Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Random—Burin—St. George's.
As a physician, I want to support this motion because evidence-based policy is at the heart of the practice of medicine. We learn from successes and failures. When a patient dies under our care, we do an in-depth post-mortem and find out why and to find out how to prevent future deaths. Government must be similarly responsible. Cuts must be made carefully, to do no harm to those who depend on the government for their safety and health.
Let us look at a cautionary tale. Under Premier Harris of the Ontario government of the mid-1990s, significant cuts were made to health and safety to find efficiencies, which is a word we hear a lot from the Conservatives, by privatizing water safety and cutting the public health system and the environmental system. It promised, as the Conservatives are promising, that these cuts would not affect public health and safety. However, those cuts resulted in the tragic Walkerton incident where water, contaminated with E. coli and Campylobacter jejuni, caused the death of seven residents and serious illness in 2,300 other people who still have many of the remnants of that illness today.
I think it is strange that the current government did not learn from that disaster when three senior cabinet ministers in the current government were senior cabinet ministers in the Harris government at the time. The Minister of Finance was attorney general, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was the minister of community and social services and the President of the Treasury Board was the minister of the environment when those cuts occurred. Justice Dennis O'Connor, who headed the public inquiry investigating the Walkerton disaster, linked it clearly to the cuts and to the privatization of water testing in 1996. Significant “budget and staffing reductions” made by the Harris government “had resulted in reductions in the frequency of inspections, site visits, and contacts” between government inspectors and staff operating the Walkerton water system. The government ignored numerous warnings that cuts and privatization would cost lives, as it is doing now.
If 2000 seems too far in the past, I would like to jog the memory of the three ministers who were in the Harris government at that time and who are now senior ministers in the current government. When people die as a result of poor public policy, government must accept responsibility and learn from its mistakes. If I recall, then-premier Harris had a very long apology to make. The government can recall another incident in 2008, which is closer to home and closer in time, under the watch of the current Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, when 22 people died and 57 became ill as a result of a listeriosis outbreak in a factory. Cuts to food inspection meant that inspectors often spent as little as 15 minutes examining plants. CFIA was already understaffed at that time, when those cuts were made in 2008. Yet in this budget, the minister of agriculture cut the already decimated Canadian Food Inspection Agency by $56.1 million and 100 inspectors, on top of the $33 million that was already cut last year. Canadians have the right to expect the food that they buy is safe, especially in light of history.
There is an important thing to remember here. As Albert Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yet, the current government in 2014 and 2015 will cut $200.6 million from Health Canada and 840 science-related jobs. The cuts to public health will equal $68 million. A public health agency is supposed to look after the health of the public and protect it from infectious diseases.
The natural health products directorate in Health Canada will also be cut. It looks after the safety of natural health products. Many times, due to poor manufacturing standards, harmful contaminants are found in imported natural food products. The directorate is supposed to ensure that what Canadians are buying in natural food stores is safe. So there is another example of cuts that are going to endanger the lives of people.
We see cuts in the aboriginal health programs: suicide prevention, for instance; maternal and child health programs in the Inuit communities. Suicide rates among the Inuit are 11 times the rest of Canada, yet these cuts are going to occur anyway. There is an unacceptably high rate of infectious diseases due to overcrowding and lack of potable drinking water in aboriginal communities, yet these cuts are going to be made. There is a 40% cut to the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami health budget and this is going to be unacceptable, as we have heard from the leaders there.
It is unconscionable to cut from the most vulnerable and deprive them of the tools they need to improve their lives, especially given the Prime Minister's moving apology, which in hindsight seems quite the performance.
Health Canada, as federal regulator under the Food and Drugs Act, is responsible for assessing and monitoring the safety and efficacy of drugs marketed in Canada. Just last fall, the Auditor General reported that Health Canada had not adequately fulfilled its responsibility for ensuring the safety and accessibility of prescription drugs, often taking multiple years to assess and respond to pharmaceutical drug safety issues which put the health and safety of Canadians at risk.
The Auditor General said Health Canada does not collect information to assess and make decisions. The Auditor General found that targets could not be met due to lack of resources. But again, Health Canada is being cut $200 million this year. The Auditor General said the transparency of clinical trial information is lacking, even after five years of the Conservative government promising to fix it. Why? Because of lack of resources in the food and drug directorate. Yet this is being cut.
Health Canada has become so inefficient and ineffective that Canadians are becoming more dependent on the United States food and drug administration to flag food and drug safety incidents. The Auditor General found that the department of health has not fulfilled most of its responsibilities for assessing pharmaceutical drugs. Yet there are cuts to this department.
Thirty per cent of the budget of the Canadian federal tobacco control strategy is being cut, yet the strategy has been the cornerstone of Canada's strategy to curb tobacco use. Having the amount of adults who smoke lowered by 10% and 60% among youth is an important thing. Tobacco causes lung cancer, heart disease and vascular disease. Yet at the same time the government is cutting 35% of the tobacco control budget. It will collect $480 million more this year in annual federal tobacco taxes.
The lives of an estimated 37,000 Canadians every year are lost due to stroke, cardiac disease, heart disease and vascular disease. Five million Canadians still smoke. Smoking costs our health care system $4 billion a year in direct health care costs, but the tobacco control budget is being cut.
Overall, unconscionable cuts to health care would put the lives of many Canadians at risk. The government made the choice to do so and to put the lives of these Canadians at risk by cutting essential services in health, environment, food safety, and search and rescue operations while investing $10 billion in jails and $30 billion in F-35 fighter jets.
Some cynics have suggested that investing in jails is the government's solution to mental illness and homelessness, but the role of responsible government is to ensure that even in the most difficult times, Canadians can count on essential services that protect their health and their safety.
No one is being a Pollyanna here. Everyone knows that in different fiscal times cuts have to be made. However, when a government places jets and jails ahead of the health and safety of its citizens, it can be accused of incompetence. When a government ignores the evidence of the Ontario government's experience with loss of life in Walkerton and its own experience with the listeriosis outbreak, that incompetence becomes callousness. It can be justly accused of playing politics with Canadians' lives.