Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I want to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the member for Lethbridge.
On March 24, 2016, I was in the House of Commons along with pretty much everyone else. I was listening closely to my colleague from Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. It was during statements by members, when we have a minute to talk about a matter of personal interest, and my colleague's words were, by far, the most moving I have ever heard in the House of Commons or the National Assembly, where I sat for seven years.
What was so poignant about his remarks? My colleague told us about his son, Jaden, who was in the gallery at the time. With his trademark sensitivity and a full measure of the sincerity he demonstrates whenever he is invested in something, he shared his deep love for and great pride in his son despite the fact that Jaden has autism spectrum disorder.
His words truly moved me to tears. I shared his statement on Twitter and Facebook. Thousands more anglophones and francophones were also touched by what the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin said.
Here we are 14 months later speaking to this issue. We are being asked to vote on a motion to address a situation that we should not be in in the first place. Why did the current government have to slow the momentum built by the previous government to help research efforts and persons with autism spectrum disorder?
My comments will be two-pronged. Before getting to the financial and political aspects of the issue, let us first talk about autism. Everyone in Canada knows someone who knows someone who is dealing with autism. ASD was around 20 years ago, but we did not know much about it and had not yet given it a name. Today, it affects 1 in 65 children in Canada. That is half a million children who are affected by autism spectrum disorder. Multiply that number by 2, 3, 5, or 10 to get the number of people directly affected because every father, mother, grandfather, grandmother in this situation is affected. This serves as a reminder to those of us who are fortunate enough to be parents, like me and most people here I presume, that we are extremely lucky to have healthy children.
We need to deal with this situation in a positive and constructive way because the distinctive thing about autism is that no two cases are alike. Each case requires dozens or even hundreds of different measures. People with ASD will be dealing with this disorder their entire lives. ASD begins to manifest itself around the age of two. As my colleague from Edmonton—Wetaskiwin mentioned, in Quebec it takes two years to get an appointment and two more to get treatment. By then, the child is six years old, and it might be getting a bit late for treatment. It is never too late to do the right thing, but science has shown that the younger children are when they begin treatment, the better the results.
This is not about partisanship, political games, or seeking gains of any sort. We need to unite to help people in this situation. That is where we are in this debate.
A few years ago, spurred by the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, and with the support of the former prime minister and member for Calgary Heritage, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, as well as the then finance minister, the Honourable Joe Oliver, the previous government allocated monies to enable all Canadian autism organizations to work together and help each other out.
We know that health is a provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government has a role to play. That role is to help with research, and to identify and discover best practices. The role of the federal government is to help all the groups trying to find solutions to ASD to work together, and exchange data and information in order to improve the lives of all Canadians affected by this disorder. I would like to point out that half a million Canadian children are affected. That is a lot of people.
That is why our government created the working group to go forward with this. To everyone's surprise, the current government turned down the group's modest request for funding.
When the budget was tabled, everyone expected the government to carry on with what the previous government started. After all, any government that sees something good happening has a duty to make sure it keeps happening even if it was started by people of a different political stripe. It is important to recognize everyone's work. However, to everyone's surprise, and as the finance critic, I know what I am talking about here, the current government said no to what is really a modest funding request.
The government cut $19 million over five years. That is $3.8 million per year or, as the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin put it, 10¢ per Canadian. That is not a lot. It is exactly 0.0001% of the budget. The budget is over $330 billion, and the government is cutting the $3.8 million that would have gone straight to helping those who help people with autism.
This is an unfortunate, sad, and utterly unacceptable decision. The way I see it, every expenditure is suspect and should be scrutinized. One is either a Conservative or one is not. To Conservatives, money well spent is worth every penny. Let me put that another way.
When it is useful, it is not expensive because it is used. They are important for people. This is the real issue with respect to today's debate. Why did the government decide to cancel the good support that the former government gave to families, to fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, who tried to work hard to support their children and grandchildren who have autism spectrum disorder?
The question today is crystal clear. Why did the government decide to cancel the necessary support? This is the main question. We are very sad to see that since the beginning of the debate, no one on the government side can answer this easy question.
We know that this government sometimes has a hard time giving straightforward answers. We saw this again last week, when the Prime Minister could not tell us how many times he met with the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. I have seen this regularly myself, too. I asked the Minister of Finance 24 times when Canada would return to a balanced budget, but never got an answer.
Let us be honest here. This is a humanitarian issue. This is in no way a partisan issue. We need to give our very best in order to help the most vulnerable among us. The federal government has a vital role to play across Canada. Yes, health is a provincial responsibility, but it is incumbent upon the Canadian federal government to unite the efforts of Canadians and all organizations from coast to coast to coast to allow Canadian parents to access the same services and come up with best practices to support people with autism spectrum disorder. The current government has stifled the efforts of the previous government.
With all my heart, I am appealing to the common sense of my colleagues opposite and to their sense of responsibility. I hope they will allow their government to help Canadians in need.