Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the Liberals will be supporting this motion.
What bothered me just a little was the partisan nature of the question period and the discussion. This is not a partisan issue. This is something that crosses all political parties, or should. Something could have been done if the federal government had not forgotten that the provinces exist and had not dumped everything on the provinces. Any time the government is asked about anything, it says to talk to the provinces and that it has nothing to do with it.
I am pleased that the member who brought forward this bill talked about working with the provinces and territories. It is not just about working with the provinces and territories; it is about taking a leadership role as a federal government. The important thing to remember is that many provinces had a real problem with the 2014 budget, which actually did health transfers on a per capita basis. There are a number of provinces, especially in Atlantic Canada and especially British Columbia, that have large cohorts of seniors, and the provinces are now going to have to struggle, because there was no demographic consideration on a needs-based transfer. It became a per capita transfer. A lot of provinces are going to be struggling to do this.
I am glad that we are talking about working with the provinces and territories. However, I wonder why it is that when the provinces have been asking the Prime Minister for such a very long time to meet with them to talk about health needs and health care, the Prime Minister of this country has refused to meet with them, for 10 years, on the matter of health, when before that, every single year, the government, including the previous government before the Liberal government in 1993, used to meet with the premiers. There were first ministers meetings to talk about important issues.
If anything is an important issue, this one is, first and foremost, mainly because all of us standing in the House are going to be aging, and we do not know whether we will be one of the groups that will need this care. The aging population in this country has created a huge set of challenges for all of us: the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. The provinces and territories have recognized this. The Council of the Federation has been asking over and over to look at the demographic of seniors who are coming forward.
One of the things to remember is that in 2011, statistical data told us that there were about three-quarters of a million people living with dementia. We know that by 2031, that number is going to double. We know that it currently costs $33 billion a year to deal with those three-quarters of a million people. We also know that by 2040, that amount is going to increase to $293 billion a year. I want to repeat that. Currently it costs $33 billion, and by 2040 it is going to cost $293 billion to take care of the tsunami, as the Canadian Medical Association calls it, of seniors who are going to be aging in this country and will reach 80 by 2040.
This is a huge problem for all of us to think about. There is pressure. It is not only about the issue of dementia itself. Talking about a dementia strategy is a good thing. One thing we need to look at is what it is going to look like. What should we have talked about a while ago when talking about a dementia strategy. We needed to talk about research.
I want to comment on my colleague who brought this motion forward. Liberals will be supporting the motion. It is something we should be supporting. I am not thrilled, however, about anything the government has done to deal with it during its 10 years in office. We have heard that there has been $1 billion invested in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research were created in about 1993 or 1994, so this is not new, and that $1 billion has been the static amount the Canadian Institutes of Health Research have dealt with for the last eight years. They have not moved beyond $1 billion, and $700 million of that is dedicated to research. We need to look at how to move forward.
It is not as though $1 billion has been dedicated to research on dementia. It has not. That is for research on everything. That is for the 14 institutes under the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In the last budget, we saw that the government put a bit of money into CIHR, but it was only for their management system. It was not to give them any more money for research. When we talk about research, that is at the forefront, and the government has done little when it has had an opportunity to deal with research. Now we want to talk about prevention and promotion.
We know some of the things that could be dealt with to delay, not prevent but delay, the onset of dementia. For instance, we absolutely know that increased exercise and proper nutrition have been shown to delay the onset of dementia. We know that if someone has a concussion over the course of their lifetime, his or her risk of developing dementia is rapidly increased.
Seven years ago, I brought in a bill talking about wearing a CSA-approved helmet for recreation sport. We know so many people have been getting concussions when not wearing the right helmet. There is a prevention strategy that was not going to cost anyone any money. The government has refused to do it, and it is seven years later.
Let us talk about what the government could have done and what we are now talking about perhaps doing on the eve of an election. This is kind of sweet. We talk about treatment options. We need to talk about long-term and assisted care.
In 2001, Prime Minister Chrétien's Liberal government indicated that we need to look at home care, community care and integrated care supports in the community. As these are provincial jurisdiction, the federal government put money on the table in the 2004 accord to involve the federal government in dealing with some of these issues that are outside its jurisdiction. The premiers all agreed to it. No one is ramming anything down the province's throat. This was agreed upon. The Conservative government came in in 2006 and walked away from all those tables in the 2004 health accord. In 2014, it cancelled it.
I am just trying to say, it is nice that this is coming. I am not saying that the member has not done a nice thing by bringing this forward, but there was a lot the government could have done. Action could have been taken. Nice is nice, and I will support it for that reason, but I do not see this doing anything.
As far as caregiver support, we have heard from the Canadian Mental Health Commission of Canada that actually 75% of caregivers today are suffering from mental health stress because of taking care at home of the chronically ill and people with dementia, children with disabilities, and chronic diseases. We have seen and heard about that. What did the government do in this budget? It put forward a $300 tax credit. That does not even begin to touch the need for caregivers in the country. We have seen families who are looking after their senior parents on the one side and their children on the other. They are caught in a sandwich and they are suffering. They are going to be costing the health care system from all of the pressure and the stress they are under. Large numbers of them are suffering from depression because they do not know what to do about it.
In our country we have seniors looking after seniors. I have travelled around the country as the health critic and I have talked to people in town hall meetings. I have had people say to me, “I am 82 and I am looking after my 85-year-old spouse. I cannot even lift him, and I don't get any respite. I get two hours a week of care that comes in. I get to use that two hours to go and buy groceries, to take my spouse to the doctor to get medications, go to the drugstore and to do everything. We have seniors coping with this.
There is a lot that could be done and a lot that could have been done. One can look back and say, “Well, you didn't do this and you didn't do that”, but the bottom line is, this was all articulated by the prime minister of the country back in 2001, working with the provinces. In the 2004 health accord all of this was part of the clear objectives set out. As I said, in 2006, the government walked away and said, “We have nothing to do. This is all provincial.” That is not true. It was signed on the dotted line by the provinces that they recognized they could not do it without the federal government.
I meet with ministers of health of every political stripe across the country and they say the same thing, “There are things we cannot do without a high-level meeting and without the federal government at the table”.
The federal government is responsible for all Canadians. Let us remember that. We cannot pass the buck and say, “This is a provincial jurisdiction and this is not.” We have to take leadership and work in partnership.