Mr. Speaker, I am torn a bit between saying congratulations to the member for Red Deer and questioning where the backup is to those remarks. If there is one thing we are about in this place, it is words. When the member says that the Canadian Alliance is opposed to a two tier American health care system, I really want to believe him.
The member is articulate. He put his thoughts forward. He justified his case. It is just a shame that he did not decide to run for leadership of his party. Maybe then the words he spoke would somehow miraculously find their way into the policy book.
That is the problem. How do Canadians make a judgment on whom to believe when the provinces are saying different things about who is at fault if there are problems in the health care system? The opposition parties are blaming the government. The government is naturally defending its position by saying that it is prepared to sit down and talk about how we can fix the system.
Those members are calling federal-provincial co-operation some kind of magical thing. What was the nation been built on if not federal-provincial co-operation? There have been some exceptions, I say to my hon. colleague from the Bloc, but even then there were examples when there have been good Liberal governments in the province of Quebec and relations were excellent between them and the federal government.
Those members are calling for something that is the very foundation of the nation. Yet they claim the changes they would put in place would somehow not lead to a two tier system. If the words match the music, if the pants match the suit, maybe Canadians would have some sense of confidence that they are saying what they really mean.
We have seen the examples. I saw the most incredible display the other night while watching the debate on the pension issue on TV. Members of the Canadian Alliance were attacking the Tories and back and forth. There were accusations about promises made. They indicated that they would do politics differently when they arrived in this capital city.
They were not to accept Stornoway as the residence for the Leader of the Opposition. We know what happened there. The leader lives there now, or at least entertains there perhaps. There were not to accept the limo for the Leader of the Opposition. We know what happened there. After the great demonstration of handing the keys over and saying that it would not be used, we know what happened.
What they are saying does not match the actions we have seen in the past by that party. I believe the critic for the alliance who just spoke personally believes what he is saying. He is dedicated and committed to his community and to the health care system. I believe he has credentials which say that. Notwithstanding, it is just a shame that the rest of his party will not come to the same conclusions.
Let us just look at some of the facts, if we might. The former health critic is a man who I also think is a respected person in his community, the hon. member for Macleod. What did he say? He is a doctor and here was his solution to fix the health care system:
What about a medisave account? I would equate this to an insurance policy on a car. We do not insure our cars for oil changes. We insure them for major catastrophes like an awful crash that would break us if it happened. We insure for the repair bills on a major issue.
What if we insured for catastrophic things in Canada?
Words are really important, but what do they mean? We do not have to read between the lines. We can just read the actual lines. They would provide health care insurance for major catastrophes. They would provide health care insurance for life threatening situations, diseases, injuries, heart attacks or cancer, but they would not provide it without some additional payment for other issues. Perhaps they would knock emphysema off the list. According to them patients on oxygen could live on that and do not need the health care system; maybe that is one thing that could be delisted.
Picture the single mom sitting at home. Perhaps she has a job or is on welfare. She may have a child who has a fever of 103 or 104 degrees, is burning up, coughing and is ill. What does she do? Does she ask “How much money do I have in my medisave account?” Can she afford to take Johnny or Mary to the hospital when they are showing all those symptoms? It is just so bizarre.
The member says he does not support a two tier system, whether it is called American or anything else, I do not really care, but it is clearly a two tiered system that the Alliance Party is talking about, unless it is adhering to what I heard the other night in the debate when a member was asked about his party's position while debating pensions. The member actually stood in this place and said that the Alliance no longer had that policy because it was a new party.
What we are hearing is that it has thrown out the former Reform Party blue policy book, or whatever colour it is, and that the new party has no policies on any of these items.
The other day in the House our finance minister, in response to a question about health care and financing, held up a copy of the Canadian Alliance's web page. In the section that was laid out for health care policies, the words were something to the effect that its position has not been developed yet.
Are we developing policies for, admittedly what the vast majority of Canadians consider to be a most important aspect, the health care system? Are we down to developing policy based on a critic's speech on an opposition day, on a concocted motion that has been written in such a way as to make it perhaps politically difficult to vote against? Is that how we are formulating policy for the development of this country's health care system?
The member mentioned Premier Romanow. I watched the premier on the news last night and I was quite impressed. I say to the member from Regina that I readily and openly admit that Saskatchewan is really the seat of medicare. It is the founding province of medicare. The NDP had a lot to do with that under their former great leader Tommy Douglas.
It is interesting now to see that province, one of our smaller provinces in terms of population, coming up with some constructive ideas about establishing a national report, about looking for ways to work co-operatively with the federal government. I do not see that province flying a bill like bill 11, which everyone in the province of Alberta is frightened to death about because they fear that it will lead to Americanization. Why?
The problem we have is that we have another document, a federal document called NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. I guess the greatest fear of the people in Alberta is that when bill 11 is put into force, the American health care company service providers will have the ability to come in and open up clinics that will provide surgery, and more than than just day surgery, they will be able to provide beds and care for patients.
Once NAFTA is opened up in terms of the health care services, I submit to all members in this place that we will run a very serious risk. For the members opposite to say that they are not supporting this, let us just pretend that we can take them at their word. The member for Red Deer says that the Alliance is not in favour of a two tier American health care system. How do we stop it once we open the marketplace up to for profit American or even Canadian health care company providers. How do you stop that?
Maybe the member for Macleod's solution for some form of medisave bank account would be the only solution. We would have to go to Canadians if we wanted to ensure that they had accessibility, portability and all the things that are so important in our system: universality, accessibility, portability and comprehensiveness. If we want to ensure that is all there, we will have to write them a cheque if we allow the provision of health care services, through the political games that are being played here, to go the route of privatization.
I am not convinced one way or the other on that bill. I have no problem having a debate on the issue. I do not really agree with the hysteria that we see coming from the NDP and the demonstrations that we see happening in Alberta. I think we do need to look at new ideas, such as the idea that Premier Romanow has floated recently in having a national study put together to see how we can best work together.
The hon. member should not stand in this place as the critic, as a representative of the official opposition, and make statements that are not backed up by the words of the people who are running to be the leader, that are purportedly running to be prime minister, they think in their wildest dreams. One cannot make those statements while there is an all-candidates meeting going on on television and the opposite is being said.
We have one program where we would have a medisave account. Let us talk about some of the other solutions. Again I say to the members opposite, it is wonderful for them to stand in here and make a claim that they are not in support of an American two tier health care system, but what about the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca? He has made privatized medicare, private for profit health care a plank of his campaign to stand for leader of the Canadian Alliance Party. What has he said? In March 2000 in this place, in Hansard , he called for us to amend the Canada Health Act to allow for more private services.
What is really interesting is that at the conclusion of that member's speech, he admitted that it would be an unfair, unequal system. This is person who is running to lead the official opposition who would try to put forth what can only be described as a fraud on the Canadian people.
The Canadian Alliance members have tried to mislead Canadians by saying that their party will somehow, in some magical way, save medicare and that they are not in support of for profit Americanization and two-tier health care, but that is not what their leadership candidates are saying.
The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca then goes on, in that same speech, to ask, rhetorically, if it was unequal. “Yes, it is”, he said. “I would argue that it is better to have an unequal system that provides better access to health care for all Canadians than we have today”. That was said by one of the candidates, a sitting member of this place, who was clearly standing up for what could only be described as the two tier Americanization of our health care system.
Let us go to some of the members who are perhaps in a better place to win that leadership. Let us talk about the former treasurer of Alberta, Stockwell Day. When asked recently what he would let provincial governments do when it came to health care, a provincial politician, he bluntly stated that health care was a provincial jurisdiction. What does that mean? Does that mean that he would perhaps follow the policy book of the former Reform Party which, when it came to how much it would increase health care funding in its policy book, the amount was zero, not a dime, not a cent, not a loonie, not a toonie, nothing?
Is Stockwell Day saying that is his commitment to how he would improve health care? Would he turn it all over to the provinces, turn it over to Ralph Klein or to Mike Harris, and allow them to once again put in place what could potentially open the floodgates under NAFTA to allow for for-profit health care providers to take over the marketplace? I suppose that is clearly an option and one that we do see. The reason that we talk about Americanization is because that is where we see it.
I have a very close friend who was the best man at my wedding 30-some years ago. He moved to the United States and has a business there. He has lived in Los Angeles and other places for many years. He comes home to Canada all the time. A couple of years ago my friend's wife found out she had breast cancer and had to go for treatment in the United States. This is a family with a small business. They are not multi-millionaires. The treatment to save his wife worked, thank God, but it cost over a quarter of a million dollars.
Where does a family come up with resources like a quarter of a million dollars? Where do they find that money? Imagine the agony of a family in the United States finding out that a loved one has contracted a disease that is going to take a quarter of a million dollars to cure and they have no possibility, no access, no hope of ever coming up with the funding for that.
If the Canadian Alliance truly is opposed to that, I am happy. I just do not understand why we get so many different messages from different people in that party.
Let me talk about the former leader of the former reform party, a current sitting member, although one would find it hard to say that the word sitting is appropriate, the former member for Calgary Southwest. In May, in the Globe and Mail , he was quoted as saying that if he was ever elected prime minister, God forbid, that no province would ever receive penalties for violating the Canada Health Act. He called for user fees, deductibles and private delivery services in a speech to the Ontario Hospital Association Convention in Toronto in November of 1994.
