Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the debate at second reading stage of Bill C-13.
At the outset, I will indicate that my colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party support the spirit and the intent of the bill. We appreciate the fact that this legislation represents a strategic repositioning of health research in Canada. In our view, it does seek to broaden the idea of health research and it appears to advocate and promote a new way of dealing with health research in the country today. It promotes a multidisciplinary, multisectoral and cross-regional approach to health care. It provides us with a way to look at the social, cultural and environmental determinants of ill health. These are all very important objectives and we support the intent of the bill in that regard.
We do, however, have some concerns with respect to the specific wording of a number of clauses in the bill. We look forward to a thorough analysis and debate at the committee stage of the bill. We also look forward to hearing the views of folks across the country concerning the bill. In that process, we hope that we can actually improve the bill and come back with a piece of legislation that has solid support right across the country.
Obviously, when one looks at a bill like this and addresses the whole matter of health research in Canada today, one has to ask the question whether or not it meets certain fundamental objectives.
Our task today is to take this legislation and square it with the government's agenda as a whole because the bill on its own, in isolation of a broader approach that looks at the absolute necessity of looking at health care in its most broadest sense, is doomed to fail unless we have a complete agenda.
Before I proceed to raise criticisms or make some constructive suggestions around this whole approach, I will also join with members in the House in acknowledging the work of those who helped create this evolution in the country around health research, and those who worked so hard in helping to draft the bill we have before us today.
I certainly want to add my thanks and congratulations to Dr. Henry Friesen, who has provided leadership to the country as head of the Medical Research Council for a long period of time, and who has worked very hard to move that model toward the one we have today, and who in fact talked himself out of a job.
I also want to acknowledge the work of the interim governing council that spent hours and hours on deliberations that led to the bill before us today. I understand that the work is just beginning. If one looks at the purpose of the bill, which is to create virtual institutes of health research, the interim governing council has already received somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150 proposals for such institutes. It will be the task of the new permanent governing council to weed that number down to, as I understand it, 10 to 15 institutes.
There are enormous challenges ahead for those experts who have been involved in the process, and very significant challenges for those who will have to take this legislation and implement it in a meaningful way that addresses the concerns of all Canadians.
All the best research in the world will come to naught unless we have the political will, the federal government leadership to actually implement the findings of research and to act on research that is pursued in the country.
Today, we are in an interesting position. We are on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Ed Broadbent resolution in the House of Commons, supported by all members from all sides of the House, calling for the elimination of child poverty by the year 2000. We know, by all accounts, that rather than looking forward to an improved situation as we enter the new millennium, the situation has become much worse.
As my leader has said many times in the House, we have not only failed to stop poverty among children in the country, the government has also been responsible for seeing a huge number of children added to the rolls of poverty. We know that since 1989, one in seven children lives in poverty. Since 1989, 500,000 children have been added to the rolls of the poor.
Let me add something from a Winnipeg perspective. I come from a constituency that has a very hard-pressed community. In the inner city of my constituency, in the heart of Winnipeg, in a neighbourhood called Point Douglas, new statistics released this past week show that 60% of children live in poverty. Six out of ten kids in my community go to school with empty stomachs, are not able to learn and are likely to suffer health consequences.
My point here is that if we do not make the links between health research and action, we will not address the root causes of ill health and the spread of disease.
The government has had study after study showing the direct links between poverty and ill health. The minister himself released a study this past summer at the health ministers conference in Charlottetown showing that in many respects we have a much more serious situation than we have ever had when it comes to children, young people and aboriginal people. The facts are there.
We know from other centres, for example the centre of excellence in Winnipeg, the Centre for Health Policy Research and Evaluation, that there is a direct link between ill health and levels of income. The more money people make, the more income they have, the better their health. Knowing that, why has this government stood still? Why has it not initiated serious policies to address this matter and reduce poverty especially among children?
The Minister of Finance has told Canadians of the tremendous surplus of close to $100 billion over five years. Considering the benefits of the current economic situation, why has the government not moved to use some of that money to address poverty, to put meaningful policies in place, to look at a national child care program and meaningful early childhood development programs? On that score there has been virtually nothing. There has been no translation of a very significant research finding into action.
Another example that comes to mind shows the absolute imperative of translating research findings into action. As members know, today the Minister of Health is meeting with the tobacco industry's most celebrated whistleblower, Jeffrey Wigand.
Yesterday the Minister of Health released thousands and thousands of pages of documents that had been under lock and key in Great Britain. The documents show that the tobacco industry over the last number of years has deliberately targeted young people and has ensured the products they create will get nicotine into the system faster to ensure young people are addicted more quickly and that there is a lucrative market for the sale of cigarettes.
Hot off the wire I understand the Minister of Health has announced that he is hiring Jeffrey Wigand as an adviser to him and his department on matters pertaining to tobacco. Bravo. Good for him. I hope that is true. I hope that means the government is finally serious about acting on programs that will curb tobacco addiction and smoking among young people.
The government has known for a long time about those statistics and it has done nothing. In July 1997 I wrote to the Minister of Health and suggested to him that considering the gravity of the situation it would make sense to translate the results of the research findings into action by introducing higher taxes on cigarettes. This is something the government repeatedly refuses to do. I suggested to the minister that he had an obligation to launch a lawsuit against the tobacco industry as was done in the United States as a result of the work of Jeffrey Wigand and others in exposing the malicious intent of the tobacco industry.
I suggested subsequently that he not simply point to B.C. as an example of something being done in this country in that regard, but that he should actually take up the charge, show leadership, work with provinces like B.C. I am sure all provinces are interested in pursuing this. I said that he should put together a national suit against the tobacco industry to recoup costs to our health care system caused by that kind of irresponsible profit seeking agenda of the tobacco industry. To date, there has been nothing. This is a perfect example of where research and good findings do not translate into action. What we need today to go along with the bill is a clear commitment to act on those findings, to show political will and provide leadership.
Today we have have heard, and it is inevitable that we are going to get into this discussion, that this is tied inextricably to federal funding and national standards for health care. Clearly if we are serious about pursuing a holistic approach to health research and translating those results into improvements for our system as a whole and for the betterment of the health of all Canadians, then it is inevitable that we focus on the state of federal financing for health care. It is inevitable that we demand once again that the government look at its abdication of responsibility and its failure to ensure the full restoration of cuts in transfer payments for health care that it initiated when it came into power in 1993. It advanced this very specifically in 1995 with the implementation of the CHST. This elimination from our health care system was the single biggest cut in funds in the history of medicare.
It is very important that we address that point of view. I am tempted to call the Reform members on their attempts to disguise their true agenda. I think many of us in the House feel a sense of indignation when we know that the health critic for the Reform Party will stand up today and talk about the need for universal health care and ensuring that the most vulnerable citizens in our society have access to health care, all the while advancing a two tier American style health care system.
We are seeing a clever disguise from the Reform Party. I do not think there is any question about that. All we have to do is look at some of the quotes from the member himself going back a couple of years. The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca said in 1996, “In fact a two tiered health system will strengthen the public system, not erode it. In a two tiered system those who choose to go to a private clinic will receive faster and better care than their counterparts in the system. Is this an unequal system that provides for different levels of care? Yes”. His leader, the hon. member for Calgary Southwest, did the same when he said, “If they are willing to pay, they could get themselves a higher standard of care and quicker access”.
That is the true agenda of the Reform Party members. That is really what they are talking about. For them now to try to disguise it and to suggest that their support for Ralph Klein's privatization initiative will not do anything to contravene the principles of the health act and will not deny access to Canadians is absolutely fallacious and dishonest.
We in the House must work together to convince the government that it has to increase transfer payments for health. It has to show leadership. It has to ensure that we have an increased budget and a significant and stable funding base for health research, if we are truly going to improve the status of Canadians and be true to the principles of medicare.
There are some very specific concerns in Bill C-13 which I would like to quickly enunciate in the time I have left. One of our biggest concerns, and I am sure we will hear more about this in committee, is whether or not this legislation advances our agenda for independent scientific investigation into the root causes of ill health.
Time and time again we have been faced with cutbacks in funding and an approach on the part of the federal government to deregulate and offload wherever it can. Academics, researchers, universities and think tanks are put in a very difficult position of having to increase their reliance on corporate donations, meaning pharmaceutical manufacturers and private insurers. All of this undermines the very independence that is so necessary for the integrity of the system. It creates very serious possibilities for conflict of interest.
There is a litmus test to be applied to the bill. Does it ensure that we advance down the path of truly independent research? Does it involve a significant level of funding to ensure that we do not broaden the whole agenda to a series of private-public partnerships which will undermine the very objectives we have in mind as we pursue this bill? In that regard, we have three very specific concerns.
A clause in the bill refers specifically to “facilitating the commercialization of health research”. In our view that is vague and potentially dangerous phrasing. It would be our hope to hear from witnesses in committee to determine whether or not it would be worthwhile to reword that clause to ensure that the public interest is clearly paramount and that any kind of commercialization agenda is secondary to the public good. That is one concern.
The second concern has to do with the governing council as outlined in the bill. Our concern is that it is very loosely worded and not clearly prescribed in the legislation. Again this allows the possibility for control by the industry, particularly pharmaceutical manufacturers for setting the agenda.
It would not be unique or new to suggest that specifics on the governing council should be entrenched right in the piece of legislation. That can be done expeditiously at committee. We should be ensuring that the appointment criteria for members of the governing council are specifically defined and that the public voice be absolutely dominant in that configuration.
Finally, we have a concern about the whole issue the minister raised today pertaining to ethics. He suggested that the vague wording in the bill which says “will take into consideration ethical issues” is sufficient. It is certainly our view that it is too vague. It leaves too many possibilities again for corporations, pharmaceutical companies and other research institutions to pursue research that might be less than ethical.
I think that we will hear suggestions in committee about the need for an independent arm's length body that is directly accountable to government. Given the changes happening in our society today around reproductive technologies, xeno transplantation, human cloning, we will hear that we absolutely need an ethical framework for determining research of the future. We need an independent body to help us sort through what is the appropriate way one uses human research subjects, how one notifies individuals involved in this process and what protective measures can be put in place to deal with those concerns.
To wrap up, I would suggest that this bill is worth looking at in detail at committee. I hope the concerns I have mentioned will be addressed. All of us are interested in strengthening this bill so that there is a central focus on the causes and prevention of ill health, in particular the social, economic, cultural and environmental determinants that have a very direct impact on health and well-being in this country.
