Mr. Speaker, today I find it ironic to talk about wait times in health care because what we are doing, in fact, is taking stock of the 13 years the Liberals were in power. Once again, it is somewhat like the environment file where they said they were working on it, but in the end there was no result and nothing happened. We are in a situation where the result is 35% worse than they had hoped it would be when they signed the Kyoto protocol.
Today we have before us a motion from the Liberals to force us into action on a promise we made during the election campaign. We made promises that we have kept. Nonetheless, I would also like to point out that it is not enough to spend money and to make promises; we also have to respect the jurisdictions.
We all know full well that health is a provincial jurisdiction. We are working together with all the provinces in order to achieve a positive result and to improve wait times.
The Liberals did not manage to do anything in 13 years. Today, when we have been in power for less than a year, we have receive a motion asking us, somewhat maliciously, to play bad politics with an issue on which ourMinister of Health is already working very hard in order to resolve the problem and meet with provincial representatives.
We also have research. This research suggests that we currently have more effective treatments, but we also have an aging population. It is not enough to inject funding in order to try to reduce wait times. We also need to have healthy management, something the Liberals still have not managed to prove.
I would like to talk about a document that is before me. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the provinces and territories want to use federal research funding to accelerate data collection in order to establish benchmarks, as far as wait times are concerned, to provide Canadians with acceptable waiting periods for major operations.
What does that mean? Before we say that we have to reduce wait times, we need to know what is acceptable and feasible. We know that there is a time lag between the moment we receive a diagnosis and the treatment of a disease such as cancer. Sometimes, it is a physiological disease such as a joint problem. Before a joint is replaced, other treatments may be provided to delay the operation or simply alleviate the joint problem.
Recently, the federal government announced $348,000 in funding for health research projects, including research into wait times.
I am pleased to say that last week the Prime Minister also announced $260 million in funding to expand the Canadian strategy for cancer control. Among other initiatives, the strategy will support and facilitate cancer research in Canada.
The hard truth is that the automation of health care administration lags nearly 20 years behind other sectors. To correct that, we are using Canada Health Infoway funds to reduce wait times by implementing electronic patient records, centralized databases and telehealth services.
There is also improved cooperation among the federal, provincial and territorial governments.
The federal government recognizes that federal-provincial-territorial cooperation is essential in order to reduce wait times and establish wait time guarantees for patients. Over the summer, the Minister of Health held talks with his provincial and territorial counterparts in order to hear their views on the existing possibilities and challenges for patient wait time reductions.
Our government hopes to continue working with the provinces and the territories in order to achieve the results desired, and most definitely deserved, by Canadians.
Improved training of human resources in the health field and their retention are essential to wait time reductions and improved access to health care. Canada's new government is investing in human resources in the health field in order to improve collaboration among various health care professionals, contribute to the recruitment of highly qualified health care providers, and retain health care professionals who have a great deal of knowledge and experience.
One example is our program to increase recruitment among health care professionals with foreign credentials who are prepared to work in Canada. This program will enable an additional 1,000 physicians, 800 nurses and 500 health professionals to join our health system within five years.
This is an important component. We cannot pull health care specialists out of thin air. We are talking about five years from now because we cannot entrust the lives of Canadians to unqualified individuals for the sole purpose of shortening wait times. We must assess the risks and consequences and the capabilities of the individuals who will help shorten these wait times.
This will all be carried out responsibly. This entails implementing measures for assessment and supervision, to ensure that the programs work effectively and efficiently, something the Liberals were not used to doing.
Benchmarks are the first component of wait time guarantees for patients. They represent the appropriate wait times for medical procedures based on clinical data.
In 2005, Canada announced its first set of 10 benchmarks based on solid evidence for acceptable wait times for the following procedures: bypass surgery, cancer screening and radiation treatment, hip and knee replacements and cataract surgery.
These benchmarks enable us to measure wait times to determine which parts of our health care system we need to focus on and which ones need improvement.
Recently, the author of an Ontario Medical Association study conducted last June stated that some wait times were getting shorter but others were not. In response to that, we can say that for the first time, we have benchmarks that enable us to measure certain elements. We are measuring progress in the system, so now we know what we have to focus on. This is a first.
When the first ministers met in October 2005, all governments confirmed that, as more data become available for the five priority sectors, additional benchmarks would be set in the health care continuum. We are committed to working with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research across the country.
In conclusion, reducing wait times is a process, not a one-time event. We may not have attained perfection in one day, but that does not mean we are not making progress. We have to start somewhere, and that means breaking new ground.