Pauline Picard

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and I also congratulate him for the magnificent work he is doing as health critic for the Bloc Quebecois. I have worked with him lately on the standing committee that studied the new reproductive technologies. I want to take the opportunity afforded by the minister's presence to ask her to deal with the report on assisted human reproduction as soon as possible. We have been expecting a bill on this for years now. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to say these things.

The current government and its members often say that its contribution to health is not only 14%. We always hear the same arguments. They always talk about tax points and equalization payments. They add this to the percentage for the Canada social transfer.

I would like to elaborate on a few things. Tax points are not federal transfers for health care. As we know from all the studies that were carried out and from all the financial experts who reviewed the figures, the government had agreed to support the provinces and shoulder 50% of health care funding. It was mentioned earlier on.

Provinces made a commitment to maintain the standards and uphold the conditions set out by the government, but in 1993-94, the government reduced its contribution and nowadays it does not pay more than 14% of the costs, that is $14 for every $100 spent or 14¢ for every dollar spent. This is outrageous, especially given the higher costs faced by the provinces because of the aging population, all the new technologies and the cost of drugs.

Tax points have nothing to do with health transfers. In fact, they contribute to balance the tax positions in the federation, and this has nothing to do with the cash contributions under the Canada social transfer. The taxation power given under an agreement between levels of government is not to be considered a lifetime contribution to the tax revenues of one of the parties to the agreement. Tax points are not a federal government expenditure; they are not mentioned in the public accounts of Canada. That is what I had to say about tax points.

Moving on now to equalization payments, the federal government cannot use these payments to justify its withdrawing from health care funding. I have heard that argument twice already. I even heard the secretary of state talk about equalization. Let me remind him that equalization is totally different from other types of transfers and cannot be linked to the Canada social transfer. Equalization payments are unconditional and are simply added to Quebec's consolidated revenue.

So, his arguments do not stand. He should find other ways of denying that he is not even paying 14 ¢ for every dollar spent.

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was saying that everybody deplores the fact that the federal government has been pulling out of the Canada social transfer. Provincial authorities met recently and they also deplore this situation. They are unanimous in saying that the fact that the federal government is backing away is having some very serious consequences and that they have to take action to maintain their health care system.

The problem is that the federal government wants to retain the national standards but is not keeping its promises. It was supposed to pay 50% of health care costs and the provinces had accepted those standards. However, since the deep cuts of 1993-1994, the federal government has been pulling back from its participation in the Canada social transfer to such an extent that it now pays only 14% of the health care costs, yet still wants to enforce national standards.

Therefore, the provinces find themselves in an untenable situation; the population is aging, the cost of medication is rising and research and new technologies are colossally expensive. Financially, the provinces are barely managing, but they still want to provide their citizens with all the services and the health care required. There is a real imbalance between Ottawa and the provinces.

It is often said that the opposition always criticizes anything that the government or its members have to say. It is said that we criticize their policies and that we have nothing else to propose, when all the provinces agree that the government has withdrawn funding. Jean Charest himself, who is not, as we know, a sovereignist, has already blamed the Prime Minister. On May 7, 1997, in a rare moment of conscience, he told the Journal de Québec that the premiers have to manage Ottawa's unilateral cuts. He said:

We see this clearly, across Canada, and not just in Quebec, as some people would have us believe. The health care system has suffered massive cuts by this government. Blaming all the system's problems on poor decisions and mismanagement by the provinces is just plain bad faith.

In a September 22, 1998, press release, the Canadian Medical Association said:

Federal funding cuts to health and social transfers to the provinces have been the main barriers for Canadians' access to quality health care and the cause of the greatest crisis in confidence in our health care system since the inception of Canada's Medicare program in the 1960s.

I could talk about the Canadian Health Care Association, or the members of the old National Forum on Health, who felt the need to expand on their recommendations.

The urgency is very real. Quebec society is being strangled by the federal government and it must fight back. If the federal government again refuses, as it probably will, to meet Quebec's demands, the only solution left will be to unite our citizens with those who believe, as we do, that Quebec will only truly come into its own when it has achieved sovereignty. For Quebec, sovereignty is the road to health.

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be part of today's debate on the opposition motion moved by the Bloc Quebecois.

This motion reads as follows:

That this House condemn the government for withdrawing from health care funding, for no longer shouldering more than 14 per cent of the costs of health care, and for attempting to invade provincial areas of jurisdiction by using the preliminary report of the Romanow Commission to impose its own vision of health care.

This motion speaks for itself. Since coming to the House in 1993, the Bloc has never stopped speaking against the deep cuts orchestrated by the Liberal government in funding for health, social assistance and education.

We all remember the infamous Red Book of the Prime Minister and most of all the words accompanying it, and I quote the newspaper La Presse of September 25 1993: “In our program, we have no plan to cut payments to individuals or to the provinces. It is there in black and white”.

This speech of the Prime Minister vanished like the morning mist when the Minister of Finance set the record straight a few months later and said that the next budget would contain deep cuts in funding to the provinces for health, social assistance and education. This is what he said in an interview published in the Toronto Star of April 19, 1994.

This government said it has done no draconian cuts. Yet, it announce them through the finance minister. Here again is what he said to the Toronto Star on April 19 1994: “The next budget will contain deep cuts in funding to the provinces for health, social assistance and education”.

This is what destroyed our health care system. This contradiction, and there have been so many others, shows how the Liberals have constantly misled the public, promising a rosy future, while in fact it would get darker.

By refusing to fund adequately health care, the government has undermined the whole structure of our services and put provinces in a situation where they are no longer able to provide the public with the services they need. The government seems to be the only one unable to see the reality as it is. Provincial governments, heath organizations, social organizations and the general public all agree that the massive cuts imposed by Ottawa in health spending are responsible for the dire straights we are in.

In his budget, the finance minister announced no new measure to help provinces overcome the many problems he has caused them by withdrawing from health care funding, which is a priority for Canadians and Quebecers.

The Premier of Quebec was right when he said a few weeks ago in Vancouver, and I quote, “Saying that problems with our health care system have nothing to do with money is denying the obvious”.

There must be adequate health care funding in this country. To achieve that, the federal government must at least restore transfers to 1994 levels, which would result in an increase of about $8 billion, a quarter of which would go back to Quebec. I think that my colleagues who spoke before me demonstrated that the government must keep its promises and put money back into the health care system. We are asking it to restore transfers to where they were in 1993-94, and that is without indexation.

The federal government must recognized that the cuts made since 1994 have had a devastating effect on the health care system across the country. Instead of refusing to listen to the needs that have been expressed, the Liberal government should bring funding back to where it was before it decided to make drastic cuts in 1993-94, plus indexation. It would make a little more sense.

The needs are in the provinces and the money is in Ottawa. The problem is obvious. The population is aging, technologies are more and more expensive, to say nothing about the increasing costs of drugs and research.

Money is needed. The tax system within the Canadian federation needs to be readjusted, but first the government must recognize that a tax imbalance does exist, which it is still denying.

Must I remind the Minister of Finance that, in the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government made a commitment to fund 50% of health care costs? Since that time, its contribution has fallen to less than 20%, resulting in the inability of provinces to financially support the system. Instead of recognizing the facts, the government prefers to make flashy announcements.

[Committees of the House, January 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague for giving us all that information. I know that since 1993 he has defended workers and the unemployed. I believe it is honourable to have a man of his calibre in a party.

As we know, in his last budget the finance minister did not hesitate to once again dip into the EI fund surplus to finance all kinds of programs, including an infrastructure program. He did that despite reprimands from the general auditor and critics of the Bloc Québécois and other opposition parties. As we know, the surplus will reach $42.8 billion and the minister has no intention of turning it into an independent fund.

I would like to know what the hon. member thinks about what the finance minister did.

[Quebec Economy, January 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, according to a new international study by KPMG, Montreal is still the best major city in which to locate a business, and the City of Quebec comes a solid second after Edmonton among cities with under two million inhabitants.

This is proof positive, if any is still needed, of the quality of Quebec's tax system, one of the most original and obviously one of the most effective in the world.

Even more noteworthy than its tax system is the productivity of Quebec's labour force. During the last ten years, it has increased by over 25%, twice the average for OECD countries. The result has been a more than 30% increase in the collective wealth of Quebecers in the space of ten years.

These economic successes have not lessened the desire to share. Quebec is still one of the most caring societies. According to Statistics Canada, Quebec has the best distribution of wealth in North America.

I congratulate Quebecers on this decade of success.

[Employment Insurance, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance's choice to have EI contributors foot the bill for services to the entire population is profoundly unfair. Like millions of Canadian taxpayers, the Minister of Finance does not contribute to EI.

Is it not unfair to make salaried workers pay for universal services, on top of the government's debt, while he and millions of other high income individuals do not contribute at all, or contribute on only a small portion of their incomes, to what is mandatory for low wage earners?

[Employment Insurance, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Finance admitted that the employment insurance fund was fictitious, since its contents had been spent on services to the population and paying down the debt.

When he was out making his campaign promises to the jobless last year, why did the Minister of Finance not tell the workers and the jobless that the EI fund was fictitious, and that he had already made the policy choice to make EI contributors foot part of the bill for services to be delivered to everyone? Why did he conceal this?

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I cannot believe my ears. My Liberal colleague does not know that the provinces have jurisdiction over municipalities. She refers to the foundation. The famous $2 billion does not even exist at the present time in the tables. That amount has not been budgeted. It is contingent on our having a surplus at year end. Creating foundations was criticized by the auditor general. This makes no sense.

As for these two billion dollars, if we have them, why is the government not using them in established programs, which we are quite happy with at this time? Why not inject them into existing program, rather than a foundation to be directed by goodness knows who? Departmental employees have even been asked—

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, just so the members opposite do not accuse us of saying any old thing, there was an article—such articles appear daily—which contained comments by tax experts and economists. From everything I have read, no one had anything good to say about the current budget of the Minister of Finance, except his parliamentary secretary, but I doubt very much he read the articles in the papers.

As I was saying earlier, to be more transparent, there is an article in today's La Presse , which refers to the Minister of Finance and the employment insurance fund. I will quote from it, because on the other side they think the Bloc Quebecois is making things up.

It says that the Minister of Finance has no compunction about using the record surpluses of the employment insurance fund to finance other government programs. It also says that the Minister of Finance is using the fund to finance the sectors of health and education. The Minister of Finance is saying this when everyone knows the money is going onto the debt.

The article goes on to say that despite criticism by the auditor general and sharp criticism from the opposition parties, the unions and business people, the Minister of Finance plans to keep using the employment insurance fund surplus, which should reach $42.8 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

There is no need to point out that the government is not putting a cent—and I nearly used a word to describe that cent—in the fund. Workers and employers contribute to the employment insurance fund. The government is using the money for the debt. If at least it were used for certain priorities, such as increasing the Canada health and social transfer, we would agree to it for the sick and the young, but it is not the case. As I said earlier, the CHST has never returned to the level it was before the draconian cuts by this government in 1993-94.

They are also telling us that it is because they are concerned about health. They dip into the employment insurance fund and they claim to care about health, and they are trying to get the public to swallow that one. It is crazy.

[Committees of the House, December 13th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary cannot be serious. Such comments are despicable. This is the bleakest week that I have ever experienced in this parliament.

This member, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, has not spent sufficient time on the Standing Committee on Finance to have heard the witnesses' priorities. They told us “The Canada social transfer needs to be increased”.

According to the member, the government has given $3 billion, but he was not here when the government made drastic cuts that virtually drove the provinces to bankruptcy in 1993-94. With respect to education, the funding is at its lowest level ever. For health care, we are dealing with an aging population and increased costs for technology and drugs. And the government thinks it has done us a favour? First of all, this is a commitment that was made last year; it is not in this year's budget. These figures were announced in last year's pre-election economic statement. They thought they would do the provinces a big favour, but they never brought the funding levels back up to what they were in 1993-94.

Also, it was never indexed. The provinces are asking for several billion dollars. The provincial ministers met recently to ask the Minister of Finance—it is not the Bloc Quebecois that is asking—to increase the Canada health and social transfer. Meanwhile, the member opposite has just told us that the Bloc Quebecois does not know what it is talking about. Unbelievable.

What is more, he insults my colleague. In the budget forecasts for the past five years, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe--Bagot has only been off by around $4 billion, yet the Minister of Finance has been off by $60 billion. I am not sure which of the two is more brilliant.