Francis Scarpaleggia

[Health Partners International, February 6th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Health Partners International of Canada, an NGO headquartered in the West Island of Montreal, on 25 years of delivering essential medicines and medical supplies to vulnerable communities, particularly those in the developing world. Since 1990, it has remarkably delivered over 20 million treatments to such communities.

Health Partners collects medicines and supplies that are donated by medical suppliers, including both research-based and generic pharmaceutical companies, and creates physician travel packs, including mother-child health kits, which are then given to physicians and other volunteers travelling to areas of need abroad.

In Canada and other developed countries, we are fortunate to be able to readily access medicines, including painkillers, which we might need one day.

Thanks to its extraordinary vision and its ability to form partnerships, HPIC helps alleviate the pain of a great many people in our global village.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on what I consider one of his best interventions. It was a very eloquent exposé, and I judge interventions in the House by whether I come away from them more knowledgeable than when I stepped into the House to listen to them. I learned a lot from the hon. member's line of argument and his quotes from different experts on this issue.

I would like to come back to the question of small business. The government makes a lot of its so-called support for small business, but I have small business owners coming to see me in my riding office quite frequently. There are two in particular who came to see me who were not very happy with the scientific research and development tax credit, which the government has amended, to the detriment of small business.

In one case, it was a low-tech company that is suffering from a lowering of tariffs in the last budget. It was doing some innovative work to survive and compete. It did not qualify for SR and ED.

Another company was an extremely high-tech company. It was lucky. It got in just under the line, right before the government decided that businesses could not use SR and ED to buy capital equipment. If that had been the case, the company would not have seen the light of day. It would not be what it is today. The equipment it purchases is so specialized that the company cannot get a loan from the bank for that equipment. That equipment does not serve as collateral, because there is no market for it. It is so specialized that a company cannot sell it if the company goes bankrupt, and the bank therefore cannot get its money back.

That change to SR and ED has not been very good for high-tech small business, and low-tech small business does not seem to be benefiting either. I would like my hon. colleague's comments on that.

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the hon. member brought up the situation in Prince Rupert, which it turns out is an extremely complicated situation. There is the fact that Alaska is leasing the port. It is also complicated by the fact that there is the potential for different suppliers of steel for this port. Another element is the fact we are talking about a local labour force that would be called upon to build the port. The last factor is that cruise ships can bypass that port if need be.

We saw the government react rather quickly and aggressively to the news that buy American was going to apply there. However, given the complexity of the situation, should Canada and the government not have entered into some fairly sophisticated discussions with the players on this issue? Why do we have an embassy if it cannot engage governors and legislators to solve these problems?

[An Act to amend the Statistics Act (appointment of Chief Statistician and long-form census), January 29th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes it seems to me that the Conservative government is nurturing a simplistic and outdated image of the society in which we live.

It thinks that modern society is exactly like a little old-fashioned town where everybody knows everybody and the local economy is based on exchanges between buyers, producers and sellers that are all the same size and nobody has more power than anybody else. The market is truly free and unfettered, with no distortion of competition. Everybody is on an equal playing field. The market and the economy are efficient.

In this imaginary society, everything is out in the open and people get the news by word of mouth. There is no need for statistical data to paint a picture of one's community. Problems are simple and so are solutions.

However, the society we live in today looks nothing like the Conservatives' notion of it. The infrastructure is complex. Even small towns are linked together within administrative regions that provide increasingly complex services, including health services, to the people.

People in the same region do not necessarily all know one another. To paint a picture of an area and its needs, we need to be able to collect data, often with the help of sampling techniques. In other words, we need to take a census of the population. To analyze long-term trends, we must collect data consistently over a long period.

For the data to be accepted by the public and used as a basis for decisions that are truly democratic and in the public interest, the public must be of the opinion that the data are accurate and were not compiled somewhat artificially in order to influence public debate and promote the political, economic or socio-cultural interests of one group of citizens over another.

In a complex, modern world, statistics are our collective lens. They allow us to see a reality that otherwise would be invisible to us, invisible to democratic decision makers. When the government decided suddenly to eliminate the long form census, it broke a piece of that lens. It distorted our view of how things really were.

There is perhaps no more convincing an example of how the government's sudden decision to end the long form census has compromised informed decision making in the interest of community than the case of David Hulchanski. As an aside, the government claims to care about community, but its decisions in fact undermine the community interest.

As theToronto Star has pointed out about the Hulchanski case:

This is one of the first documented cases of the damage done by the Conservative government’s 2010 decision to scrap Canada’s mandatory, full-length census.

David Hulchanski is a pioneer urban planner who dedicated five years to create the “the most sophisticated tool to track urban poverty ever devised”. The project used 531 census tracks to discern changes that had been taking place over time in the city of Toronto. I hope my colleagues from that area are listening carefully. Through his research, Dr. Hulchanski discerned that the assumed demographics of Toronto had changed over time, that areas of poverty had gradually moved from the centre of the city, which was becoming gentrified, to the city's outer rings.

These findings were somewhat counterintuitive, but they led to the conclusion that most of Toronto's social service agencies were in the wrong place.

Using the same methodology, Mr. Hulchanski developed maps for Montreal and Vancouver. According to the Toronto Star:

He secured funding to expand his project to Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary and Chicago, waiting expectantly for the 2011 census so he could move forward.

Just as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council approved his seven-year grant, [the President of the Treasury Board] dropped the guillotine.

Without the accurate data that the long form census provided, his methodology was “useless”. Not easily discouraged, Mr. Hulchanski tried to patch together other indicators, including income tax files, real estate data, municipal and school board records and the like, but these were insufficient to allow him to realize his statistical objectives.

Then he attempted to use the national household survey, which proved to be a dead-end. In fact, using the survey, his results contradicted the patterns that emerged in the long form census data. That, no doubt, was because the household survey was plagued by high non-response rates.

Sadly and ironically, Mr. Hulchanski's work ground to a standstill, except outside Canada in Chicago. So it was Chicago, not Toronto, that would ultimately benefit from the Conservative government's decision to kill the long form census.

In closing, I congratulate my hon. colleague for this bill. Because of his educational and professional background as a nuclear physicist, and later as a financial trader, he understands the vital importance of accurate information as the basis for effective decision-making. He is also someone who respects the institutions we have built for ourselves here in the northern half of the North American continent.

Colleagues will remember that in 2013, he was chosen by his colleagues in the House as the parliamentarian who best represented his constituents. The member for Kingston and the Islands does not let blind and emotional partisanship inhibit his search for truthful answers to the challenges we face as a nation. He brings through the bill that same ethical spirit to his vision for Statistics Canada, which should be free of political interference so that data can be gathered accurately and in a consistent manner, allowing us to draw comparisons on the state of our communities over time so that we can observe meaningful trends in the evolution of our great country and be able to make wise public policy decisions that can make Canada even greater.

[Health, January 29th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what was suggested to me in a briefing note by the minister's office, Health Canada had the authority to regulate the reprocessing of surgical instruments and other single-use medical devices well before Vanessa's law. However, the government has been remiss in using this authority. So far, only one type of reprocessed single-use device has been licensed, a low-risk one at that, and the reprocessor apparently applied for the licence on its own initiative, not at the request of the department.

When will the government finally produce a robust system for certifying reprocessed medical devices?

[Health, January 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as pointed out in the Ecojustice report and in my question period intervention, there are 189 substances regulated in other countries for which Canada has no standard. It is of concern, for example, that Canada has the weakest standard for the common herbicide 2,4-D, even though long-term exposure can damage the nervous system, liver, and kidneys, and it is considered a possible human carcinogen.

In addition, Canada has no goal, guideline, or standard for styrene, whereas the U.S., Australia, and the World Health Organization have set a maximum allowable limit for this substance in drinking water.

Why is the government not taking these contaminants more seriously? What is lacking? Is it resources, political will, or both?

[Health, January 28th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has good drinking water generally, though we do face challenges with emerging contaminants.

That said, not all Canadians enjoy the same quality of drinking water. As we know, there are no enforceable national drinking water standards in Canada. Drinking water quality thus varies by province. Within provincial boundaries, there are problems with drinking water in rural areas, where accessibility to quality drinking water does not match what is available in urban Canada. Rural drinking water advisories are fairly commonplace.

As we know all too well, drinking water quality on first nation reserves is nowhere near what it should be in a country like Canada. Instead of implementing legislation, regulations, and standards that would bring first nations' drinking water to the highest national standards, the government has opened the door to allowing drinking water on reserves to meet only provincial standards, which vary across the country and are not uniformly the highest possible.

My earlier question period intervention, which we are debating this evening, was in response to the 2014 summer Ecojustice report card on the state of Canadian drinking water.

The report begins with the question:

What country is doing the most to ensure its citizens have the safest glass of water?

Australia? Canada? The Netherlands? If you guessed Canada--unfortunately--you're wrong.

That is what the report said.

To quote further from the report:

In dozens of instances, the Canadian Guidelines are weaker than those in other jurisdictions and at risk of falling farther behind. In many more cases, Canada has no standard for substances where other countries do.

What is the government doing, even within the current framework for governing voluntary drinking water standards, to ensure Canada has the best drinking water in the world, nationwide?

[Petitions, December 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition signed by many constituents and Canadians from neighbouring ridings, expressing their disappointment with and opposition to Canada Post's decision to end home mail delivery to five million households.

The petitioners state that the elderly, disabled, self-employed, and small businesses will suffer the most from the cuts, that the government broke its promise to better protect consumers by accepting the plan to reduce Canada Post's services, that between 6,000 and 8,000 Canada Post workers will lose their jobs, and that this reduction in services could lead to the privatization of Canada Post, which is an essential public service.

[Health, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, this is all very confusing. We understand that the practice of medicine is a provincial jurisdiction, yet the government has accepted a licence application for a reprocessed device. Therefore, it is clearly involved in the regulation of these devices at some level.

We know that Health Canada has jurisdiction over new devices. Quite frankly, I do not see the difference between jurisdiction for regulating new devices and for regulating reprocessed devices. I would also suggest that these devices are being reprocessed in the United States exclusively, as far as I can understand. Therefore, the federal government would derive some jurisdiction from the fact that it has jurisdiction over international trade.

In 2004, the Auditor General recommended some federal jurisdiction over this matter. I would hope the government will listen to the Auditor General's report from that period.

[Health, November 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, a glaring lack of federal oversight exists in a little known but nonetheless important aspect of our health care system. I am referring to the reprocessing and reuse of medical devices designed and intended for single-use only.

The federal government has undisputed jurisdiction for regulating the manufacture of both pharmaceutical products and medical devices. I have already asked the government why it has been remiss in regulating drug compounders, those entities that are not strictly speaking drug manufacturers or pharmacies as the oversight and regulation of the latter is the responsibility of the provinces and the former of Health Canada.

In regard to the reprocessing of singe-use medical devices, in 2004 the Auditor General urged Health Canada to consider regulating these devices in the same manner as it regulates new medical devices. However, the department concluded that the Food and Drugs Act, from which the medical devices regulations derive their authority, was not intended to apply to the use of a device after its sale.

The issue was subsequently raised by a witness at the health committee last spring during the committee's hearings on Bill C-17, Vanessa's Law.

Suddenly, this past July, Health Canada announced that it was encouraging, although apparently not requiring, reprocessors to apply for and obtain a licence for reprocessed single-use devices in Canada. The government went on to say that one reprocessor had, in fact, obtained a licence from Health Canada for one reprocessed single-use device out of 200 or so in commerce in Canada. This device was a non-invasive device, an inflatable compression sleeve, which is clearly not an example of the riskiest reprocessed single-use device.

Why will the government not act decisively and follow the Auditor General's 2004 recommendation to begin strict regulatory oversight of the market for reprocessed single-use medical devices?

What prompted the government to move away from its earlier view, that it lacked jurisdiction in the matter, to a more confused position that reflects a half-hearted commitment to ensuring the safety of patients undergoing invasive procedures with reprocessed devices?