Judy Foote

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Madam Chair, I am pleased to take part in tonight's debate made possible by my colleague, the member for Etobicoke North, who has lived this disease through friends, family members, and through the thousands and thousands of emails she has received. Emails that were directed to the federal government in fact to the federal Minister of Health. These emails are from Canadians who are suffering from MS and who want some relief from this debilitating disease.

Tonight we are here to speak about the need for treatments to be available to people who are living with multiple sclerosis in this country. I am pleased to join my colleague in advocating for the tens of thousands of multiple sclerosis patients who are calling on the Conservative government to invest in MS research, diagnosis and treatment, and to immediately convene a meeting of provincial and territorial health ministers to discuss a national approach to funding MS and other diseases of the brain.

This is an issue that requires leadership and if, as some colleagues in the House are saying, the provinces are not moving on this issue then there should be some leadership in terms of a national strategy to bring together provincial and territorial health ministers. There needs to be some action on this file and if there is a sense that something is not happening, then there is an obligation on the part of the federal government to make it happen.

In particular, we need to look at MS and its potential cause, CCSVI, as requested by the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. As with any research concerning health care, there has been both controversy and interest regarding the CCSVI hypothesis and the liberation procedure. I do appreciate that numerous questions remain; however, it would seem to me from what I have read and from what I have heard from MS patients that there is growing support for the liberation procedure for MS patients who have blocked veins in their necks. It is certainly something that Canada should be looking at to assist MS patients.

The Liberal opposition has asked the health minister to convene a meeting of the provinces and territories to discuss MS issues. These issues are urgent to MS patients and their families. The Liberal opposition has also called upon the Conservative government to enable individuals living with MS to be imaged for venous malformations and treated if required. We believe there is a moral obligation to offer all MS patients the imaging necessary to identify a venous malformation and access to the treatment that could possibly stop the progression of this disease.

Currently, between 55,000 and 75,000 Canadians are living with MS and the MS Society of Canada has called on the Conservative government to provide $10 million for research into multiple sclerosis. It is really important that we put a personal face on this disease.

I will do that by referencing the representation that I have had from a couple of my constituents in the riding of Random—Burin—St. George's in Newfoundland and Labrador. Let me speak about my constituent, Perry Goodyear, who lives in Grand Bank, Newfoundland, and is one of the thousands of Canadians living with MS. Perry lives with primary progressive MS. He has breathing difficulties and he lives in constant pain. He desperately wants to get the ultrasound done to determine if something can be done to support him in his battle against MS. Perry wrote to me and I will share his comments with the House this evening.

In his letter Perry said, “I'm not getting the answers I want. Why can anybody get this ultrasound done, but we as MS patients are being denied. Are we not human or just looked down on as different people. I'm finding it hard to cope with that. I'm discriminated against as a person. I can get this scan as a non MS patient. I'm having breathing problems, can't swallow food right, (and in) constant pain. Now the government won't cover my LDN pill under my drug card because it's made from scratch at a pharmacy. My feet are purple - this pill helped with circulation and pain. Now I can't have it. What's next for me? I'm reaching out in pure pain. Just give me the scan. After that I'll know if I've got a chance to slow this rapid condition. It's not easy hearing your 13-year-old daughter asking if you will die without this surgery”.

Perry just wants to know if there is something that can be done for him and other MS patients. Anyone who has ever faced an illness knows how important knowledge is. It is that knowledge that gives people and their families the hope and the strength to persevere.

Friends of Perry have also written in support of him and his family, friends who watch him suffer on a daily basis with this debilitating disease. All they are talking about is the need to access a treatment that will make a difference in the lives of Perry and his family, and will recognize that he has every right to live a quality of life that most of us as Canadians take for granted.

We are asking the health minister for her support to make the research into this liberation procedure which may alleviate a potential cause of MS a priority, to take a leadership role, to help the thousands of Canadians who are suffering with this debilitating disease.

We know that liberation treatment centres are developing around the world, including Poland, Scotland and the United States. Recently, Kuwait became the first country in the world to offer the liberation procedure to all of its MS patients who have blocked veins in their necks.

Canada, with one of the highest rates of MS in the world, should be a leader in research and procedures to assist MS patients. However, this has not been the case.

Currently, Canadian doctors do not scan MS patients for venous malformations. MS patients who have had the liberation procedure, which opens up these narrowed veins, reported improvement in brain fuzziness and circulation, and over time a marked improvement in the quality of life, something that the majority of Canadians take for granted.

I can only imagine what it must be like to be living with MS and knowing that treatment may be possible, but that the federal government is unwilling to take a stand in the fight against this horrible disease

If the Conservative government cannot be compelled by logic and compassion to take a leadership role in finding a cure for MS, perhaps it will be motivated by the economic sensibility of such action.

As I said, Canada has one of the highest rates of MS in the world. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information the estimated total cost of MS to the Canadian economy is $1 billion, more than that devoted to all infectious diseases combined. In Canada five drug therapies are approved for the treatment of some forms of MS. The cost of these therapies range from about $20,000 to $40,000 per year per patient and symptom management drugs can cost up to $10,000 per year. It has been estimated that a scan and liberation treatment in a public hospital setting would cost between $5,000 and $6,000.

I wish share with the House a story from another one of my constituents. I think it is important to do this to put a personal face on this issue. Raymond Grandy of Harbour Breton in Newfoundland and Labrador, is another Canadian living with MS. Raymond is living with the challenges of this debilitating disease.

He writes, “I have watched so many people on television and the Internet choose the Liberation treatment and feel better after the fact. I just want to be able to take the chance on getting it done without costing me a barrel of money that I don't have. Right now, I see a treatment that is not attainable in my situation because along with my deteriorating health, I just simply cannot afford to go out of the country seeing that I get a disability cheque each month of $834.95 and my medications cost me $206.00 monthly. Please take the time to read this letter and please let Dr. Zamboni explain everything that the doctors in Canada need to know so that they can help us with MS.

[Points of Order, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, let me just read it again. It says:

Questions about these matters can be directed to me there.

Unless one is to believe that the Prime Minister misled the House, then I would expect that he would have taken those questions as the employer of Mr. Dimitri Soudas.

[Points of Order, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order coming out of today's question period, when I put two questions to the Prime Minister. These questions had to do with the Prime Minister's refusal to allow his director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, to appear before the ethics committee.

I have a letter dated June 1 and signed by the Prime Minister, who stated:

The purpose of this letter is to inform the Committee of my instruction to Mr. Soudas that he will not appear before the Committee.

He went on to say:

Next week I will be present in Question Period on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Questions about these matters can be directed to me there.

Today is Thursday. I put the questions directly to the Prime Minister, and today he did not respond to those questions directly. I am asking if in fact the Prime Minister misled the House when he wrote this letter and indicated that he would be here today to respond to questions with respect to Mr. Soudas not being allowed to appear before the committee.

[Ethics, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that no one has the right to block a committee from calling a non-parliamentarian as a witness, neither the Prime Minister nor his cabinet. What is happening here is that a committee is being frustrated for no good reason.

Will Mr. Soudas' boss, the Prime Minister, agree to appear before the ethics committee and explain why he is ordering his staffer to break the law and not respect a legal summons?

[Ethics, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative political staffers have been caught illegally interfering with requests made under the access to information law and no one is being held accountable.

As part of its investigation, the ethics committee has exercised its right to call Dimitri Soudas as a witness. But the Prime Minister seems to think his director of communications is somehow too delicate a butterfly to answer questions about his conduct.

If the Prime Minister really believes accountability is more than an empty election slogan, would he instruct Mr. Soudas to respect the legal summons and appear before the committee?

[June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to what my colleague across the way had to say, I could not help but wonder whether or not he actually heard what had been said at the ethics committee. It is clear and it was made clear that day that, in fact, political staff did tell bureaucrats and officials to unrelease a report.

When we have people who are responsible for ensuring that the Access to Information Act is followed, how is it possible we can have political staff tell them to unrelease a report? That information was already deemed to be something that should be in the public domain, but again we have political staff saying that is not the case.

How can the Conservatives possibly say that the government is being open and transparent, and have political staff do that? It is not what is happening under the government. Again, I can only repeat what the Information Commissioner has said, that there is no evidence of a culture of transparency in the government and she cited example after example.

[June 7th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on April 14, I asked a question of the President of the Treasury Board about why the government was under so much secrecy, why it was refusing to be transparent, as requested under the Access to Information Act. In fact, the Information Commissioner, who was interim at the time, reported that the right of Canadians to timely access to information was at risk of being totally obliterated because delays threatened to render the entire access regime irrelevant in our current information economy. In fact, she said that she had seen “no evidence” of a culture of transparency in the government.

My question as well was prompted by the fact that the Prime Minister's chief of staff had refused to provide a response to the House ethics committee as to whether political staff had intervened with access to information requests to stop information from being released.

At the time, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board assured the House that the government was working to improve its numbers on responding to access to information requests within 30 days. However, the critical problems of censorship, secrecy and blocking the release of information have only escalated in recent weeks.

The Prime Minister made a commitment to an open, transparent government when he campaigned in the last federal election. However, it is impossible to find any area of his administration where that commitment is indeed being upheld. The Prime Minister prorogued his government to avoid testimony concerning allegations of torture of Afghan detainees. Despite countless requests, he refuses to tell Canadians why he fired a cabinet minister and referred the matter to the RCMP.

The Prime Minister has muzzled staff members, blocking their appearances at committees and the delivery of a subpoena to political staff has been blocked, including to the PM's director of communications. The bailiff has been prevented from entering offices in order to do his duty.

Withholding information appears to be the top priority for the Conservative government. Canadians want to know what the government is trying to hide. The recent report of the Information Commissioner, “Out of Time”, indicates that access to information processing times have exploded under the government. The law says that access to information requests are supposed to be completed within 60 days, however, nearly 60% of requests take up to 120 days to complete under the government. A full 13% of them take more than 121 days.

For example, the March 2008 access to information request by the National Liberal Caucus Research Bureau for all documents concerning Canada's decision to stop Afghan detainee transfers was denied in December 2009, a staggering 639 days later, only after the issue had become a full-blown political controversy for the Conservative government.

As well, a senior aide to the former public works minister stopped the release of a sensitive 137 page document that had been requested by the media. The aide ordered officials to unrelease the report after the access to information office at Public Works had already determined that there was no legal base for withholding it. What the media got instead, 82 days later than allowed under the law, was a heavily censored version that had been reduced to 30 pages. The House ethics committee's efforts to question the senior aide about his actions have not been able to proceed, as the Conservative government has barred staff members from appearing at parliamentary committees.

Canadians have a right to information. The Conservative government has an obligation to be responsible and responsive to requests—

[Cadet Medal of Excellence, June 3rd, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge a young woman from the riding of Random—Burin—St. George's in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Chief Petty Officer First Class Maria Hennebury of Lord's Cove, a rural community of 140 people on the Burin Peninsula, is the coxswain of 289 Corvette Sea Cadet Corps in Lamaline.

I am told by the officers that Maria's sea cadet training and personal evaluation reports at summer training centres have been outstanding. She was recently rewarded for her hard work and dedication with the Cadet Medal of Excellence.

Maria recently participated in a tall ship excursion from Norfolk, Virginia to Halifax, Nova Scotia and performed admirably. Most recently, she was selected to participate in a foreign exchange to South Korea as one of five cadets from across Canada. Maria will represent Atlantic Canada and the Canadian Cadet Movement.

Maria is the daughter of Rosanna and Bob Hennebury.

I ask the members of the House to join me in congratulating Maria on her success and wishing her well.

[Offshore Drilling, May 27th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, President Obama has announced a moratorium on deep water oil wells and halted all drilling in northern waters.

Meanwhile, this government has taken no action to ensure that all current drilling is safe or that a disaster off one of our coasts would not result in the same catastrophic scenes we have seen in the Gulf of Mexico, with oil gushing on and on for more than five weeks.

Will the Conservatives follow the lead of President Obama and ensure all precautions are taken to avoid a tragic spill in Canadian waters?

[Accident Memorial, May 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember a tragedy that happened 30 years ago near Swift Current, Saskatchewan.

On May 28, 1980, a bus carrying CP Rail workers was involved in an accident that saw 22 young Canadians lose their lives. Twelve of those men were from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The town of Rushoon, a rural community with a population of 300 in the riding of Random—Burin—St. George's, lost four men in that accident. These were young men who left their homes each spring to work on the tracks, as they referred to it. These were young men who sacrificed all to earn a living for their families.

Though a small community, the people of Rushoon raised funds for a monument in memory of those men. I will be at the unveiling in Rushoon this Friday, May 28, 30 years to the day of the tragedy.

I ask all members to take a minute to remember all 22 of those men who lost their lives so tragically.