Roger Simmons

[National Day Of Mourning, April 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, first let me commend my friend from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake for his initiative in putting down this resolution. It is a very good one. I am pleased to rise, as did my colleague from Hillsborough earlier and others in the House, including my friend from Wetaskiwin, to give support to this motion.

In the riding of Burin-St. George's, which I have the honour to represent, there is a very picturesque community by the name of St. Lawrence. It takes its name from the fact that it sits at the very mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

That town has a sculpture, which serves as a monument to two or three sets of events. It is a marvellous sculpture done by the Bulgarian sculptor, Luben Boykov, three or four years ago. It stands in the town square.

For those of us who understand biblical references, though never described this way, it is in effect the good Samaritan sculpture. There is a person reaching out for help at the bottom of the slab, which represents a steep incline, and there is somebody offering help.

I do not do justice in describing the sculpture but basically, physically, that is what it is. It commemorates a couple of sets of events: one has to do with wartime. That in itself is a very moving set of events in which many American servicemen were rescued by miners at St. Lawrence and the nearby town of Lawn in 1942.

The sculpture was placed there not only for that reason, but for a second important reason. It has to do with mining. The sculpture known as "Echoes of Valour" casts in time the mining disaster, of which many Newfoundlanders, indeed many Canadians, will be aware.

Let me read an excerpt from a description of the "Echoes of Valour" sculpture as it relates to mining. It makes reference, first of all, to mining beginning in this community around 1870. It has gone on in the 100 years since then.

Here is a description:

Drilling was done with a dry hammer, which meant that dust was forever present, clogging a miner's nostrils, eyes and mouth. The dust and smoke was so thick that one could not see another miner until you walked right up to him. The air was so thin in certain parts of the mine that a cigarette could not be lit because fire, which requires oxygen, would immediately go out as attempts were made to light the match. Many miners were getting sick, having great difficulty breathing. Some were hospitalized at St. John's with tuberculosis.

In the 1950s, miners started dying at a very young age. Dr. Cyril Walsh detected a high rate of lung cancer and brought it to the attention of the provincial Department of Health. This spirited a national concern, but it was already too late for hundreds of miners who had been exposed too much, too long to the radon gas, which causes lung cancer.

St. Lawrence today has lost a generation of men from mining, leaving a town void of grandfathers. This sculpture stands as a tribute and a memorial to their hard work and dedication as they sacrificed their own lives to ensure a comfortable lifestyle for their wives and children.

That tragedy, which went on for many years, is, in Newfoundland folklore, the epitome of what can happen when things go wrong on the work site, when the bottom line becomes more important than the lives of the people producing the product.

If I had the time today I could take members through a long litany of how the company knew for years what it was inflicting on those men and turned a blind eye, looked the other way.

Today when people go to that town in St. Lawrence not only will they see the sculpture but they will meet dozens and dozens of widows whose husbands are prematurely in the graveyard because of company policy and a complete disregard for worker safety.

Today that sculpture, as a result of a decision a couple of years ago, is the official symbol for the industrial safety organization across Newfoundland. On this coming Sunday afternoon I am pleased to say I will be in St. Lawrence, standing beside that sculpture with people from all across the province as we once again mark the day of mourning for the people who have lost their lives at the work site.

Nowhere in the country is the impact of lost workers felt more deeply, more emotionally and more profoundly than in that town of St. Lawrence, that picturesque settlement on the south coast of Newfoundland on the Burin Peninsula.

Today that is why I, on behalf of my constituents, can rise with a heart and a half and give support to the resolution from my friend from The Battlefords-Meadow Lake. We have not done enough for these people. We cannot bring them back but we can at least signal the contribution they made. We can at least once again flag the tragedy that is really ours because of the lack of attention to worker safety over the years.

In flying that flag at half mast let it be a reminder of the lives that were lost and a standard and a beacon for us to resolve as a society that we will not let again happen what happened to people like those miners in St. Lawrence.

If we had time we could talk about Westray. I know the inquiry is ongoing and so we should not be prejudicing anything that goes on there, but I do not think one needs to be Einstein to figure out the bottom line there was also more important than worker safety in too many cases.

We must see to it that kind of thing does not repeat itself. If we are worth our salt in the Chamber we will not only go out and exhort people to put flags at half mast on Sunday in memory of those people but we will use that as a reminder that we have to do even more in symbolic terms and in tangible terms.

If we can resolve as a society to do that, these people will not have died completely in vain if they can, through the effort and inspiration they give us, improve the lot of others who go to work sites which are not as safe as they ought to be.

I am delighted to support the resolution.

[The Late Clara Smallwood, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the late Joey Smallwood in his autobiography

I Chose Canada

wrote: "My marriage to Clara was one of the most fortunate events of my life. I do not know what I would have done without her".

Clara Smallwood passed away last week. It had been my privilege over many years to observe the special chemistry between Clara and Joey Smallwood. Clara Smallwood avoided the limelight but still distinguished herself in many dignified ways. She was a marvellous human being, kind hearted to the core. She was a very talented musician, intelligent and well read. She was a great family woman who showered her three children, Ramsey, William and Clara, and her many grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as countless others with much affection.

Her support for her husband was unwavering, indeed legendary.

I salute her today for her wonderful contribution, behind the scenes but significant nevertheless, to Newfoundland and Labrador and to Canada.

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

My friend from Wild Rose is informed, as usual.

I say to him and others that this bill will create the new Department of Health. The old department was called national health and welfare and this bill together with the one dealt with the other day affects the change.

This bill confirms the mandate of the minister regarding the promotion and preservation of the health of Canadians. Health is a matter that affects Canadians very deeply. Our medicare system has come to be part of the way in which we see our country. We

believe that the federal government has an essential role in medicare and in safeguarding the overall health of the Canadian population.

In this time of change to our health system, many people want to know where the federal government stands on health issues. Canada's health system will continue to rely on the interlocking responsibilities of federal, provincial and territorial governments. That is why in the recent budget of March, the government went a long way toward providing provincial and territorial governments with stability and predictability in health funding and other social services of $25.1 billion each year over a five-year period, comprising a tax floor that had been requested by the provinces and tax transfer points.

Health Canada bears the overall responsibility for protecting and encouraging the health and safety of Canadians through promotion and prevention activities at the national level. It assesses the safety of drugs and medical devices. It deals with issues such as the potential impact on Canadians of exotic viruses or the re-emergence of public health threats such as tuberculosis. It encourages healthier lifestyles and active living.

The federal health department also supports the health system through funding for research as well as financial and technical contributions to provincial health systems. The federal health department arranges health care programs and services only for specific categories or groups of people who are a federal responsibility such as status Indians and the Canadian Armed Forces. Otherwise, the federal department is not a delivery agent for health care. That lies with the provincial and territorial governments. They have the primary responsibility in the area of health care delivery. They design and manage the system that most of us as Canadians use. However, the federal department does play an important national leadership role in health that Canadians see as essential.

Health issues figured very prominently in the Liberal Party's red book in the last federal election campaign. For example, a head start program for children of aboriginal families living in urban centres and large northern communities was promised. A number of projects under that program have already been funded.

Action on prenatal nutrition programs was also promised in the red book. They are being delivered through the community action program for children.

There are other commitments on which the government is acting but I will talk about them a little later. What is common to all of those initiatives is their national scope and the value of national action on each of them.

Of course this work also involves financial support for the health care system for the provinces and the territories, as I said a moment ago.

Federal health contributions have evolved over the last four decades from cost sharing arrangements to block funding transfers to the provinces and territories. Since 1984 the Canada Health Act has set out the five criteria that provincial and territorial medical insurance plans have to meet to qualify for federal support.

These five criteria are worth repeating here today. The first principle is universality. The Canada Health Act supports provincial health insurance systems that cover all eligible residents.

The second principle is accessibility. Services must be available without financial barriers. People must be given health care on the basis of need, not on the basis of how much they can afford to pay.

The third important principle is comprehensiveness. If a province defines a service as medically necessary, that service must be covered completely.

The fourth principle is portability. Canadians with coverage in their home province or territory maintain that health plan coverage when they travel or when they move. This is a very important principle, like the others, given the mobility in this country at this time, the number of people who move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from province to province and from province to territory.

The fifth principle, together with the ones I have mentioned, universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness and portability, is public administration. It means that the health insurance plans of a province must be administered and operated on a non-profit basis by a public authority. That, to me, is the one some of the provinces either have difficulty understanding or difficulty wanting to live with. That is one of the five principles that we on this side of the House are committed to continue to enforce, the principle of public administration.

The government takes these five principles very seriously. It has resisted the false claims that watering down the act is the only way forward. Canadians want the health insurance system they have built during our lifetime to continue. They do not want to see a two-tier system and I do not want to see a two-tier system either.

Canadians understand that medicare has been a great social benefit. It has been one with very strong economic benefits as well. It is an efficient, effective program for providers, hospitals and for

Canadians. In fact, the average man or woman knows this reliability better than some commentators. We are better off thanks to medicare. That is why the federal government has defended the Canadian system of health insurance so strongly.

The government has been equally clear that it believes the health system needs to be reviewed. Canadians know the economic issues facing the health system. Make no mistake, they are the same issues in the United States and in other developed countries around the world. Many countries face issues such as rising costs of care, the emergence of new health needs, aging populations, the appearance of new medical technologies, drugs and other factors. We are all asking where the money goes.

As a country we face more challenging health issues. For example, all Canadians agree that tobacco is a major health issue. The Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that smoking consumption in this country causes deaths of the order of nearly 40,000 each year. Remember that smoking is a costly exercise to the Canadian economy. The estimated cost to the Canadian economy is $11 billion a year. This figure incudes the costs to the health care system and the overall loss of productivity for Canadians as a whole.

The federal government is determined to work with its provincial counterparts as stakeholders to bring forward a comprehensive and focused package to address the tobacco issue.

There are other concerns. I have mentioned the tobacco issue. There are women's health issues for example. It is an important priority for the government and I am sure it is for provincial governments and stakeholders alike. It is time to address key issues surrounding women's health.

There is the issue of new reproductive technologies. Some who may have followed this issue will recall that the previous administration sponsored a Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies which contained numerous recommendations. This administration is now considering these recommendations. The government hopes to be able soon to move on a number of those recommendations in a substantive way. Members from all parties in the House have called for action on the issues of new reproductive technologies, of women's health, of tobacco. There have been calls from all over and the government is acting on those issues.

We must begin to consider what will become of the health system down the road. We know that spending more on the status quo is unlikely and that direction would not give us much better health outcomes than we now have.

The international evidence is clear that spending more on health care does not mean better health results by itself. Why? Health care is not the same as health and people often wrongly equate the two.

The status of a person's health is determined by many factors which are in place long before he or she sees a doctor or is admitted to a hospital. Some are as basic as genetics. Others involve the economic, the social or the environmental conditions in which we live. Still others are grounded in lifestyle choices. All these are determinants of health.

Progress in improving health may owe far more to living in an economy which produces good jobs or programs that help people live in proper housing surrounded by a clean environment. They are reasons for us to invest in effective health protection and promotion measures, ones that result in people making better health choices.

Health care is not enough, but it is important. Our question is how to achieve the best health results possible with the money that we have. This renewal process has been under way now for a few years. The challenge for all of us is to break out of the traditional box of health thinking. It will mean change. Community based health service centres and multidisciplinary team approaches to health care are changing the landscape of health care delivery.

The increased awareness that good health begins long before a visit to a doctor will mean an increased emphasis on the education of health consumers and preventive medicine. People will need to learn what physicians can and cannot do for them. People will need to learn how much they can take charge of their own lives. These steps are each part of a broader evolution of our health care system.

Canadians trust their health care system. They expect the federal government to support and defend that system, especially the fundamental principles on which medicare is based. That is why we need a strong federal Department of Health and why I am encouraging members of this House to support the bill before us today.

I mentioned a moment ago the issue of determinants of health. We in the Standing Committee on Health which I have the honour to chair are doing a study on the determinants of health as they relate to younger children. It is an important issue.

We in this Chamber and elsewhere are aware that poverty for example is a real determinant of health for people. We have direct correlations between poverty levels and such matters as the rate of suicide among people. Poverty levels and achievement in school are two areas where poverty impacts on other outcomes. The all-party health committee of the House is now undertaking a rather in depth study of this issue to see what needs to be done and is not currently being done in the area of children's health.

The bill before us is not one that is terribly earth shattering but Bill C-18 is an important piece of legislation. In the jargon of the House it is considered only a housekeeping bill to put in place the necessary statute to allow the department to function.

I am rather delighted that the current Minister of Health is my good friend from Cape Breton. Already in the short time he has been in the portfolio I have watched with some satisfaction his commitment to the serious challenges we face in health care and his determination to do something about those issues. He is a good spokesperson for the issues. I certainly wish him well, together with his parliamentary secretary from Eglinton who has just taken on that responsibility.

[Department Of Health Act, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the third reading of Bill C-18. This bill is not earth shattering in what it does. It does something which is very important nevertheless.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

My comment was not directly aimed at the Chair either. It was just to say, Sir, that I thought I was doing exactly that and I asked the Chair if I had strayed somewhere to let me know where it was.

I was trying to assure all the hon. members, the agitated ones and otherwise, that the government and the new department are in complete harmony, as John Crosbie used to say, cheek to cheek, jowl to jowl on this one in terms of the mandate of the government as a whole, its overall priority and the priority of the new department. The throne speech made that clear. I was then digressing in talking about how the economy is in slightly healthier shape than it has been and it is moving along. It is not there yet, but it is moving along.

When I began to talk about how good things were beginning to get, that made my friends in the Reform Party a little nervous and they decided to throw, as we would say in Newfoundland, a red herring into the process and started talking about the GST and that kind of thing. At that point I pointed out to the member that if we cut out all those taxes we could not pay his salary. That is when he had the tantrum and that is where we were when we had the procedural interruptions. Now we can go on from there.

I have a speech. I am on page eight of the speech. I have not read the first seven yet but I am on page eight.

I want to tell the Reform member that page eight begins as follows: "That too is HRDC's number one priority". We have to go back to page seven to find out what "that too" refers to. Aha, "fostering a healthy climate", where I came in just a minute ago. That is clearly HRDC's number one priority. Let him debate that. It is that and maintaining a strong social security system for all Canadians. These are the two priorities of this new department: the healthy economic situation which translates into jobs, jobs, jobs and maintaining a strong social security system for Canadians.

To fulfil those two objectives, the new department is continually developing policies and programs designed to reduce poverty and to help unemployed workers return to the labour force as quickly as possible.

By making the development of all human resources the responsibility of one department, it facilitates an integrated, co-ordinated approach to help Canadians achieve their full potential. It also provides a structure for the Government of Canada to work with its provincial and territorial partners, its partners in business and labour, its partners in the educational institutions and its partners in the community.

HRDC is bringing together the very strands of our social programs to ensure that they meet the needs of individual Canadians and the nation as a whole. Social policy is about investing in people, helping people develop their skills, helping them enjoy rewarding lives and becoming contributing members of their respective communities. Nowhere does HRDC emphasize that policy more than with our youth.

We all recall that creating hope and opportunity for young Canadian men and women was one of the key goals singled out in the speech from the throne. Youth unemployment, Canadians under 25, is around 16 per cent, which is just more than one and one-half times the national average.

I am sure every member of this House will agree that Canadian youth are the nation's greatest resource. They need and deserve our assistance to complete their education and attain that crucial first job. That reason alone justifies creating the Department of Human Resources Development.

HRD is responsible for administering youth services Canada, youth internship Canada, the student summer job action program and the Canada student loans program. I trust that hon. members can clearly see the key roles the department plays in the lives of young people across the country.

By amalgamating all the programs that address human resources, by providing a single, coherent mandate, the government is clarifying the identity and responsibilities of the new department. This is extremely important for the morale of the depart-

ment's employees and more important for the confidence of its clients across the country.

Through further consolidation of social and labour market programs, HRDC will sharpen the government's focus on developing Canada's human resources. Part of that can be seen in the department's responsibility for the reform of the unemployment insurance program. UI is being renewed to address 1990s realities through both income support and active employment measures.

As I was saying earlier, that reform is long overdue. I support the overall thrust of that reform of unemployment insurance. I have said earlier in my speech today that I have certain concerns about particular aspects: the claw back, the intensity, the divisor and the entrance requirements particularly for new entrants. These are matters that have been canvassed pretty fully with the new Minister of Human Resources Development, my friend from New Brunswick, and also with members of the standing committee which will report very soon. We will then have an opportunity to see what amendments are going to be made to the proposal.

Based on my conversations with the minister and members of the standing committee, I am confident the concerns which I and others have raised on this issue have been heard and are being dealt with. I think we will see that reflected in the report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development. The net result is we will have a considerably improved employment insurance scheme over that which was tabled in December by the former minister.

Canadians need and deserve the best possible services from their government which is the crux of Bill C-11. Canadians will get those services through many HRDC initiatives, not the least of which will be the department's new service delivery network. At the heart of the new network will be about 300 human resources centres, now known as Canada Employment Centres, spread strategically across the country. The centres will provide a broad cross-section of client services.

The establishment of Human Resources Development Canada is absolutely necessary if the government is to fulfil its mandate of generating economic growth, job creation and protecting social security programs.

I can only repeat what I said at the beginning that Bill C-11 is essentially an administrative bill. There is nothing earth shattering here. There are no new mandates being asked for, given or taken back. The bill does not deal with substantive issues of reform but with consequential issues arising from the efficient merger of various departments and programs. For that reason I encourage members to support passage of the legislation which would enable HRDC and the government to get on with the task of better serving Canadians.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I might have missed something. I understood I had the right to refer to other members of the House. Each time I have done so, I have done it in the third person by their riding name. If the member for Berthier-Montcalm, our very own Johnny Cochrane, has any problems with that he should rise on a point of order.

If my colleagues from the Reform want to interject, and I am not objecting to it, I understand that is within the spirit of debate in this House. If I need the protection of the Chair from the member for Berthier-Montcalm I should be the first to beg for it, but I did not think I was out of order. If I did not refer to the Chair when I should have, I apologize, but I thought in all cases I referred to the Chair in the third person.

If the Chair gets waylaid by Johnny Cochrane, that is the Chair's problem, not mine. In any event I will try and do it another way.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

If they want, we can talk about some, including the leader of the Reform Party, who said one thing during the election and about three or four things since on the GST.

I have my other speech here. I wanted to give it the day the opposition had the motion on the GST but we ran out of time. I will give my GST speech at the right time. I will lay out how consistent the leader of the Reform Party has been on the subject of the GST. His basic speech goes like this: Get rid of it, keep it, get rid of it, keep it, get rid of it, keep it. That is basically what the gentleman who is the leader of the third party has said on that issue.

If they want to talk about GST, I believe Mr. Johnny Cochrane has something he would like to say.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

No party in the House, whatever its stripe and however loud its members yell, said if it were elected there would be no taxes.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

Now is he upset. Now is he listening with his lips. He suddenly realizes that if we cut out all the taxes it might impact on him.

[Department Of Human Resources Development Act, April 18th, 1996]

The member wants to talk about bankruptcies. Nobody takes any comfort in the alarmingly high number of personal and corporate bankruptcies in the country. He might want to look at a correlation between the number of personal bankruptcies and the applications of right wing policies. The two go hand in hand. We cannot in one breath decry the number of bankruptcies and in the next keep saying "sock it to them, sock it to them". The two are related.

I remember from grade seven a delightful poem from the old beckoning trail of literature, that blue beckoning trail. It was called "The Big Rock Candy Mountains." The basic thesis of the poem was that everything was free. One of the lines was "prison walls were made of paper and cigarettes grew on trees". I think for the writer cigarettes were supposed to be a kind of morsel to be sought after. The context of the poem was that everything was free, you did not have to pay for anything at all.

My friend from Okanagan-Shuswap said get rid of the tax. Theoretically a government could get rid of all taxes. However, certain consequences would follow. We would not be able to pay the member's salary.