House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2008, with 63% of the vote.
Health Care February 8th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, time is running out.
As another example, Ontario cancer patients are now regularly being sent to the United States for radiation treatment at roughly double the cost to Canadian taxpayers. Incredibly it is also looking at having U.S. specialists come to Canada to provide the service. Imagine. Private U.S. clinics are ecstatic.
What guarantee can the minister provide that this undermining of medicare will be stopped?
Health Care February 8th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, Canadians are daily experiencing horrible situations in our hospitals and in our health care system. This government keeps saying to wait for the budget.
Just recently a Windsor resident was sent home from hospital still bleeding and vomiting after having his tonsils removed. There were no beds.
How has the Minister of Health allowed our health system to sink this low? Will the government now recognize that the situation is extremely urgent? Will it attempt to cut a cheque immediately for health care?
Supply February 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I will answer the last question first.
The member is not prepared to hear the irony I pointed to and also misses the point. It is absolutely clear that Canadians want accountability but they want all governments to be held accountable starting with the federal Liberal government. That is why we have proposed a mechanism by which we could try to have such accountability, to have a watchdog function to ensure the federal government and the provincial governments are living up to their responsibilities to preserve a quality health care system and build for the future.
It is interesting for the member to suggest I am only being negative when he is missing the point. We are here today trying to encourage members across the way to look beyond today, to look beyond the question of dealing with the reinvestment issues and to address what is actually happening to our health care system in terms of privatized health care.
The member only has to talk to folks in Alberta who are deeply worried about the possibility of a private hospital, on which the government has maintained absolute silence. I suggest he talk to people who are waiting in line for cataract surgery in a province like Alberta and are told if they want to wait many months they can get it in the public system. If they want to pay $4,800 now they can get it at a private clinic. That is exactly the kind of deterioration and damage that has happened to our public system that we have to be vigilant about. I would impress on the member to look to the future and to try to work to ensure that we maintain those fundamental principles of a publicly administered, universally accessible system.
Supply February 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment about the discussions around social union since we are awaiting the full details of today's developments but I know full well Canadians have clearly indicated that they have felt left in the dark on these very substantive and serious developments pertaining to the future of national programs in the country today.
Let it be clearly put on the record that once again Canadians feel decisions are being made at the level of executive federalism away from parliament and beyond the ability of Canadians to participate actively and fully in the debate. I want it to be clear and on the record that we call once again for this discussion of social union to go from this day forward into the public domain where all parliamentarians can debate the issues and where all Canadians can be fully involved.
Although this point will be further elaborated by my colleague from Churchill River, aboriginal peoples remain concerned that they have been excluded from fundamental decision making around the future of national social programs and once again we are left without the adequate input and advice to deal with what is clearly a most horrific problem in terms of health care on reserves and outside reserves among aboriginal peoples. It is a matter of serious concern to all of us that in a country as wealthy as Canada we have third world conditions all around us and we see deplorable conditions pertaining to the health and well-being of first nation communities.
There are some delicious ironies in this debate. It is clear we are talking about the future of a national health care plan. We are talking about the ability of the federal and provincial governments to co-operate with participation from Canadian citizens on the future of our health care system. At the same time we have a federal government that is so hung up and preoccupied with this notion of taking political credit and demanding report cards about provincial activities although it is this government that took the $6 billion away from taxpayers that was going toward the health and social programs of Canada.
It is certainly ironic especially since it was this government in 1995 that brought in the Canada health and social transfer which not only took the biggest chunk out of health care spending in the history of this country but which also removed conditions by which provinces would be required to adhere to certain standards and principles. That is one delicious irony of this debate.
On the flip side another irony comes from a province like Manitoba with a provincial government that has cut so deeply into its provincial health care system, all the while sitting on a significant surplus. And it has the gall to issue a petition calling on the federal government to increase its share of transfer payments. That is the kind of ridiculous situation we enter into when we do not as a country recognize the serious problems at hand and work together to build for the future.
It is absolutely clear that what is at hand today and hopefully is being resolved as a result of developments today is a commitment on the part of the federal government to reverse the decisions it made a number of years ago which in effect put us on the road to the death of medicare. It is absolutely clear that today we are are trying to put our health care system on some kind of stable footing out of a crisis mode of operation so we can move forward.
Any kind of contribution from members, including those from the Bloc who have brought us this motion today, is most welcome. But let us be clear that what is fundamentally at stake is the question of medicare, the question of a national, publicly administered, universally accessible health care system.
While we take some encouragement from today's developments, we are also very worried given the past history of the federal Liberal government on this issue. Let us keep in mind why we are in such a mess today and learn from the lessons of the past and correct those errors.
I want to put on the record a brief statement by a well known former policy adviser to the Liberal government, Mr. Tom Kent, who recently released his own paper on social policy reform: “It is not in the stars, not because of forces beyond our control that we have faltered in national purposes, that our pursuit of the public interest has lagged. It is in ourselves, in the atrophy of national policies”.
Let me also put on record the words of a well known former Conservative, Mr. Dalton Camp, who recently very clearly described the problems we are facing: “It is simply folly to believe that we do not have the means to provide for a national health care system. Means and ends no longer converge. The idea of government as a custodian of the national interests has become a shibboleth and self-government a myth. We are now looked after, if at all, by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization, America's trade and competitiveness act and the promoters of the pending multilateral agreement on investment. We are looked upon by other members of the new world club as compliant to the point of docility”.
That quote coupled with Mr. Kent's observations points to the very critical issues at hand. What is the true intention of the federal government in terms of health care from a national perspective? It is more than about money on the table. It is more than claiming political credit. It is truly about direction, about standards and about leadership.
The most graphic way one can refer to the concerns we have is to look at the way our public system has fallen into private hands.
There is no question, we have had report after, that a good part of our health care spending today is from the private sector. We are rapidly losing hold of a sound publicly administered system.
Our biggest worry is that we are very much on a slide to a two tier American style health care system. That is the last thing Canadians want.
I urge all members today to look to this point as the beginning of a new era where we can actually recognize the importance of a national health care program; the principles of the Canada Health Act, the need to stop offloading and deregulation by the federal government in the area of health protection, the need to find ways to stop this slide into a privatized American style health care system and to find ways where we can truly work at the federal-provincial level with citizens participating at building for the future.
Supply February 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I regret that we do not have unanimous consent to have a full debate to 5.30 p.m. on this very serious issue. I will speak very briefly and will still share my time with the member for Churchill River.
We appreciate the timeliness of this debate. I thank members of the Bloc for bringing this motion before us today. As they will know from our previous speaker, we have serious concerns with the precise wording of this motion and with the spirit of the resolution.
I appreciate the timeliness of this debate given that we are debating this on the day that news of a potential agreement between the federal government and the provinces has been achieved and where there is some agreement around a supposed social union contract. It certainly gives us some encouragement to hear that there is a move afoot that takes us beyond jurisdictional wrangling and into the serious matter of how we together as Canadians can salvage our health care system and find a way we can build in the future a universally accessible, publicly administered health care system.
Supply February 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, I will split my time with the member for Churchill River. I would also ask if there is unanimous consent for the debate to continue until private members' hour. I seek unanimous consent to have this debate continue until 5.30 p.m.
National Defence February 4th, 1999
Mr. Speaker, there is a huge discrepancy between what the Minister of National Defence is saying today and the facts of the anthrax vaccination case.
We know from FDA documents that the product was relabelled after being stale dated. We know from the company that the minister refers to, Microtek, that all it did was observe the testing of the product. Health Canada was not involved at all.
Will the minister of defence now agree to launch an investigation into this case and will he lift the cloud hanging over Sergeant Michael Kipling and end the court martial proceedings?
Tobacco December 3rd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, given your ruling yesterday on Bill S-13, I would like to ask the health minister a question.
The minister himself says he supports the idea of a levy on the tobacco industry for prevention purposes. The vast majority of Canadians agree. The health community is united on this position.
Will the government now bring in its own legislation that places a levy on cigarette companies for the purposes of funding an anti-smoking initiative? Will the government live up to the spirit and intent of Bill S-13? When will it bring in a bill?
Petitions November 30th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition on behalf of dozens of Canadians who have taken the time to present their views in conjunction with the global day of action against genetically engineered foods and crops.
The petitioners express concern and call upon the government to take note of the possible negative impact of genetically altered foods and note that the absence of proven deleterious consequences on health and the environment must not be used to justify the production of potentially calamitous and untested substances.
They express concern about the government's actions with respect to codex alimentarius and its failure to take a strong position in this regard. They call upon the government to ban genetically engineered foods and crops, the human genome diversity project terminator gene, and the exploitation of the knowledge of indigenous people for private profit.
Health November 30th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, last week parliament received a copy of the health minister's performance report.
Lo and behold the name of his branch that is under so much fire these days has disappeared. The health protection branch has gone and is replaced with something called management of risk to health. HPB is out; MRH is in.
Why has the government abandoned the whole notion of health protection, adopted the language of multinational drug corporations and shifted its focus to risk management?