Bill Casey

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

What else does it say? It is full of good promises.

“A new Liberal government will pursue a strategy, together with representatives of provincial and territorial governments”—why does it not do that—“health care service providers, private payers”—private payers, is that not interesting—“and consumers to address the fact that drugs have become an essential component of health care. We will develop with these groups a timetable and fiscal framework for the implementation of universal public coverage for medically necessary prescription drugs”.

I am pleased to put that on the record for the member. It answers his question. It is right in the red book, so surely the Liberals are going to develop a pharmacare program. The hon. member from Nova Scotia can sleep well tonight.

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does make an excellent point. Our party's main point is there has to be a stable funding program on a long term basis, a program which will allow the departments of health in the provinces to have a long term plan. This is not an industry or a business that can have a six month plan or even a five year plan. The planning has to go much further than that. To do that the government has to provide stable funding.

On the pharmacare issue, the member brought up a really good point. Let me read from the Liberal red book two of 1997. “The Liberal government endorses pharmacare as a long term national objective”. I am sure the hon. member will be pleased to hear that. It goes on to say, “Some provinces are already developing a system of drug care. We will work with our provincial partners to ensure that all Canadians have access to medically necessary drugs within the public health care system”. The hon. member's problem will be solved because surely the Liberals will honour all their promises in the red book.

It goes on to say, “The federal government has a role to play in bringing together its provincial and territorial partners”. This is strange because it refused to meet with its provincial and territorial partners on the health care issue, but if it says so in the red book, it must be true.

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

The minister said that the helicopter situation is a top priority. I think he is now saying that the file is moving. Well, it is moving awfully slowly.

It is the same with the health care file. The government talks about solving the health care problem but it does absolutely zero about it.

The problem is simple: Just listen to the premiers of all parties in all the provinces because they are the frontline people. They are the ones who have to deal with the actual health care system. It is a simple as that. If it would just do that, the problem would be solved. Mr. Speaker, I am depending on you to tell them to do that.

[Supply, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to rise and speak to this motion today. I find the motion takes a strange direction. Rather than have a negative approach, why do we not have a positive approach? Why do we not say what we can do and not what we cannot do? Why do we not say what we need is to replenish the health care system back to where it was in 1994, or 1995 at least, rather than where it is now, where there is such a crisis in health care and no one knows whether they can get a doctor, whether the doctor who comes to their community is going to stay, whether he is going to leave and what is going to happen? It is the same with nurses and all other health care workers. It is a crisis.

If anyone thinks health care it is not in a crisis they are certainly operating under false pretences. It is clear to all of us. It is certainly clear in my riding where a site was prepared and the foundation laid for a new hospital years ago. They have been gathering information and money for seven years and are still in the planning stages for this hospital. We are still having trouble putting it together because of the reduction in transfers for health care funding from the federal government.

The federal government unilaterally began cutting health care funds when it was the number one issue. Health care is the one thing that ties the whole country together. Every region, every province and every culture depends on our health care system.

We have been proud of our health care system in Canada. It has been the model that many countries have used as the example upon which to build their health care systems. Then the Liberal government, which has always prided itself on having a social interest and a social conscience, just sucks the system dry. It has reduced funding steadily year after year and then makes these tiny, insignificant motions to try to pretend it has put money back into health care. However, it has not fooled anyone.

The premiers have not been fooled. They are all calling for health care to be the number one issue for the federal government to address. Every community is asking the federal government to re-invest in health care and to work with the health communities to come up with a better system to resolve the issue.

What happens when the federal government withdraws its funding? The provinces then have to explore other areas. They have to experiment. They have to become innovative. If the funding was back at former levels, the province of Alberta would have no need to do what it has done, and other provinces would have no need to explore the other innovative angles and efforts they are trying to experiment with now.

I come from a rural area in Nova Scotia that has a lot of small communities. We used to have several hospitals in my riding but they have continually been reduced. They have been turned into clinics, into senior citizens' homes or into something like that. Meanwhile, these communities are losing their health care system. When a community loses a hospital or a health care facility, or when a facility deteriorates and does not maintain its standards because it has no money, then the doctors leave. It is very important for doctors to maintain their practice and to have the ability update their technical knowledge and training.

Health care is a work in progress. A doctor never finishes training in health care, especially with the recent developments in technology, genetics, health care, medications and treatments. Today doctors have to maintain their ability to compete by continuing their education and everything else.

The doctors in my riding are faced with obsolete hospitals and equipment. The money is not there for the new technology and new equipment that is need to treat the patients and for the doctors to continue their training.

The waiting lists are incredible. A short time ago I visited one of the main hospitals in my riding. The hallways were filled with patients in beds waiting to get a room or just to get into the hospital. The waiting room was full of patients who could not get a doctor. When they did get a doctor he or she was a stranger.

For decades people had family doctors who they could become familiar with, get to know, feel comfortable with and trust. Health care is a very personal thing. Today people do not know their doctors because the doctors change so fast. When the doctors realize that the workload is too much and the responsibility too great they pack up and go somewhere else. They go wherever there is more money, less work, less hours, more people to share the burden and a much higher quality of life for doctors. We lose our health care workers. We lose our nurses. What I primarily run into is the loss of doctors, the turn over in doctors and the shortage of doctors.

In my job as a member of parliament, I deal a lot with Canada pension clients, Canada pension disabled clients, worker's compensation victims and people who need but cannot access the health care system. They cannot get the help from the doctors because the doctors do not have the time to deal with these issues. If it is not an urgent issue, the doctors will not deal with it. They deal with the patients who need help right away. Meanwhile, these people who are disabled and are applying for disability, or need help in worker's compensation or need specialists to qualify for pensions to which they are entitled, cannot get support from the health care industry because they are just too busy.

Recently I talked to a person who had a bad accident. The person is totally disabled with broken bones and organs that are damaged. He cannot get his doctor to write a report because the doctor is just too busy dealing with people who need care right now. I have asked the doctor on two occasions to write us a report. I do not tell him what to say, but we need a report from the doctor and we cannot get it. That goes on and on.

Just when patients get to know their family doctor, the doctor changes or moves. This creates a lot of stress for people, especially seniors and disabled people who have effectively educated their doctor about their problems, their ailments, their lifestyle and their situation, and then they have start all over again. When it happens again and again it becomes even more stressful.

All we can say about this motion is that it should be a motion to restore health care funding. That is the solution. Yes, other changes are needed but they are not going happen without the money to back up the innovative ideas that are necessary. There is no question about that.

It all boils down to the fact that the government has reduced the funding to the provinces and then tells the provinces that they have to honour the Canada Health Act but does not give the leadership nor the funding.

How many months, years and times has the issue of health care been brought up in the House of Commons? The Minister of Health continues to say that they are working on a plan and that they need ideas and leadership. The ideas and the leadership are supposed to come from the government. It blames everybody else for the problem but itself.

The fact of the matter is that the problem starts right over there with the Department of Health and the Minister of Health because they will not make the commitment to health care, which we have always had in this country, to maintain the health care system of which we have been so proud for so many years. It is not complicated. All the government has to do is to restore the funding to 1993-94 levels and most of these problems will go away.

I do not disagree that health care is changing really fast. Technology, medications and treatments are changing at lightning speed and they have to be baked into this whole process, but without the money that will never happen. Until the government makes a fundamental decision to re-fund health care, all these ideas that the minister speculates about will never see the light of day without the funding, the research, the development, the technology and the tools to work with.

We are siding with the premiers of all the provinces. I do not remember this ever happening before, but all the provinces have now united in one stand and are demanding that the federal government restore the money to health care that it has taken away over the years. I have never seen this happen on any other issue, not immigration, not transportation, not anything except health care. The federal government should listen to the premiers and respect what they are saying because it is actually the provinces that deliver the health care.

The provinces and the provincial ministers of health understand the problem and they know what the solutions are. They are calling on the federal government to restore health care funding. It is not complicated. They are on the front lines of this whole debate. They know what the problem is and they know how to solve it. They have spoken very clearly with one voice.

I just hope that the federal Liberal government will get the message to stop stalling and to do something. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year there are two issues in the House that get stalled, one is the health care issue and the other is the helicopter issue.

Time and time again the federal government says that it is developing a plan and exploring the options. The Minister of National Defence has now said that the file is moving. Is that not what he has said?

[Human Resources Development, May 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of HRD. The privacy commissioner recently described the comprehensive files about Canadians. I should like to ask the minister if she will provide me with my file, complete with the names of all government agencies that have accessed my file.

I would like her to do it without going through the delay process of the access to information process. I would like her to explain if she will provide my file and, if not, why not.

[Royal Canadian Legion, May 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, recently members of Branch 10 of the Royal Canadian Legion in my riding developed a resolution to make the veterans' independence program more accessible to veterans. The motion proposes to increase the cut-off threshold from approximately $17,000 of income to $25,000, more in line with the poverty level for Canada and only reasonable.

This motion was moved by Mr. Harold Ettinger and seconded by Mr. George Evans. It was signed branch president Peter Lind and branch secretary Virginia Chandler, and has the support of zone commander Les Nash.

A prime supporter on this issue has always been Pastor Harold Higgens who served in many positions in the Legion and is himself a veteran who works tirelessly for veterans.

My office has forwarded the information about this resolution to over 1000 branches of the Royal Canadian Legion across the country asking them to support the motion at the upcoming Dominion Command meeting in Halifax. If it is passed, thousands of veterans will have their lives improved at a small cost to the government.

I ask the Minister of Veterans Affairs to move as quickly as possible once the motion is passed by Dominion Command of the Royal Canadian Legion.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I will comment on the job that I do. I enjoy my job. I hope to keep it for a little while longer. This has been a very interesting process. The committee was excellent and it was a learning curve for all of us. I appreciated the chance to participate.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I often wonder what side of the House I am sitting on too, because last week the media had me over on that side for about three or four days and then they had me over here for a few days. Now I am back over there for a day or two but I am not going anywhere because I like it right here.

The member's question about cabotage is a good one. Cabotage is a control a government has to prevent other airlines from operating in its country. It is a common regulation. Countries do not allow airlines from other countries to operate in their countries. It is a kind of tariff. I would not support Canada lowering its tariffs on our airline industry without other countries reciprocating and allowing us access to their markets as well. I would not support lowering tariffs for Americans to ship products into Canada if we could not ship exactly the same product into the U.S. My point is that I do not think we should allow cabotage unless it is reciprocal.

We should not do that yet because from what I have seen, I believe there is a tremendous entrepreneurial instinct and effort in Canada in the aviation industry. It is extremely exhilarating and exciting when I listen to the new aviation companies that are on the frontier of the whole industry. They are exciting and aggressive people who are anxious to compete.

Let us see how good Canadians do before we start talking about cabotage. I would not consider cabotage unless it was reciprocal.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the intervention. There are going to be two ombudsmen. One is the Canadian Transportation Agency's complaints commissioner. That is a unique position because he has the power to demand documents, demand testimony and hear witnesses. It is almost a quasi-judicial body. He has the power to get the information which is probably more than most ombudsmen have. He also has the power to make his reports public. He will report to parliament through the minister and he also has the ability to go public.

In this case the airlines are consumer driven companies. Bad PR from an ombudsman is not something they will want to get. If the ombudsman is successful and effective and he makes a report in the media that an airline is not doing something right, I am of the opinion the airline will act very fast to correct it.

Air Canada announced last week that it is going to establish its own ombudsman. I believe it is going to try to intervene even before consumers get to the official government complaints commissioner. It is going to try to get the complaints first so it can deal with them. I am confident that one or other of those programs is going to work.

I believe we are going to see more innovation than ever. The best example is WestJet, one of the newcomers to the industry. WestJet has an innovative pay plan. It has innovative policies as far as its employees are concerned. It has a uniform airplane plan which is simple but really works. This makes WestJet one of the most profitable airlines in North America based on its capacity.

Instead of having two giant airlines that are struggling, we are going to have many smaller airlines doing exactly what the member is asking about. They will be using their entrepreneurial instincts to innovate, to come up with new ideas and ways to get a market share from the dominant carrier. We are going to see a lot more innovation than we ever did before. I am optimistic that the small companies and entrepreneurs are going to come alive under this umbrella.

[Canada Transportation Act, May 15th, 2000]

Absolutely always for the better. There is still ongoing changes. There are some fundamentally profound changes even as we speak.

If I remember correctly, just a short time ago both Air Canada and the minister were opposed to the idea of an ombudsman. Now the minister has come back with a very strong ombudsman, a complaints commissioner, which, in my interpretation of it, has teeth. Last week Air Canada announced it was going to have an ombudsman. Two weeks ago it wrote me saying that it was not in favour of that. We can see how this whole process is still changing as we speak and will continue to change as problems develop and challenges arise.

There is no question that we are in a transition period which has caused a lot of problems for consumers and for all of us when we travel. I understand that we are in a transition. I know that the Air Canada and Canadian Airlines merger is faced with problems. I can only imagine the problems Air Canada has to deal with in trying to reorganize and reschedule 2,000 flights a day, negotiate contracts with its unions, negotiate the sale of the Canadian regionals, arrange for all new schedules and accommodate the communities and politicians.

There is no question that Air Canada has underestimated the impact this would have on consumers. I think it is getting that message very clearly, as evidenced by the announcement late last week that it was going to establish an ombudsman in addition to the Canadian Transportation Agency complaints commissioner.

We have all seen and heard about the overbooking, the delays in scheduling, the line-ups and all that sort of thing. We have all experienced them ourselves. I am hopeful that these are transition issues that will soon be resolved. I believe Air Canada has the will to resolve them.

Our job, the minister's job and the department's job, was to come up with legislation to manage this merger even though we could not really tell the shareholders of Air Canada or Canadian Airlines what they had to do. We could not tell them to invest money here. We could not tell them to do certain things, nor could the Department of Transport.

I believe this bill is the best reflection of what we can do. We have all had a crack at making amendments in order to improve or change it. It is not exactly what I wanted but overall it is not a bad compromise. I think we have all had a chance to influence it. Even then, it has to remain flexible because of the ongoing changes and the fact that it is a work in progress that will continue to change.

The Conservative Party's view is that the government's role should be to create an atmosphere that will encourage competition and encourage the incredible entrepreneurial instinct that we saw at committee from so many people who were anxious to get into aviation business and expand it. If there was one thing that surprised me, it was the number of small aviation companies in Canada that wanted to become big ones. Our job was to create an atmosphere where they could develop and grow and not be squashed by the dominant carrier before they even had chance to start. I think we have done that. We have given the appropriate agencies the power to protect those new companies and the existing companies in expanding into new routes and regions.

At the same time as encouraging competition and the entrepreneurs in the industry, we also had to protect consumers. Consumers have no protection if they have no place to go. If the line-up is too long and the dominant carrier does not want to do anything about it, too bad. If there is overbooking and the dominant carrier does not want to do anything about it, too bad. We cannot go to plan B or another airline until some of those smaller airlines are big enough to really present themselves as competitors. So, we have this legislation.

I believe the job of the government—and the committee saw it as a responsibility—is to create protection for consumers. We have done that. A dominant carrier left unleashed could do a lot of damage to consumers, competitors and regional airports if it wanted to. Without the legislation that we have before us today, a lot of the things we have come to take for granted in the aviation industry would be trampled and disappear very quickly.

Even the travel agents who made presentations to our committee made a good case in pointing out how powerful the dominant carrier is. They sell something like 80% of the tickets. If there is only one airline, that airline could determine how it will treat the independent travel agents. We have addressed that in the bill and it is a good way to address it. Their problems and concerns have been met and they will find themselves in a good position to deal with many of their issues. They have to do it but we have given them the infrastructure and the tools to get there.

One concern I had, coming from the Atlantic region, was the future of small regional airports. We have a convergence of two government policies. One is the divestiture process and the other is the merger process of the airlines. They have come together to create some problems for small airports.

Some of the smaller regional airports have an extremely hard time making ends meet simply because they do not have access to alternative revenues. The major airports with hundreds of thousands or millions of passengers travelling through the airports every year can have all kinds of alternative sources for revenue, such as liquor stores, lobster shops, rent-a-cars, you name it. They can have an entire business community and shopping mall with a captive market. The small airports with 200,000 passengers or less do not have the traffic to sustain those shops and businesses that would generate alternative revenue.

Regional airports are already having a hard time making ends meet. What will happen when we merge the airlines and the number of flights are reduced? The smaller airports depend entirely on landing fees and terminal fees for their revenue. They were having a hard time even with revenues from two airlines. When the two airlines merged, the number of flights in some airports were reduced dramatically and their revenue was reduced dramatically.

We have the divestiture process, where the airports were turned over to the communities, and we have the merger process which has made their situation even more difficult. I believe the Department of Transport and the minister at committee acknowledged that smaller airports were having a hard time making ends meet and that this problem would have to be revisited.

Our challenge was to arrive at a balance between regulation or re-regulation and private enterprise and protecting consumers. I think we have done that with a minimum of re-regulation and a maximum of flexibility in the system.

The Canadian Transportation Agency, the minister and the department have put some flexibility into the situation so that we can address the work in progress as it unfolds and as we get more surprises, which we will continue to get. I believe we have the right balance and I am well pleased with it.

As new issues come up, these departments have to be able to address them. By locking them in too tightly and not knowing what the future holds would be a mistake at this time because we are all still learning and it is an evolving situation.

I am also quite excited about competition. From my view I see a lot of exciting competition in the business. I do not think Air Canada will have a cakewalk. I think it will face competition faster than it thinks, faster from the chartered airlines, the WestJets, the CanJets that will be starting up and the smaller airlines that are already in the planning stages. There may be start-ups that we do not even know about it yet.

I believe there will be competition, especially on the main lines. The challenge will be on the regional routes and the feeder routes. Even on those, I believe competition will filter down and Air Canada will have more competition than it has bargained for. Eventually I do not think it will have the monopoly that it thought it would have or that some of us thought in the beginning it would have.

I sense a tremendous entrepreneurial spirit out there that is anxious to get into the business, to take a crack at this and to provide service to the regions and the main lines. This looks very promising to me.

One of the controls the dominant carrier will have is access, access to airports, access to slots, access to counters and things like that. That had to be addressed because it is definitely a problem which already has raised its ugly head since the airline merger. Some new airlines have been stalled, delayed or redirected because the dominant carrier perhaps used more powers than it should have. We have put protection for that into the legislation. We have also put into the legislation new powers for the Competition Bureau and the Canadian Transportation Agency. All of these issues can be dealt with on an ongoing basis.

Recently Air Canada lowered its rates; as soon as WestJet started flying from Moncton to Hamilton, Air Canada reduced its rates from Moncton to Toronto. Right away the process was put in place to object to that. Hopefully that will be resolved in a satisfactory way for everybody. We could not outline every single possible permutation and combination in the initial legislation. The flexibility is there to adapt as things change.

We have come up with many avenues for consumers to file complaints. I do not recall the exact number but the Canadian Transportation Agency had something like 70 or 80 complaints last year. My office has received 70 or 80 complaints in the last month, so there is something wrong with the access people have to complain about airline service.

If the minister's complaint commissioner under the CTA is well publicized and if people are made aware of the process, that will be the answer. People need access to a complaint system and a conflict resolution system and that will be the complaints commissioner.

Also Air Canada has committed to establishing an ombudsman and working with members and the public to make sure it deals with the complaints as fast as it can. In my experience, when there is a complaint at the senior level at least, it is dealt with and the problem is solved in a sincere manner. However, when there is a 1-800 line with 10 recordings and people have to push two for this and four for that, they get so frustrated they do not file a complaint. I am confident that will be resolved and people will have a way to make sure their complaints are filed.

Consumers have the CTA. The transport department will deal with certain issues. There is the complaints commissioner, the Air Canada ombudsman and the Competition Bureau. Among those avenues surely consumer complaints will be dealt with in a timely fashion. If not, we can bring this back to committee and take another crack at it. I do believe consumers now will have the tools they need to work with.

As far as ownership rules go, I agree with the legislation. In the former legislation the maximum amount of Air Canada that could be held was 10%. The committee recommended 20%. I recommended 15% and the minister went with my recommendation, for which I am honoured and flattered. He did go with 15% which is a good compromise and a balance that satisfies most everybody.

The foreign ownership limit is to remain at 25%. Again, flexibility is built into the system. If things change and evolve and if change is necessary, there is flexibility for the minister and the government to change the 25% maximum foreign ownership. That is appropriate. It should not be locked in at any amount. The flexibility should be there and as things change, it can be addressed.

In all, the Conservative Party will be supporting the bill. We are grateful for the opportunity to participate in it actually. It has been a very interesting experience for me. I very much appreciate the opportunities I have had to meet the people involved and hear the problems and issues.

I believe we have come up with a balance for consumer protection and incentives for competition to provide the entrepreneurial instinct with lots of nourishment. Certainly things will continue to evolve and we will continue to have to adapt but all in all, it is a fair resolution considering we do not have all the tools. The minister and the department probably do not have all the tools they would like to have to control this.

The bill provides a guideline for the companies involved to follow. It also provides penalties if they do not follow the rules. It provides lots of rules which the airline industry has to follow to protect consumers.

I appreciated being at the committee on this issue. It was extremely interesting, very industrious, serious and focused. We will be voting in favour of this bill as it stands.