Diane Bourgeois

[Petitions, March 31st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and pleasure to present a petition in the name of the Association des secondes épouses et conjoints inc.

This petition calls on Parliament to amend the Divorce Act to take into account its effects on the day-to-day realities faced by second spouses.

[Health, March 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, although health care needs are increasing at an alarming rate, the Minister of Finance did not see fit to transfer additional money to Quebec and the provinces.

Yet, he was quick to come up with $1 billion to beef up the bureaucracy by creating the Canada public health agency, and he did not hesitate to earmark money for a surveillance system which duplicates the responsibilities of the Institut de santé publique du Québec.

A few days ago, 10,000 women with breast cancer filed a suit against the hospitals, charging them with having waited too long to begin their treatment. The real guilty party in this situation is the current Prime Minister of Canada who, as finance minister, decided to make drastic cuts in health transfers.

We see that the Liberal government continues to intrude in Quebec's jurisdictions, preferring to impose its hegemony rather than help the sick.

[Microbreweries, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, excise tax accounts for a large portion of the tax burden on Canada's small breweries. It hampers their growth and competitiveness, and the expansion of their export markets.

While 10 countries, the U.S. among them, as well as the majority of Canadian provinces and Quebec have adopted a discriminatory tax policy for the microbreweries, what is the government waiting for before it helps our microbreweries by reducing the excise tax?

[Social Housing, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, although there is a serious crisis in rental housing in Quebec, the federal budget provides nothing for the social housing units the Bloc Quebecois has been asking for, for a number of years.

This has terrible consequences for many families on modest incomes who—once again this year—will not be able to house themselves properly because the federal government has put no money into social housing between 1994 and 2003.

Thousands of families, including many single-parent families, are currently looking for affordable housing. The Bloc Quebecois has submitted a plan providing for a gradual reinvestment that would reach an annual investment of about $2 billion after three years, in addition to freeing up the $320 million over five years already announced in the 2003 budget.

Social housing is a need, a right, and an emergency.

[Older Adult Justice Act, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to speak to Bill C-439, which establishes the office of the Ombudsman for Older Adult Justice and the Canadian Older Adult Justice Agency.

This bill is based on a good intention, we agree: the protection of older adults. Furthermore, the Criminal Code amendments in pages 21 and 22 of the bill are interesting, and some of them deserve to be taken up by another bill. I say another bill because, in addition to these amendments to the Criminal Code, Bill C-439 contains provisions that we find thoroughly unacceptable.

Some provisions are not within federal jurisdiction; others would duplicate structures that already exist in Quebec. Yet others, if adopted, would cause widespread confusion rather than help older adults. That is why, although we appreciate the concern expressed by the hon. member for Sudbury for the welfare of the elderly, we cannot support her bill.

If I understand it clearly, the bill provides for the creation of an office of the Ombudsman for Older Adult Justice, a kind of youth protection agency for seniors. The ombudsman would be responsible for supervising the work of curators. There are curators in Quebec. This ombudsman would thus have the right and power to carry out research on successful guardianship practices and systems. That already exists in Quebec.

The ombudsman would also be responsible for supervising institutions in the provincial health networks, since the bill gives him or her the power to develop and recommend guidelines to assist institutional review boards.

Imagine the confusion, for instance, at Saint-Charles-Borromé hospital—a case we have heard about—if we suddenly found ourselves with two parallel inquiries resulting from two sets of recommendations.

The bill also provides for the establishment of the Canadian Older Adult Justice Agency, an institution quite similar, in fact almost identical, to the Conseil des aînés in Quebec. It is already responsible for advising the minister on planning, implementing and coordinating governmental policies, and programs and services to meet the needs of seniors, and for proposing to the minister the implementation of programs and services to meet the needs of seniors and to prevent and correct the situations in which seniors can become victims of abuse.

The Conseil des aînés is already responsible for producing and distributing documentation and information programs about seniors and the services and benefits available to them, and promoting creation and distribution through third parties.

There is also the issue of information distribution. In Quebec, we have CLSCs, a type of institution which is unique in Canada. They already do good work in providing home support services to the sick. The CLSCs already do a great deal of promotion, prevention and distribution. To a degree, in fact a large degree, supporting Bill C-439 would ignore the excellent work the CLSCs are already doing in Quebec.

I would like to draw the attention of my colleagues and hon. members of this House to the following definition, in the bill, of the term abuse:

The knowing infliction of physical, psychological or financial harm—

This leads me to think that either there is no awareness or the member did not see the expression “financial harm” or else she was not thinking.

For example, the guaranteed income supplement scandal was and still is inflicting serious financial harm on seniors.

I wonder, then, if we could not infer that the government is guilty. Under this legislation to establish the office of the ombudsman for older adult justice that the member wants passed, would not the Government of Canada be accountable, since this program was knowingly hidden from seniors entitled to the guaranteed income supplement?

Obviously, the government failed to provide information to ensure seniors could access the guaranteed income supplement. Obviously, this government did not take measures to locate these seniors, even if it meant going door to door or using the CLSCs and seniors' centres to find them. In looking at what happened, I think that such legislation will do nothing to help seniors.

I want to remind the House that 270,000 Canadians, including 68,000 Quebeckers, were deprived of the guaranteed income supplement. My colleague, the member for Champagne, did an excellent job with regard to the awareness campaign we initiated to find all those adversely affected by the failure, voluntary in my opinion, of this government to provide the guaranteed income supplement.

Finally, people told us that they did not need legislation to protect them but that they did need information and our help in accessing these funds. We need social justice. I do not think that Quebec truly needs this legislation to establish an office at the ombudsman for older persons.

In Quebec, we found that the financial rights of these people had been adversely affected. Quebeckers realized this. Some CLSCs focus on prevention and protection. There is also the office of the public curator in Quebec. So, Quebec does not need this legislation.

Although this bill is filled with good intentions, it is not acceptable to us, and we will be voting against it.

[Pay Equity, March 23rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Employment Equity Act requires employers within the federal jurisdiction to develop and implement equity programs in an effort to achieve a fair and representative work force.

The 2003 annual report indicates that women are still under-represented in a number of fields; that they earn on average 78 cents for every dollar earned by men; that the salary gap between women and men working full-time continues to widen; that women are still limited to clerical positions; and that the representation of women in the workforce under the act dropped by 5,000 in 2002.

For years now, the federal government has been taking only superficial action, while the situation of women has been deteriorating. The Bloc Quebecois is outraged at the federal government's inaction as far as the status of women is concerned, and urges it to take action and show some equity.

[Public Housing, March 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, how can the federal government justify denying Quebec money earmarked for affordable housing by citing the dubious reason that the other provinces have not fully expended their housing budgets?

[Public Housing, March 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of Quebec is still waiting for its share of the $320 million for affordable housing announced in the 2003 budget. Again this year, many Quebec families are going to suffer through a housing crisis while the money sits in Ottawa.

What is the federal government waiting for to free up the $320 million earmarked for affordable housing in last year's budget?

[Supply, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hochelaga—Maisonneuve for this question. Indeed, as far as health is concerned, an approach cannot be taken that focusses solely on physical health, chronic disease, or so on. There must be an overall approach.

If people are poor, they eat badly. They have substandard housing. They have psychological problems. It all goes together. What I find so disturbing at the present time is that, where physical and psychological health are concerned, as well as social housing and poverty, this government has withdrawn its support to a shocking degree. That government over there, the Liberal government, and it has been that way since 1990.

This is all because of the power struggles and the fact that there is no uniformity across the country. There is no uniformity throughout all the regions of Quebec and Canada. A uniform system cannot be implemented in all the provinces.

The government over there, because of its refusal to recognize the specific nature of Quebec, first of all, or to leave certain of our powers with us, because of its desire to hold on to our money for us, so as to have a Canada that is coast to coast, because it wants to have a high international profile, is not prepared to take the interests of Quebec and the provinces into account.

That is what is happening with social housing. Quebec needs social housing. Housing is needed for single mothers with two, three or four children. Social housing is needed for seniors.

At the present time, the trend in other provinces is toward a lesser need for social housing. So we have heard this week from the Canadian Homebuilders Association. They say the need is less, but is a bit greater in Quebec.

Because of that very power struggle, and the fact that they want to keep the money that ought to be coming to us through the social transfer, we are indeed short of social housing in Quebec.

We also lack help with health care, because the government wants to latch onto the power to decide what it is going to do with the money, basically, while we in Quebec know what needs to be done. We know where our needs lie. We know what areas of health care we want to develop, but this government does not recognize that.

[Supply, March 11th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to this motion. The main thrust of the motion is that, since the federal government’s contribution to health care spending has fallen to 16%, which is considered clearly inadequate by the Premier of Quebec and ministers in the other provinces, it would be very important for the government to invest at least half the current year’s surplus in health care in order to achieve as rapidly as possible stable funding at 25%.

I always try to find out why we are having debates in the House of Commons, because some of them are meaningless, especially when members of the Liberal government opposite turn a deaf ear to the demands of the provinces, particularly Quebec. I will keep trying to find out why these people say no to any request coming from the Bloc Quebecois or from Quebec in this House.

I would like to remind members why we are having this debate today. Under certain provisions of the Constitution of 1867, health and social services are exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec and the other provinces. This worked well until about 1920, when the federal government tried to intrude in areas of provincial jurisdiction with regard to health. It succeeded somewhat.

The real intrusion, the real power grab on the part of the federal government was in 1942, when Ottawa used the war effort as an excuse to impose fiscal arrangements on the provinces. That is the idea it came up with to take control of the country's finances. At that time, taxation was supposed to be temporary. However, after the war, the federal government did not give this taxing power back to the provinces. It kept it. The provinces had to acquire their own taxing power.

The federal government took financial power away from the provinces, appropriated a good portion of their fiscal resources and unilaterally conferred upon itself a serious ability to interfere in every provincial jurisdiction.

What then happened? There has been duplication of services. That is how, in 1957, we ended up with the federal Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act. In Quebec, we had to counter with our own hospital insurance plan. In 1966, the Medical Care Act was implemented. In 1970, we had to have our own Health Insurance Act. And on it goes.

When the federal government saw that the provinces were making their own arrangements, it formally committed to pay 50% of costs related to the health care system in Quebec and the provinces. It made a formal commitment. In exchange for this funding, Quebec and the provinces had to agree to some minimal rules, namely universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability and public management of the health insurance system. In the beginning, the federal government was to pay 50%.

Currently, according to the Conference Board and various studies, the federal government is paying only 16% of health costs. For its part, the federal government claims that it is paying 40% to 41%. We will look at whether in fact it is paying 40% to 41%.

First, it must be said that Quebec and the provinces are facing major challenges with respect to health care and it is important for the federal government to increase funding in this area.

It must also be said that health spending represents the biggest part of the budgets of each province and territory in Canada, and the costs continue to climb. The population, as we have been saying since this morning, is aging, the cost of drugs continues to increase and there is a growing demand for advanced medical technology, hospital care and home care, which contributes to the constant pressure the health care system is under.

At the same time, the federal government contribution to health care has not progressed at the same rate as the endlessly growing needs of the population.

For 2003-04, it is estimated that the federal surplus will be in the order of $8 billion. If we subtract the $2 billion already committed for health, based on a promise by the former member for Saint-Maurice and prime minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, that leaves $6 billion.

The Bloc Quebecois proposes taking this $6 billion, dividing it in two and giving $3 billion to Quebec and the provinces to provide additional health services.

Once again, as I said before, there is great disagreement between the federal government and the provinces as to the real size of the federal transfer. We estimate that if we could have access to the $3 billion surplus, that would be of help to the provinces. It could raise the funding of health care in Canada from 16% to 25%.

Our colleagues on the government benches opposite believe they are already giving 40% because they include the equalization payments in the federal contribution for health, education and social programs. And they also include tax points.

Now, tax points are not part of the federal transfer payments for health. Looking at tax points, they are a historical tax balancing program of the federation and have absolutely nothing to do with the cash component of the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Moreover, the transfer happens just once and that is that. It is not calculated later.

And as for equalization payments, we can not count them either, since the equalization formula is independent of the other transfers and therefore cannot be associated with the Canada Health and Social Transfer. Moreover, with respect to equalization, there are two provinces that cannot receive payments, and they are Alberta and Ontario.

The CHST has been slashed, lowered and reduced in increasing amounts and it is block funding. This means that there are no amounts earmarked for the various programs the federal government helps fund.

In closing, I want to say that, currently, health, social services and education represent two-thirds of all program spending in Quebec. If we factor in inflation, the aging of the population and new technologies in health care, it is clear that program spending will increase significantly over the coming years. Program spending in health care will prevent Quebec and the provinces from investing elsewhere.

Currently, there is a power struggle. The federal government has the money and the provinces need the money. The federal government has taken a power it did not have initially and does not want to return it to the provinces. That is what is happening. At the same time, people in the provinces need health care.

It is unfortunate that this struggle for power and money—because money equals power—means that, “the provinces must all be the same and operate the same way everywhere”. This is a terrible vision to have, and this terrible power and terrible vision has terrible repercussions on health care services throughout Canada. It shows a lack of respect.