Charlie Angus

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, April 1st, 2014]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could clarify. Because an amendment has been asked of me, am I able to respond?

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is definitely a moment when we can praise the work of other parliamentarians who have led the way on this file. Certainly in the Conservative caucus, the member from Kitchener has done extraordinary work on this. In our caucus, the member from Windsor led the work on this committee.

I have to admit that I meant to attend that committee, and I did not. I was busy with ten thousand other things, but at that time, I thought palliative care was something that was good and that existed. It was when I saw that Perram House had shut down, and I began to look around and realized that there are huge gaps, that I went back and read the report that had been sitting on my desk. I saw that parliamentarians from all different parties had really looked at these issues.

This is one of the great things about being able to bring forward private member's initiatives. Sometimes in the hustle and bustle and the political back and forth, some of these very important issues that front-line people are calling for, are asking for, are dropped along the way. These are moments when, as parliamentarians, we can bring them back into the House and say that there are people who are looking to us to do something.

If we as the Parliament of Canada said that we believe in an integrated vision of palliative care, it would certainly set a conversation at the provincial level and at the communal level. We could actually build a better health care system, a better way of serving the population that is looking to us for leadership at this time.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned at the beginning my dear brother-in-law, John King, who died in his early forties. John was an economist, and he would say to me, “show me how this works”. What we saw at Perram House, while it existed, was that it is a great model. We can show that these are the systems that work. We came through something that in our family could have been very traumatic, but we were there, and we were there together.

I have been at the death of other loved ones when we have been standing in a hallway in an emergency ward. People are trying to come together as a family. The nurses are doing their jobs and saying, “Shush, there are other patients here”. People do not know where to go or where to sit, and they do not get to have their proper goodbyes.

There are phenomenal organizations across this country, grassroots organizations, front-line people, who have been calling us and sharing their stories. I had an amazing meeting with the Jewish Family & Child service in Toronto, which has a wonderfully integrated model for helping families spiritually and financially. They make sure that the family is supported.

If all members go back and talk within our ridings, we are going to meet the front-line people who do this every day.

[Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy, April 1st, 2014]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should establish a Pan-Canadian Palliative and End-of-life Care Strategy by working with provinces and territories on a flexible, integrated model of palliative care that: (a) takes into account the geographic, regional, and cultural diversity of urban and rural Canada; (b) respects the cultural, spiritual and familial needs of Canada’s First Nation, Inuit and Métis people; and (c) has the goal of (i) ensuring all Canadians have access to high quality home-based and hospice palliative end-of-life care, (ii) providing more support for caregivers, (iii) improving the quality and consistency of home and hospice palliative end-of-life care in Canada, (iv) encouraging Canadians to discuss and plan for end-of-life care.

Mr. Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise in this House representing the people of Timmins—James Bay. Tonight I am particularly proud to represent the New Democratic Party as we bring forward a motion that we believe is essential for the development of long-term planning for health in this country, which is a pan-Canadian strategy for palliative care.

I am very proud to be here this evening to move this motion on behalf of the New Democratic Party. We are asking the federal government and Canada's Parliament to establish a pan-Canadian strategy, ensure access to palliative care, and work with the provinces and territories so that all levels of government can develop a standard of care that ensures access to quality palliative care.

To begin, I would like to make note of a few things for the people watching across Canada.

I would like to thank the medical leaders, medical organizations, front-line service providers who are serving people in need, and the social workers, pharmacists, nurses and doctors, for the support that we received. I would also like to thank members of the various spiritual communities of Canada who have supported the New Democrats in this motion.

On a personal note, I would like to mention that my late brother-in-law John King, who was a close friend and a brilliant young man, lost his life much too early to cancer. After the 2008 election, I came home and spent the last few nights with John at Perram House, in Toronto.

Perram House was an extraordinary palliative care centre. At the time, I thought it was the norm. I thought that when Canadians became sick, there were Perram Houses everywhere. It was after Perram House closed, in the city of Toronto where my brother-in-law was dying, that I realized there was a lack of good quality palliative care beds.

Certainly there is good quality palliative care in hospitals. However, with regard to community-centred, spiritually centred, communal-familiar centred care, it made me realize that across this country we do not have a standard forum for ensuring that families and individuals have the support they need.

I would also like to thank the incredible work of the all-party committee. The Parliament of Canada is known as a relatively toxic place at most times, but members of all parties came together on this vital issue and worked hard. I would like to recognize the members of the Conservative, Liberal, and New Democratic parties who worked on the study and wanted to bring forward to Parliament the need for us to establish this pan-Canadian strategy on palliative care. I believe that the motion I am bringing forward on behalf of the New Democratic Party is carrying forward the work of this all-party committee.

One of its key recommendations is that the committee strongly urges that the federal government re-establish a palliative care secretariat for the sake of developing and implementing a national palliative and end-of-life care strategy. In honour of the work that my colleagues in the other parties and New Democrats did on that committee, we are bringing forward that motion tonight.

There has been much discussion lately in the media. Many terms are being used on the issue of dying with dignity and what it means. People are grappling with very complex and emotional issues that touch all of us.

Tonight I would like to use the definition of palliative care that has been offered by the Canadian Medical Association.

The Canadian Medical Association tells us the following:

Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with a life-threatening illness. [It involves] the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other physical, psychosocial, and spiritual symptoms.

We can see from the Canadian Medical Association's definition that palliative care is not just about dealing with someone in their final bleak hours. It is the notion of an integrated health strategy that is there for families in their homes. It is not just about the alleviation of suffering, but allowing the individual to have a higher quality of life than they might have otherwise had. It also assures support for the family, community members, and loved ones, who sometimes face an extremely traumatic time.

The fact that we are having this debate today at the end of the national health accord is very timely. The New Democrats believe, and have believed this since our founding and the days of Tommy Douglas, that the federal government has an important role to play, not in the delivery of service but in working with the provinces and territories to establish norms across this country.

If we look at the situation with an aging population and our increasingly frayed health care system, and with the end of the health accord and less and less money to be delivered to the regions, urban and rural, it becomes incredibly important to ensure that we have an integrated health care strategy.

What would the strategy look like? We know that Parliament played a role before. In 2007, the Conservative government cancelled the palliative care secretariat that had been established and was beginning to do work in terms of a national vision. We had an all-party committee that came back and said we needed a strategy.

However, what we are seeing across the country is a real patchwork of services. I believe there are only four provinces that even have a provincial strategy in place for palliative care. In some areas we see incredibly strong resources. For example, downtown Regina and Saskatoon have extraordinary services, but even in a city as big as the GTA or Montreal, we are dealing with a patchwork. In rural areas, sometimes it is almost non-existent.

There is a belief that somehow palliative care is done with volunteer money. That does not really understand its importance.

Let us look at the delivery of services in the rural regions. What I have seen in my own region is that when families do not have access to proper support, it causes immense stress to the patient. Many times I have dealt with this when people have come to my office. I have heard about an elderly woman trying to bathe her husband who is dying of cancer, but who has not been identified for palliative care. They are trying to get home support workers, who do extraordinary work.

The overall vision is that this is a palliative issue as opposed to just someone who needs home support. Too often the person ends up in the emergency room waiting for a bed. It is the locum or the emergency room doctor who has to tell them that they are actually suffering from an incurable illness, which can be very traumatic.

I have seen families almost torn apart because of the pressure. Someone has to stay home with the loved one. We know that in at least a quarter of the cases, Canadians have said that they have had to miss upwards of a month of work or have used personal savings to look after a loved one who has an incurable condition.

In areas where we have good palliative care, we can actually save about $8,000 to $10,000 per patient because they are not then being cared for in emergency wards and there is not the struggle to find beds, because there has been a whole approach.

In the rural northern Ontario region that I represent, the provincial allocation for palliative care for a region of more than 100 kilometres with three hospitals and about 20 communities is $70,000. What can $70,000 buy when one is delivering health care, when one has to do the audits and to ensure travel? That is not to say it is the only money.

The province, through its LHINS, has a pain management program, but it is not under the palliative program but through someone else, another organization that could be 200 kilometres or 400 kilometres away. They do good work as well, but it is not integrated. We have personal support workers, but they are not necessarily working under the palliative network.

To get that $70,000, the local organizations are supposed to raise $25,000. So they are already having to bring forward about a quarter of the money themselves. Meanwhile, there are numerous other agencies, all delivering fragments of the service, but if those fragments were put together into a cohesive whole there would be a better health outcome.

We can learn from each other in different parts of the country. This is a really important opportunity. We need to talk to the medical front line, the social workers and the people who are dealing with the sick and the aging. They understand that if we work together and worked on the models that work, we could learn from each other and deliver better outcomes.

There is clearly a need for this program across the country. Palliative care is excellent in some regions and virtually non-existent in others.

Quality palliative care means integrated care: home care, social services and medical care to help improve people's health, emotional and psychological support and support for families.

Currently, less than 30% of Canadians have access to quality palliative care. That is why New Democrats are asking the other parties to work with them to support this vision for a pan-Canadian strategy to help families and individuals facing this situation and to implement similar models in both rural and urban areas.

I believe this is a moment when all parliamentarians can come together in a positive way. We all have to face the death of a loved one. We have all faced it. We all have our own stories. These are moments in the life of a family that is at a crossroads, the closing of one chapter and the opening of another.

I remember when my grandfather died and the responsibilities that were transferred, the cultural roles, the leadership roles, and the spiritual roles that people play in a family when someone leaves and the next generation has to take those on. That is an extraordinary moment in the life of a family, but if it happens in a crisis unit, if it happens in an emergency ward, if it happens because some of the family members have to be out working in the oil patch and cannot get back to be there, the sense of guilt and anger can tear families apart or seriously damage the spiritual vitality of a family or community.

When there is a better model out there, one that saves money and that ensures better access for people, I think it is incumbent upon us to say, let us embrace this model and let us show what dying with dignity in 2014 should be about, to ensure that we have everything in place around the person, around the loved ones, around the families so that they can make that transition and so that we, as their family members and loved ones, will also be able to make that transition to the next level of our own communities.

I am hoping to get the full support of the members of Parliament. I am certainly counting on the members who did the extraordinary work on the palliative care committee. I think this is something on which we can all agree. I would ask my colleagues to work with us to support this motion and then begin to push for its full implementation.

From this Parliament, it is incumbent upon as well to begin this discussion in Canadian society. This is a common sense solution that is staring Canadians in the face. This is a discussion that we need as Canadians. It is a positive discussion. It is a discussion that brings people in to talk together, as opposed to leaving people on the outside.

I would like to think that out of this motion can begin a positive discussion across this country.

[619 RAF Squadron, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in the early hours of April 25, 1945, 24-year-old Wilfrid DeMarco flew out with 619 RAF Squadron on the last great raid of the war. Their target was Hitler's mountain fortress at Berchtesgaden.

DeMarco was considered a brilliant pilot, but the young crew of Canadian and British airmen faced an impossible task. Flying low over the SS barracks, they were hit by a heavy wall of flak. DeMarco attempted to keep the plane level while the crew bailed out. Three men survived. The other four were the last of the 50,000 airmen lost in that brutal campaign.

Next April, the village of Adnet, Austria, will commemorate their loss, and on this side of the pond, the city of Timmins, our museum, Legion Branch 88, and the Algonquin Regiment will host our own commemoration.

On behalf of the Parliament of Canada, I want to thank Mayor Wolfgang Auer and the people of Adnet, as well as the supporters of 619 RAF Squadron, David Young and Kevin Ruane, for remembering our young men.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

[Business of Supply, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I hear from you all the time about proper decorum and proper language. Is “smelly, stinky skunk” now parliamentary? I just want to know, Mr. Speaker, if you think that is acceptable language.

[Business of Supply, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. colleague really placed this issue where it needs to be. This morning we have seen all manner of banter and side-talk, but the issue is on the fair use of resources. It is not about a witch hunt.

We were told by the first Conservative speaker that government resources are to be used for government business and that there are strict rules in place. Also, we know the Prime Minister needs to be able to use the Challenger because of security. Our motion certainly recognizes that. Those points are bedrock in terms of life in the 21st century for a world leader.

The question arises when the Prime Minister flies to Sarasota, Florida, and needs the Challenger jet. That is okay. Then we can expand that, and he flies down to New York to watch a baseball game. That is okay, but why are party fundraisers travelling on that jet and getting extraordinarily low fees in terms of their payback?

I would ask my hon. colleague if he wonders how these flight manifests are set up. How is it that the Conservatives tell us there are clear rules in place, yet people who do the fundraising work of the party are able to fly on flights that are supposed to be clearly regulated?

[Business of Supply, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his excellent discourse in terms of the men and women from our squadrons who do such amazing work for us, and how we count on them. We certainly expect and trust that they will keep the Prime Minister and his family safe. That is government business, and I certainly agree with the member. I am glad to see that he said there need to be some very clear rules around transporting. This is not about saying the Prime Minister should not be able to travel. He is the Prime Minister of the country. He has many concerns.

In terms of the issue of making sure these rules are followed, when Mark Kihn was flown back and forth from Calgary on numerous flights, was he listed on the flight manifest as a member of the Prime Minister's staff? He is clearly not; he is a party fundraiser. These are the issues we need to clarify. This is why I think hon. colleagues will be supporting this motion. We want to make sure people are doing government business, but if people who are friends are being flown to baseball games, how do they get on the flight manifest, because I am sure the men and women of our Air Force are going to want to follow the rules. Was Mark Kihn listed as the Prime Minister's staff or listed as a fundraiser?

[Business of Supply, April 1st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will try another one:

Madam Speaker, the government each day and every day continues to show the Canadian taxpayer that it does not care. [...]

One of the most recent examples of this is the use of the Challenger jets as flying limos, as party taxis, as a way of not having to sit with the regular folk.

[...] In just a few hours of travel the government has spent the annual earnings of a family in Canada.

[...]...if a year's salary spent on these flights home is okay. Let us ask seniors or farmers who just had the oil tank filled for the winter if these flights are okay.

Who said that? That was the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. Come on down and show us that you stand for accountability and that you are not going to hide behind a government of corruption. Stand up and stand with us. We are calling on you. This is your chance.