Madam Speaker, I wish my colleagues a good afternoon.
I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak on the recently proposed offer to provinces and territories regarding the federal investments in our health care system, an offer that I am pleased to say provincial and territorial premiers signalled their agreement to work on this plan on February 13.
I think that is good news, and I want to point it out. It is good news for all Canadians. It is good news for Canadians in London West.
Canadians value our universal public health system, but the COVID-19 pandemic has put it under enormous strain. Across the country, Canadians struggle to find a family doctor or to access urgent care when they need it the most.
Canada's health care workers, who have been at the forefront of fighting COVID-19 for nearly three years now, continue to provide care under extremely challenging circumstances. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for their courage, compassion and the enormous dedication they bring to the work they do every single day. We owe it to them and to all Canadians to take the necessary steps to ensure that our health care system is more efficient and resilient now and into the future.
I had the pleasure of having a beautiful conversation with someone in my riding who came to talk to me about the health care system and its state right now. He told me how 20-some years ago his family moved to Canada because of our health care system. He impressed upon me how important it was for us to continue to put the safeguards in that were necessary to ensure that provinces and territories were abiding to the Canada Health Act.
The federal government has to and will continue to work with provinces and territories in the best interest of all Canadians, their families and the health workers to deliver concrete results and improvements to the health care system.
On February 7, the Prime Minister and his provincial and territorial counterparts met to work together on improving Canada's health care system.
They discussed shared health priorities to deliver real results for all Canadians. They also discussed the importance of upholding the Canada Health Act to protect Canada's publicly funded health care system, which is important to all Canadians.
This act ensures that Canadians have equitable access to medical care based on their needs, not their ability to pay.
The federal government will increase health funding to provinces and territories by $196 billion over 10 years. In addition, it will invest $2.5 billion over 10 years in complementary federal support, for a total of $198.6 billion over 10 years. This includes new funding in the amount of $49 billion over 10 years, $46 billion of which will be transferred directly to the provinces and territories. This funding will be distributed through the Canada health transfer, tailor-made bilateral agreements with provinces and territories, an Indigenous health equity fund and complementary federal support.
We offered provinces and territories $25 billion over 10 years to advance shared health priorities through tailored bilateral agreements that would support the unique needs of people in each province and territory.
At the working meeting with the premiers, we also outlined four key shared health priorities.
The first is for Canadians to get rapid access to a family medicine practitioner or team, including in rural and remote areas. Family medicine teams and virtual care will play a key role in ensuring that all Canadians have timely access to quality care in their community.
Second, is the support for health care workers to provide Canadians with timely access to the quality, effective and safe health care they need. We need to retain, recruit and train new health workers, recognize credentials of internationally educated health professionals and leverage new models of care and digital tools to better support health workers. This is really important in London West as many supporters have talked about how we need to continue to leverage the credentials of foreigners.
We want to make real progress with provinces and territories to improve the labour mobility of health professionals, starting with multi-jurisdictional credential recognition.
The third is improved access to timely, equitable and quality mental health and substance use services.
Mental health is very important to all Canadians, and it is important that we make investments that will make a difference across the country.
This morning, I had the opportunity to make an announcement with the Minister of Mental Health. I also had the opportunity to have a conversation with someone who was working on the front line of supporting young people in mental health.
In hearing the stories of how they are adapting to support trauma-informed practices that help young people get the supports they need is mental health, it is important to recognize that more than ever Canadians need mental health supports. This goes for workers too. We need to ensure there are resources for the providers as well.
The fourth is a modernized health system that is essentially supported by data and digital technologies. Data and being able to securely share this data across the country with providers and systems will be critical to saving lives and improving our health care system across the country.
We will continue to help Canadians age with dignity closer to home thanks to better access to home care or care in a safe long-term care facility. We have already announced investments to advance this priority.
The new funding announcement made on February 7 also includes an additional $1.7 billion over five years to support wage increases for personal support workers and related professionals. I have heard that this is really needed, and many people in my riding have spoken to me about this.
The plan offers flexibility for provinces and territories to respond to their unique needs and priorities. A key feature of this plan is also recognizing that data is integral to well-functioning, modern health care systems. Improved data and digital health can empower patients and enable clinicians to provide safer and better care.
Right now, only one-third of Canadians can access some of their health data online. That is unacceptable. We have to keep working on this.
We are prepared to measure and report annual progress on the common indicators with disaggregated data and we have asked provinces and territories to do the same as part of their data commitment. Reporting to Canadians will promote greater transparency on results. I want to emphasize this data sharing will respect provincial, territorial and federal privacy legislation to protect Canadians' privacy and benefit their care.
We recognize the importance of disaggregated data in making decisions that fit the unique needs of each community.
It is a pleasure for me to be in the House and to see this happen, as we continue to have these conversations around health care systems with the provinces. Our constituents continue to talk about this. We want to ensure that we are doing the right thing, that we are protecting our health care system and that it is not based on how much money one makes but based on having a health care card.