Madam Speaker, you might say that no one can be against virtue and apple pie, and you are right, because everyone would love to have a universal dental care plan to rely, and it would be a good idea for the government to look into it.
The problem is that our NDP friends are thinking of either the wrong legislature or the wrong country. Like it or not, the Canadian Constitution is quite clear. Sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867, make it crystal clear that health is an exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces and Quebec. It has nothing to do with the federal government.
As far as health is concerned, the federal government is responsible for the health of indigenous peoples. Incidentally, and we talk about this often in the House, the federal government is absolutely incapable of providing indigenous communities with basic services. It cannot even provide a decent supply of clean drinking water. This is happening in the 21st century in a G7 country, yet my colleagues are claiming that the federal government has what it takes to interfere in an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, namely health.
The federal government is responsible for military hospitals, the approval of drugs and quarantine, as we have seen in this pandemic. That is it.
In 2019, I was elected as the member for Montarville, but in a past life, I sat in the House from 1993 to 2005. During that time, I was always surprised to see our NDP friends constantly proposing things that interfered in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. They may not believe it, but they will never get the Bloc's support on these issues because we have the utmost respect for the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. We are against federal encroachment on these jurisdictions.
Our friends in the NDP should at least go through the motions of acknowledging that their motions deal with a jurisdiction that belongs to Quebec and the provinces. They should at least acknowledge in their motions that certain provinces already have pharmacare and dental care initiatives.
For example, my colleague from St. John's East, who moved this motion, should know that Newfoundland provides dental coverage. However, my colleague, for whom I have a lot of respect, does not acknowledge this fact, and it breaks my heart to have to tell the House that I cannot support his initiative.
As long as the New Democrats keep coming up with one motion or bill after another that would have the federal government interfere in a jurisdiction that belongs to Quebec and the provinces, we will be forced to tell them that it will not work. We will never be able to support this kind of initiative. They need to at least try to acknowledge in their centralizing statements that this is not a federal jurisdiction and that the provinces already have such initiatives.
For example, Quebec has had its own dental care program since 1974. Children are covered in Quebec, and social assistance recipients have been covered since 1979. There are other programs, such as the one in Newfoundland.
If only our colleagues in the NDP would offer even the slightest acknowledgement that they are making a mistake by proposing health care initiatives and that they are infringing on provincial jurisdictions. Perhaps my colleagues in the NDP, and my colleague from St. John's East in particular, are simply in the wrong legislature. Perhaps my colleague from St. John's East should be in the House of Assembly in St. John's. Perhaps our colleagues in the NDP should be serving in their own respective provincial legislatures, not in the House of Commons, if they want to interfere in jurisdictions that belong to Quebec and the provinces.
Perhaps they are simply not in the right country. The Constitution clearly states that health, among other things, is not a federal jurisdiction. They are either in the wrong legislature, or in the wrong country, or both. They will have to fix that little problem.
Dental care for children has been covered in Quebec for 40 years. Debates about whether to extend or restrict dental coverage and eye care have been held in Quebec. These are healthy debates, and they take place where they are supposed to, in the National Assembly of Quebec or in provincial legislatures. It is not up to the federal government, let alone the NDP, to tell the provinces what they should do in their own jurisdictions. That is what Jean Chrétien's government did, and he did not even try to hide it. He clearly stated that the federal government would set the standards and that the provincial governments would have no choice but to implement them. The federal government wants to turn the provinces into mere service providers for the public. It wants every decision to be made in Ottawa. Too bad, but that is not how Canada's Constitution was designed.
Essentially, the problem is that not only has the federal government continually violated the Constitution, but it has broken its promise. When a health care plan was first agreed upon from coast to coast to coast, the federal government was supposed to pay for 50% of it. Now we are down to about 23%. Quebec and the provinces are covering the difference. It is no wonder that Quebec and the provinces are not in a position to offer dental coverage.
I am addressing my NDP colleagues and my colleagues from other political parties. If the federal government were to respect the consensus of Quebec and the provinces and increase health transfers, Quebec and the provinces might have the flexibility to expand their basket of services to include dental care. The federal government is stubbornly refusing to invest in health care. That is the bottom line. We are told that because we are in a pandemic, this is not the time to discuss health transfers. Somehow, now is the time to discuss a national child care plan, elder care and camping, but it is not the time to discuss health transfers when we are in the middle of a pandemic. There could not be a better time to discuss health transfers.
However, the deficit announced in the budget is around $354 billion for fiscal year 2020-21. Curiously enough, that is $28 billion less than the amount announced in November's economic statement. How can there be a $28-billion difference when we know that that figure is virtually identical, almost to the penny, to the amount that the provinces and Quebec have been calling for to top up the federal health transfers?
It is almost as if the federal government is giving itself leverage to pressure Quebec and the provinces, so it can ram its initiatives and interference in child care, senior care and whatever else it likes down their throats. The Liberals and the NDP are always in favour of encroaching on areas under the jurisdiction of the provinces and Quebec, but that is not how things should work.
I will therefore respectfully state that the priority is not to create new federal initiatives or new encroachments. The priority is to transfer more money to the provinces. That would give health care professionals some breathing space and enable them to upgrade their equipment and infrastructure so that they can provide the public with better services, including dental care.