Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to this bill and to compliment the member across the way, who I know is a recipient of one of those parliamentarian awards.
This is indeed a very encouraging private member's bill. Just listening to the debate for the last 45 minutes, we get the sense of some momentum that could see the bill go to committee. I would like to see it go to committee. There seem to be some thoughts that maybe we could make some amendments to improve it. As members, we understand the need for furthering the cause of palliative care.
This has been an issue for me for many years. In fact, there was a time, when I was the health critic in the province of Manitoba, when I would go into a hospital facility and see patients waiting, because there was not enough palliative care. In some cases, they were sitting in hallways in hospitals, because there was not a facility or room, even for individuals who were in need of palliative care.
I do not know the severity today. I think there is a better appreciation of what palliative care is and how important palliative care is to all Canadians. It bridges all generations. One does not have to be seeing the end of life in a few weeks.
Where does one begin in trying to address this issue?
Many provinces would argue, and rightfully so, that we have to be careful about provincial jurisdiction.
What I respect about our current Minister of Health is her sense of passion that Canada needs to come to the table, in terms of strong national leadership, on a number of social health issues. Palliative care is one of those.
Just last spring we had a very, I would suggest, apolitical, passionate argument about assisted-dying legislation. During that debate, we saw members on all sides of the House moved to tears. Stories were told about why health care is so important.
Canada is at a critical time. We often hear about the financing of health care and that Ottawa needs to play that role. One of the things I respected so much about the Paul Martin government was that it established the health care accord in 2004 that put into place health care funding. It is the reason we had record amounts of financing going into health care in every region of our country. That health care accord expired in 2014.
We now have a Minister of Health who has reached out to the provinces, under the direction of the Prime Minister and the cabinet and I would like to think all members. I know that the Minister of Health is very much in tune with what is being said here today.
I would like to think that the message we should be sending to the Minister of Health is that Ottawa has to and must play a strong national leadership role in the future of palliative care and in ensuring that there is palliative care in every region of our country and some conformity. I understand and appreciate one of the questions that was posed to the sponsor of the bill, namely, what about the idea of looking for best practices? We need to acknowledge that some provinces are ahead of others on this very important issue.
From a Canadian perspective as someone who loves our country, it should not matter where we live, whether in Newfoundland and Labrador; the province of Quebec or Ontario; or in the city of Winnipeg, my favourite city; or out on the Pacific coast; or in many of our rural communities in every region, including up north, or wherever it might be. Wherever we live, we should have this sense of equality and equity. It should not be the case that if people want good palliative care, they have to live in this or that region of the country. We do not want to see that.
What we want to see and what I choose to believe the Minister of Health is looking for in terms of best practices is what role Ottawa can play in working with the different provinces in trying to make sure that those best practices are being implemented, and how Ottawa can best ensure that is taking place.
We need to ensure there is accountability. We all know that tax dollars are limited, and our taxpayers want us to spend wisely. As a former health care critic, I can say there is a lot of room for improvement of expenditures in health care and in the way in which health care is managed. I say that, knowing full well that in different provinces they approach things in different ways. That is why I argue, when we talk about palliative care, pharmaceuticals or medications, and even when we talk about emergency services, that we at least recognize in part that Ottawa has something to contribute to the debate. It is not just our responsibility to write cheques for billions and billions of dollars. We do that. We pump record amounts of money into our public health care system, and that is something we should do. Health care is part of our Canadian identity. We as Canadians love our health care system, but as Canadians we know there is room for improvement.
When I think of room for improvement, I think of things such as medications, mental health, and what we are debating here today, palliative care. From a personal perspective, I will be very up front in talking about the passing of my father and the fantastic work that our health care professionals, the backbone of our system, put in day in and day out. We cannot give them enough credit, the credit that is owed because of the loving and caring attitudes that so many of our health care professionals have. We owe it to them, we owe it to the patients, and we owe it to the clients and individuals to do the very best job we can as legislators. In other words, we need to get it right.
That is why I am pleased that the member has so openly acknowledged that, yes, this is her bill but that she is open to amendments at committee. I do believe that with amendments we can make this an even better piece of legislation. By doing that, all Canadians will benefit, which is something that all of us want to be able to achieve, especially on apolitical issues like palliative care, because we all care about palliative care.