Mr. Speaker, Canadians are very proud of their health care system. In Quebec, we are fortunate enough to have one of the country's most progressive and comprehensive systems.
Before getting into the nuts and bolts of our collaboration with the government of Quebec and the other provinces on matters of health care, I would first like to speak to health workers.
There are a lot of numbers being quoted these days, like the number of cases and sums of money, and I will quote some myself soon. Our health care system, however, is made up of human beings, men and women, Quebeckers and Canadians. I am thinking in particular of those who work in the free testing sites in Outremont, Côte-des-Neiges, the Plateau and Mile End. I am also thinking of the staff at the CHUM, the Centre hospitalier universitaire Sainte-Justine, the Jewish General Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital.
The nursing staff is on duty day and night, much like the physicians and surgeons, orderlies, receptionists, not to mention the entire cleaning and cafeteria staff. They are all tired. They have been dealing with a health crisis for over nine months now. We all acknowledge their work, and their call for more resources are entirely legitimate. That is why the federal government has spent $3 billion to top up the wages of our essential workers.
The motion before us contains four elements. You will not find many colleagues who oppose the first three. I will never miss an opportunity to thank our front-line workers and acknowledge the sacrifices they have had to make and continue to make. However, with respect to the fourth part of the motion, which is essentially asking us to give the provinces blank cheques, I do have some questions.
Our government is committed to working with the National Assembly and with all provincial and territorial governments, to improve access to care for all Canadians. That is why our government has announced that it is entering into negotiations with the provinces on health care and transfers. That meeting is scheduled for December 10, just under 10 days from now.
The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly highlighted the importance of strong and resilient health care systems. It has shown us that health systems need to be more flexible and capable of reaching people in their homes and communities.
The Government of Canada is committed to working in partnership with the provinces and territories to strengthen health care through investments in virtual care, home care, long-term care, community services, and mental health and substance use services. It is a real Canada-wide effort to provide Canadians with the best care possible. It is an unprecedented collaboration between the different levels of government.
I want to remind the members that over the past nine months, the federal government has already provided the provinces with a total of more than $24 billion in direct support. In other words, over a period of nine months, $24 billion was transferred from the federal coffers to the provincial governments.
In fact, if we consider all of the programs, not just the transfers to the provinces, over the past nine months, the federal government has provided almost 85% of the funding that has gone to support Canadians, including Quebeckers, of course, in fighting the pandemic. That also includes more than $25 billion that was allocated specifically to fight COVID-19, protect Canadians' health and support a safe restart.
This includes more than $4 billion for the purchase of PPE, more than $4 billion to help the provinces build up their testing capacity, $2.3 billion for public transit in our municipalities, more than $1 billion for medical research, and much more.
As a mother, I would also like to note the $2-billion transfer to the provinces for the safe return to school, half of which was transferred in September.
While we often hear arguments about the provinces' exclusive jurisdiction over health, I do not recall hearing a lot of noise about this transfer, which, I would remind hon. members, comes with certain conditions.
All these targeted investments are in addition to the funding that our federal government already provides to the provinces and territories through the Canada health transfer, which I will refer to as the CHT. In 2020-21, the government will transfer nearly $42 billion in funding through the CHT to support provincial and territorial health care systems, for a total of more than $200 billion over the next five years.
There is also the nearly $20-billion investment in the safe restart agreement. These investments, which again came from the federal government coffers, allowed our government to increase health transfers to the provinces by more than 23% in relation to the CHT. That is a 23% increase.
By targeting investments to specific priorities, our government is helping the provinces expand access to services where they are most needed. For example, we know that the pandemic has created a mental health crisis. Our government is investing in mental health and addiction services to help the provinces implement initiatives that enhance children's and youth's access to mental health community services. These services roll out evidence-based community models of mental health care and culturally sensitive models of intervention that are integrated into primary care services and increase the availability of integrated community-based mental health and addiction services for people with complex health needs.
Canadians expect governments to collectively achieve concrete results. Accordingly, health ministers have undertaken to measure their performance and report on the results obtained with these investments. Once again, we developed this approach, which includes clear conditions and targets, together with the Government of Quebec.
Bilateral agreements with the provinces allow us to focus efforts on sectors of the health care system that are most in need of resources. Our targeted investments help make our health care system more sustainable in the long term. Now, bilateral agreements on virtual care are helping the provinces and territories speed up their process. In addition, our government will continue to work with the provinces and territories to improve access to family physicians and primary health care teams; increase their ability to provide virtual health care; and strengthen the medicare system.
We look forward to continuing our work with the Government of Quebec and all provincial and territorial governments to make significant changes to our health care system and provide better support to Canadians across the country.
