Carolyn Bennett

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the member referred to the relevance of my remarks but that he could not refrain from getting the Senate into his remarks.

I think it is imperative that we look at how we are governed. It is interesting that in the Reform Party's new Canada act it says that it will ask the legislator to review supreme court decisions and modify the law if necessary.

This is indeed already happening. That is what we were referring to with respect to the remarks of the former justice minister. It is very important that the judiciary be independent. It must be free of political intervention. It must be there to do the principled thing. We have to keep partisan politics out of it.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I think what the former justice minister was saying is that when there is leadership we should not have to rely on the courts to make the more difficult decisions.

If we, in parliament, only do the easy things and leave the more difficult decisions to the courts, then we have not done the job we were elected to do.

I do not think that the former justice minister meant that we should not do it or that the courts should not be making principled decisions in interpreting the law, but once they have interpreted the law in a certain way it is our responsibility to then take the next step to see whether the law should be changed.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

“They are required to make a principled decision about whether a constitutional violation is demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society”. The judges noted that it took 60 years of fighting to achieve racial desegregation in the United States and that waiting for attitudes to change can be a glacial process.

As a family physician it is my experience when looking at the definition of spouse, there is no question that the relationships I saw in my practice actually worked until death did they part. These were indeed some of the most difficult relationships with the most serious illnesses.

The AIDS epidemic has taught us a great deal about what it means for an individual to have been abandoned by his family, then become a prominent artist, then be nursed to his death by his partner, or as the language has changed, his significant other, his long time companion, his partner, his spouse. Then at his deathbed the so-called family come and decide that all of the assets now belong to the family who once abandoned the young man.

In the families I looked after, there was knowledge of relationships between two women. A woman has left her abusive spouse and two women together have raised the child. The woman then dies of breast cancer. There is no question in that child's mind who is the parent.

I think it is imperative that we actually get with the program and understand that our old fashioned, prejudicial views of heterosexual relationships being the only valid ones are truly out of keeping with our society.

I think Canadians understand, when those two stories are told, what the just and right thing is for us to be doing. It may be that I was raised in a flower shop and I understood that the significant other of many of the members of my parents' staff happened to be of the same sex. However, it does not take that to actually understand that the kind of discrimination and the kind of fiddling with detail in terms of definition of spouse is just a very thin layer of homophobia.

I am very disappointed that we, in 1998, are still discussing this. How long ago was it that Mr. Trudeau told us the state had no business in the bedrooms of the nation? Why are we still fiddling with this definition of spouse? It is a value judgment. It is a value judgment that is actually wrong.

I think it is imperative as we move on that we actually start to redefine what it takes to make these units of our society. Our country will only be as strong as its individual units. Whether we redefine those units as families or as a social network, they are linked together to form what is the strength of our country.

It is very important that we look after one another and that we choose the people who will make decisions for us.

When I worked in the emergency department and asked somebody who their next of kin was, it was very rarely relevant whether they were married. It was the person they saw as being their spouse, their significant other, their long time companion.

We have seen so-called family members who fly in from across the country and upset everything that has been agreed upon in terms of a patient care plan. That is truly destructive to the fabric of our society.

I am more and more assured that sometimes parliament leads and sometimes the courts lead. When the courts show us where the gaps in the law are we have to follow that path. Minority rights will never ever show up in a poll. We have to ensure, as the stewards of this government, that we will not be led by a popular fear of some evangelical movement of homosexuality. That is just not the case.

People have told me that if it was not so easy to choose a homosexual lifestyle people would not choose it. I believe it is the most difficult choice that anyone ever has to make. I do not think anybody willingly chooses it. It is what they are. We have to respect that. We have to make sure that the relationships these people have are secure. When they die they should be entitled to their partner's pension. They should be entitled to the assets of the person whom they feel is their significant other, their lifetime companion, and they should be able to reap the benefits because they both contributed toward those benefits.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is with great honour that I rise to speak against the Reform motion today.

As a family physician I do not pretend to be an expert on where the law and the state divide. I only know that we have to make sure that our parliament does not impinge on the way in which the law is interpreted and applied.

In the Rosenberg case Judge Abella decided that the sexual orientation of surviving partners can in no way be seen as any more relevant to whether they should be entitled to income protection their partners have paid for than would be their race, their colour or their ethnicity. She went on to say that discrimination against homosexuals in pension arrangements serves no “pressing and substantial government objective” and permits “intolerance of the constitutionally protected rights of gays and lesbians. As such it is discriminatory and cannot be viewed as justification for a constitutional violation”.

It is interesting that the ruling says “aging and retirement are not unique to heterosexuals” and that “courts do not operate by poll”.

[Petitions, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present two petitions from over 60 residents of the riding of St. Paul's and the greater Toronto area.

The petitioners call upon the government to enhance funding for the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study through the Medical Research Council.

It is important that this study receive adequate funding, as health care restructuring has limited access to care providers and rehabilitation programs for those injured or debilitated by osteoporosis.

The petitioners believe that it is important that everyone be protected from the effects of broken bones and the crippling effects of osteoporosis.

[Employment, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the government is working hard to help unemployed Canadians return to work. Last year nearly 400,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level in eight years.

Employment insurance represents a key element in our efforts to encourage job creation and economic growth for it removes the disincentives to work which existed under the previous system. It uses active employment measures to help unemployed workers to return to work, such as the $800 million investment in re-employment benefits and the $300 million transitional jobs fund which has created more than 300,000 jobs in the last two years in high unemployment regions.

Clearly EI is doing an excellent job of helping unemployed Canadians get back to work as quickly as possible. For this reason I want to express my support for this program and urge all members to work with us to make sure EI can continue to provide workers with the assistance they need and deserve.

[Courage To Come Back Awards, May 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday evening I had the honour of representing the Minister of Health at the annual Courage to Come Back awards of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto.

The evening provided an opportunity for us to share in the remarkable stories of individuals who have shown extraordinary courage in their recovering from life threatening illness, injury or addiction and now serve as models of hope and inspiration.

I would like to thank Janice O'Born, the chair of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry Foundation; president and CEO of the Addiction and Mental Health Services Corporation, Dr. Paul Garfinkel; and Nancy Coldham, chair of the courage committee. They are fighting the difficult battle against ignorance with respect to mental illness.

We were all very pleased and impressed by the empathy of the evening's special hosts Mark Tewksbury and Silken Laumann. Most important, we were all truly inspired by the evening's award recipients: David Shannon, Ralph Booker, Gabriella Melendez, Jeffrey Ostofsky, Andrea OuHingwan, Sandy Naiman and Ian Chovil. They have all had the courage to come back and go that extra mile in the invaluable role of public education. They are role models for all of us.

[Persons With Disabilities, March 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago Canada was recognized by the United Nations for its work on persons with disabilities. However of the 55 recommendations in the report of the Scott task force on persons with disabilities only eight have been implemented so far.

Is the government intending to implement the balance of the recommendations? What specific action is being taken and when can the people of Canada with disabilities expect some action?

[Industrial Research Assistance Program, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the National Research Council's successful industrial research assistance program is one of the most important mechanisms for supporting innovation and helping small business create and adopt new technologies.

Every year IRAP provides technical advice to more than 10,000 companies and provides financial assistance in support of research and development to more than 3,000 companies.

The industrial research assistance program supports a national technology network that involves 150 public and private sector organizations.

It is for this reason that this government will increase this successful program by an additional $34 million to $130 million this year, an increase of 35% from 1997.

IRAP will provide greater support to small businesses in adopting new technologies and developing new products for commercial markets.

This new investment, along with other initiatives such as technology partnerships Canada and the Canadian foundation for innovation, complements this government's continuing commitment.

[The Economy, March 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride that I am able to speak to the budget, especially after my week back in the riding of St. Paul's where it was very clear that the people of St. Paul's and indeed the people of Toronto were extremely grateful to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Finance for their leadership in what they felt they had asked for, in what they had voted for and in what had been delivered.

I would like to thank the people of St. Paul's and all other people of Canada. Everybody knows that over this past four years there had to be tough decisions. Those people have paid in ways that they felt hard. They are very relieved that the days of cuts are over.

The comments I had on the budget back in Toronto were that it was thoughtful, intelligent, practical and compassionate. It exceeded people's expectations of how well the pulse of the people had been taken.

As has been said before, it was not only a balanced budget but it was a budget that demonstrated balance in its being able to deliver new programs, debt reduction and strategic tax relief. The people felt relieved.

It was a great privilege last week to see my predecessor, John Roberts, who was ecstatic that we could actually reach a time where Jeffrey Simpsom from the Globe and Mail could actually applaud a Liberal budget. His quote was:

As a long-standing and often acerbic critic of federal budgets, let me switch gears completely. This week's budget was the best in a generation. Here's why: It got priorities roughly right. It helped redefine the proper role of government in a modern economy. It balanced revenues and expenditures. It opted for prudent forecasts. It resisted the temptation to spend gobs more money in the wrong areas—

It contained modest tax cuts. It was a balanced budget. It provided additional spending in the right places and avoidance of foolish spending. It adds up to the best budget in a generation and it sets a stage for what must come next, lower taxes and less debt.

The budget has been called an education budget. It was interesting to see the faces of our Reform colleagues at the HRDC meeting last week when Frank Graves of Echos Research came to present his data on what Canadians wanted with respect to the role of the federal government in training and education. Well over 59% of Canadians said that the federal role must be increased and 21% said that it must at least remain the same.

It was interesting that the sentinel piece of the budget is indeed the $2.5 billion millennium fund which the Prime Minister promised to Canadians. When we look around the world in the year 2000 we will see that lots of countries built buildings and great monuments to themselves. This country will be seen to have created a legacy in terms of the future of our young Canadians.

Life-long learning is indeed the future. As we see people perhaps requiring four careers in a lifetime, the ability to go to university is one of the biggest things we can give.

Last week at a skating party in St. Paul's Ken Dryden came to sign autographs and was able to talk to people about what we were raising some money for in terms of the three out of the cold programs in our riding.

Mr. Dryden actually has his own scholarship fund where every year he is able to fund six young Canadians. He chooses young Canadians from either group homes or foster homes. He says that the hardest thing is to read those 75 applications for those six precious spots and realize that every one of those extremely special young children has demonstrated with very little family support an ability to go to university. He would love all 75 of them to be able to go.

It is interesting to look at the other budget items in terms of the RESP and the Canada education savings grant, huge incentives for parents to save for their children's future education.

The tax free withdrawals for life-long learning from RRSPs is important when we realize that the most important indicator for Canadians at 30 years of age of whether or not they are working is whether or not they have been to university. It is something important for us to move forward on. The presence of the university community was felt today on Parliament Hill. University presidents are very happy with the millennium fund, a future investment in young Canadians.

Robert Pritchard from the University of Toronto, where I am on the faculty, said that we could not do a better as a country. He could not be happier for our students because this help will make all the difference in the world to them and their ability to manage the costs of higher education.

As a physician I heard clearly the member for Winnipeg North complaining about no new money for health care. I feel I should respond and say that I am very happy with the direction of the government in health care. The restoration of the CHST to $12.5 billion is exactly what the National Forum on Health asked for. The additional $134 million for the MRC, the $211 million for the HIV and aids initiative, and the $60 million for the new blood agencies are indeed new money.

The innovative tax relief evidenced in the budget in health and dental care allows self-employed people to proceed with preventive care. The caregiver tax credit is the beginning of a home care plan. Tax credits for training courses for caregivers of dependent relatives with disabilities and helping families with child care show the ongoing commitment and dedication of the government to health care.

I was happy with the 1997 budget where we began with a health transition fund of $150 million, the innovation fund of $800 and the national system on health information with $50 million. These are the building blocks to creating a sustainable health care system for the future.

I believe the percentage of GDP, which is a good marker for countries in terms of health care, is appropriate. At 9.7% for Canada it is clear that the 14.2% in the United States does not give better health care, does not give better perinatal mortality or better health in all the other markers we now have.

I am encouraged. We need principles and values. Then we can form a plan and only then can we cost it out. The health transition fund is helping us with these three conferences, the last of which concluded today on pharmacare, information structures and home care. We still do not have consensus on exactly what is the right thing to do. We cannot in any way allocate budgets until we know what we want to do.

In pharmacare there is still a debate on whether it should be a single payer or whether we should patch the holes in the patchwork quilt. In information structure we know we need an ability to be able to measure quality as we go so that we can then allocate resources appropriately.

Information technology is imperative. We are still overcoming the stumbling blocks of privacy and confidentiality. We must do those things first.

In terms of home care we need research into health care delivery and we still need to debate who is doing it.

Yesterday the minister of health eloquently articulated the principles and values and the priority of this government to maintain the confidence of Canadians in our health care system. We recognize that when medicare was designed health care was delivered in hospitals by doctors and nurses. Times have changed and we must now evaluate that delivering medically necessary services to Canadians cannot depend on the building in which the care is delivered.

We must move on to a new system so that Canadians do not lose confidence in their system. We as a government are committed to that and we will not allow the slippery slope of two tier medicine that happens when Canadians lose confidence in the system. We have to do our homework. We develop a plan and then together we can go together with the post-budget consultations and plan for the budget of 1999, the health care budget.