statement that the moneys for the wait times guarantee were already in the 2004 health care accord, the $41 billion.

If the health minister is correct that the money for the wait times guarantee was in the 2004 health care accord and that the Conservatives would implement it right away, how is it that they could promise in the 2006 election that they would deliver something that had already been delivered?