Mr. Speaker, I too want to express my support for the motion moved today by the Bloc Quebecois.
It reads as follows:
That this House urges the government to respect provincial jurisdiction over health care management, to increase transfers to the provinces for health care unconditionally, and to avoid using budget surpluses to encroach upon the health care field.
If one remembers what has happened since 1993, particularly in the earlier budgets that came out of this government and were tabled by the current finance minister, we have seen drastic cuts in many areas. Sure, we had a huge deficit, but what got hit the hardest were the cash transfers to the provinces. This budget item, which was around $18 billion, dropped to $11.5 billion a year.
The provinces lost over $6 billion in annual revenues which were used at the time to fund three types of programs: cost shared initiatives in health care, cost shared initiatives in education, and social assistance transfers.
The government, knowing it was about to make significant cuts—at the time we knew exactly what the government's contribution to health care, education, and social assistance was—decided to amalgamate all three programs into one now called the Canada social transfer. This same government, which now talks about transparency, accountability and visibility, and says that people need to know how much money it is contributing to health care, is the one that merged these programs to eliminate transparency. Why? The reason is rather obvious.
There were some massive cuts and the members on the other side of the House did not want to be blamed for cutting this much in education, and that much in health care or welfare. So they told the provinces: “We are cutting $6 billion. You can split that any which way you want between health care, education and welfare.” The federal government wanted to show what a good sport it was. They said: “The choice is yours, you get to determine what percentage of the cuts you want to apply to health care, education and welfare.”
Now that the transfer payments are about to be increased, the federal government knows that the first priority of Canadians will be health care. They would want each additional dollar they put in, over and above the $12.5 billion currently paid in transfer payments, to be made highly visible and transparent, so that the people of Canada can see that the federal government is reinvesting in health care. However, they were not so worried about visibility a few years back.
Let me make a suggestion. Maybe they could use billboards. They like them well enough since they have some Mediacom billboards set up permanently in Quebec. They practically own them. They could have huge billboards on the edge of towns and villages saying: “The federal government did not cut $6 billion in health care, but only $5 billion.” That way, Canadians would know that the government did not cut $6 billion a year. They would cut only $5 billion, since they are now talking about adding $1 billion, maybe a little bit more, to the current transfer payments.
Apparently this morning the Prime Minister found some more money and could put some more on the table. But the fact is that the level of transfer payments to the provinces has dropped from $18 billion to between $12.5 billion and $14 billion or $15 billion—a very optimistic scenario—in the next budget. The bottom line is that we still face significant cuts. This is something we should not forget, and I am somewhat annoyed by their new-found devotion to openness.
On top of that, premiers have made a clear commitment. They wanted to reassure the Prime Minister, so they wrote to him that they were committed to putting back into the system any new CHST money allocated to health care. But perhaps the Prime Minister does not think written commitments are worth much, when we consider what happened with the promises in the 1993 red book, but for some people, a signed letter still means something. So the premiers have signed a commitment that any transfer of money will go to health care.
The government keeps repeating that it wants to uphold the Canada Health Act. That piece of legislation is still in effect, and the premiers did not ask that it be repealed. It is still in effect. If the federal government puts money back into the transfer payments for health care, the Canada Health Act and its five central principles will continue to apply.
Where is this sudden fear that the provinces could violate the act coming from? There are very severe penalties for those provinces who do not respect the act. You know about that, Mr. Speaker. Alberta has had to pay the price for not living up to the conditions set out in the Canada Health Act.
I know there is an ongoing dispute about that. Some provinces would like more flexibility, but we are not here to question the act.
The federal government wants to increase its role. After starving the provinces and giving out new money today, it is obvious that the federal government has a strong desire to play a role in the planning of future health care services.
We understand why. The Liberals know full well that, with an ageing population, health care will become a very important issue in the future, a growing concern for Canadians. They say they want to play a role in this area to get closer to the people, ignoring the Constitution, ignoring traditions and also ignoring the fact that the provinces, including mine, Quebec, already have an infrastructure in place. We have a health department as well as regional health offices. We have developed an elaborate network of front line services, second line services, emergency services and CLSCs.
The network is established according to a plan. Of course, occasionally some people may question its structure. But we have to look at the big picture because priorities vary from one region to the next. One region may have more specialists in one particular branch of medicine, and the situation may be different in another region.
This planning is the responsibility of the Government of Quebec, which delivers health services. Now the federal government would like to implement its own priorities, and influence the services provided by the provinces. We would then find ourselves, if the federal proposal is implemented, with two governments, two types of priorities. A lot of new committees will be struck, public servants will be needed to make evaluations, statisticians will make comparisons, a dreadful bureaucracy will be put in place.
That is not what we need. What we need instead is people to do the hands-on work. If money were put into the transfer payments tomorrow, it would mean bigger hospital budgets, better nursing care, more physicians and specialists to be increased, if money were put back into the transfer payments.
If they start creating policies or implementing all sorts of mechanisms, we will end up with a new bureaucracy—and the federal government bureaucracy is already getting way out of hand—that will keep on imposing its will and trying to play a role in this area. This strikes me as contrary to what the public wants in the way of services.
Now I will draw a parallel with another matter, the millennium scholarships. Speaking of unconditional transfers, the federal government has decided to play a bigger role in education by allowing students to accumulate fewer debts, by offering them scholarships and so forth.
The federal government came up with a wall-to-wall solution, good coast to coast, by offering scholarships to post-secondary students. In Quebec the student debt load is far lower than elsewhere because tuition fees are lower. Of course we would like it be lower still, but compared to the other provinces it is far lower.
The first priority of our system would probably have been to put the money where it would have helped all students, not just a small group. The educational system is overseen and planned by the Government of Quebec. Citizens can pressure it, the government being answerable to its citizens.
The federal government has now decided that its priority was to reduce student debt. It plays a significant role with our taxes in order to show that its priority lies there. There is, perhaps, another priority to be considered for the moment. It may be the priority in the rest of Canada, but is not the priority of Quebec. We have not even enough flexibility to exercise the right to opt out, to take this money and assign it to other priorities in the educational system. There is something wrong when a government insists on defining everything.
We recognize the obsession with visibility behind all that, this obsession with appearing to be closer to the people so they would stop criticizing the government and become less sovereignist perhaps. I really do not know what is their underlying motive.
But it is wrong because it does not work. People want effective services. They pay taxes not to have governments and bureaucracies quarrel, but to obtain quality services. It is not so the federal government can fight for control of certain jurisdictions it gave up at the time the Constitution was drawn up.
In conclusion, I hope Liberal members will be less silent than they have been up to know in today's debate, that they will stand up a little and that they will be lucid and understand that the most effective solution in health matters is to pay out unconditionally the money intended for transfer payments in order to repair the error they themselves made.
