Keith Martin

[Organ Donation Act, November 16th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam for bringing this bill to the House. As he mentioned, it is a very important issue and one of the silent tragedies that has been occurring in our country for quite a long time. This problem existed at the time I was training to be a physician in the 1980s.

For a very long time we have had constructive solutions to deal with the issue of organ donation. Yet, while there has been widespread agreement on solutions, there has been a lack of action. We have seen the cycle go round and round. Solutions are proffered, agreements are made and yet we fall back to square one with nothing being done. No one takes the good ideas and puts them into action. That is why I welcome the member's bill. I hope it will be the catalyst that will finally push the minister and the government to act on the plethora of good solutions they have in their laps today.

As a nation we have one of the worst organ donor rates in the entire developed world. In fact, it is only about 12.1 per million. To put that into context, in the best circumstances there are about 36 per million in parts of the U.S. and Spain.

I would attribute our inaction on this issue to downright neglect. It is not an academic exercise. Of the more than 3,000 people who today sit on waiting lists, 150 or more of them will die needlessly. If there were a bus accident, a train crash or a plane crash and 150 people died, a national inquiry or a royal commission would be held immediately. In no short order solutions would be put forth and implemented. But because this issue is like a slow bleed which kills people over time it tends to be swept under the carpet.

For those people who are waiting for organs, for their families and loved ones who are watching them suffer, it is a painful existence. It is all the more painful because something could be done about it.

Something has been done about it.

As the member knows, in 1997 a motion was passed in the House of Commons detailing five points that would enable us to revamp the organ donor system in the country. It was supported by all members of the House and passed unanimously. It gave the minister a succinct plan of action which he could have implemented in 1997 and it would have had widespread acceptance.

Prior to that time the federal government and the provinces got together and agreed on a 13 point plan to revamp the organ donor system in our country. All provinces, including the province of Quebec, agreed to the national plan. The provinces were working with the federal government to do something for the public good. We were working as one.

Those solutions were again put on the back burner. In 1997, when I inquired about what was happening to these good solutions, I found that people were just sitting on their hands and nothing was happening while Canadians suffered and died.

Again I worked with the Minister of Health and, to his credit, he showed a great deal of interest in the issue. Through motions and procedures in the Standing Committee on Health, I and the Minister of Health asked the committee to study it. The committee worked together beautifully and heard fantastic testimony from people around the country and around the world.

Within the context of the testimony was a series of solutions and ideas that would give Canada the best organ donor system in the entire world in my view. In spite of the fact that we worked very well together, the final majority report, which had government stamped right on it, was a piece of pabulum. It was a piece of bureaucrat-speak. It did not do justice to the solutions that were put forth at that committee for this year, nor did it do justice to the well-meaning people who came before the committee.

Unfortunately, all of us in the opposition put forth minority reports, not because we wanted to but because the government majority report was so lacking in direction, in specifics and in a plan of action that all of us felt compelled to put forth a plan of action.

The following is a plan of action that incorporates what the good member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam has put forth. It involves the following points.

First, we should have a national organ donor registry that involves both potential organs and potential donors, which in and of itself will not solve the problems. We need something else. We need a chance to be organ donors.

Second, on every patient's chart across the country, we should have a form asking people to be organ donors. When people go to their family doctor, the doctor will ask whether they want to be organ donors. If they agree to be donors, the doctor will give them a form and they can ask questions.

The form must have two things: first, a request to be a donor, and second, but equally important, a question asking if they have communicated their wishes to a loved one. The reason for this is very important. If people do not communicate their wishes to their loved ones about whether or not they want to be a donor, then their wishes will be respected only half the time.

In the event of the untimely death of a person who chooses to be a donor, half the time the family will override the wishes of their loved one. However, if people tell their families what they want to do regardless of their feelings, 96% of the time they will honour their loved one's wish to give the gift of life.

Third, we need organ donor co-ordinators in every hospital in the country. It can be an existing staff person with extra training who can seek permission for organ extraction from family members in times of bereavement.

Fourth, when a hospital is involved in procuring organs from a person who has died, it should receive money for the costs incurred in extracting the organs from that person. It is costly because it involves time in the intensive care unit and it involves personnel.

If those four points are followed, we will have the best organ donor system in the country. I plead with the Minister of Health not to wait any longer. It took the Minister of Health months to respond to the health care committee, and during the course of that month, in October, roughly 66 people died in the country while waiting for the minister to respond. That is not necessary.

On cold, hard, economic grounds, if we remove the obvious humanitarian reasons for pursuing this course, the cost savings to the health care system are quite extensive. For example, it costs $50,000 to $60,000 per year for somebody to be on dialysis. It costs about that much to have a kidney transplant. Over the course of five years, the health care system would save $200,000 on every patient it dialyzed.

We must look into the future, into the crystal ball as we all get older. As the incidence of diabetes increases in certain populations and in the population as a whole, the demands on dialysis systems will increase dramatically. We must act now in a proactive way to give these people on dialysis the kidneys they need in order to prevent further tragedies.

It is not that we are going to somehow procure kidneys from people who are not dead. The people we get organs from are dead. For every organ donor who dies, five lives are saved. I compliment the families of the people who, through their untimely deaths, have made the ultimate sacrifice. Through their extraordinary generosity, they have given of themselves to give other people a new lease on life.

I make a plea to the public: If you want to be an organ donor, please sign your card and communicate your wishes to your loved ones.

I plead with the Minister of Health to support this bill, to support the motion I put forth which passed in this House, to support the work the committee did and to support the opposition members' solutions. Within that bundle of solutions are the best solutions to save Canadian lives. We need it and we need it now for the failure to act will only cost more people's lives.

[Health, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that does not help Canadians out there who are on long waiting lists, waiting to get health care when they need it.

Waiting lists are getting longer. The government removed billions of dollars from the transfer. People are waiting for months for the health care they need. Sometimes they are dying on waiting lists.

Why did the government remove $108 million from health care? Why has it not kept its promise?

[Health, November 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the government is again failing to keep a promise that it made a year ago to Canadians. It promised to spend $12.5 billion on the Canada health and social transfer. We are finding now that in health it is short $108 million. Why is the minister not spending that $108 million on the lives of Canadians?

[Health, October 29th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner is giving a strong warning that the confidentiality of patients' records could be compromised by the Minister of Health in the new health information highway. If CSIS and the Pentagon cannot secure their databases, how can the minister secure the database of the health information highway?

How will the Minister of Health ensure that the public or the bureaucracy cannot gain access to a patient's private medical records?

[Points Of Order, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Reform Party and somebody of mixed background, I find it personally offensive that the member from the NDP would make such a claim on this party.

I have read Hansard and Hansard clearly states that an hon. member made a claim “Just like him”. I would put to the member, who is also of mixed background, that he cannot claim at all that the comment was made by this party. As a member of this party, I can tell the House right now that there is not a single racist bone in this party.

[Armenian Parliament, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the Reform Party I would like to extend our deepest condolences to the families of Armenian Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, Speaker Karen Demirchian, and the five other politicians who were assassinated yesterday in their parliament.

To the families there is nothing we can say or do to bring back their loved ones, but our prayers and deepest sympathies are with them.

To the people who committed these cowardly acts, each one of us here and all Canadians deplore with every bone in their bodies what they have done.

To the people whose concerns these murderers were supposed to be representing, we can only urge them to pursue their needs through peaceful means for murder will not produce peace, killing will not build reconciliation and violence will not secure a common future.

The Caucasus is an area of great concern. It is an area of great instability. Members of the Reform Party would hope that the people there who have deep concerns today would pursue them with peace in their hearts, peace in their actions, and avoid the bullet and violence.

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to speak to my hon. friend from the Bloc Quebecois. I was not accusing him, but there are members of his party who said that today and I will prove it to him privately after this. I will show him the facts.

The second point I wanted to make is, why is there an obligation in the law of this land to ensure that Air Canada is forced to have its headquarters in Montreal? Air Canada should have the same flexibility as any company to have its headquarters where it likes. I think it would be fair to allow Air Canada to do that.

On the point of whether the minister is or is not involved in any of this, that is an issue for the member to ask the minister, not me.

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the member ask the Minister of Transport that question himself.

I would refer the member to the following: Why did the Bloc Quebecois say today that Canadian Airlines is being discriminatory against francophones? That is an insult to the 60,000 employees, both francophone and anglophone, who work hard for Canadian Airlines. It is an insult to every francophone who works for Canadian Airlines that members of the Bloc Quebecois would say that Canadian Airlines is somehow anti-French. That is nonsense.

The second point I would like to make is, why is there an obligation for Air Canada to have its headquarters—

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. Minister of Transport for his question. Yes, we would like to ensure that the Competition Bureau will have significant input. What the minister said is obviously true, and we would definitely support that. We also want to make sure that members of parliament who are on the transport committee have a strong voice in what takes place. As members of the House are representatives of the people, the people should have a role to play, an understanding and a vote on what takes place in this competitive merger. The people, by virtue of the members who are in the House, should not and cannot be excluded from this process. They must be involved in it as well as the Competition Bureau.

[Supply, October 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion put forward by the Bloc Quebecois. It is a very interesting motion, which affects most of us because of the employees of both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines who live in our ridings. This issue is exceedingly important to them.

Part of their concern is that they want to know the truth about what is going on. Unfortunately what we have seen is a polarization amongst the employees of both companies, so much so that it is causing an extraordinary amount of acrimony.

I would say, and I am sure many members would agree, that Canadian carriers, both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, have the finest staff, as well as some of the best planes in the world. Oftentimes Canadians wonder what we can do, as opposed to the rest of the world, and we need not look any further than those two carriers to see Canada excelling in the airline transport industry.

Having said that, there are things we need to do to ensure we are not left with an airline industry in disarray, which would affect the employees and especially consumers who want the assurance that whatever comes of these discussions they will be protected and not left with a monopoly and the possibility of price gouging. They want a fair and equitable decision for the employees of both airlines.

Let us look at the issue put forth by the Bloc Quebecois, which concerns the 10% limitation on ownership of Air Canada. We already have a 25% foreign restriction on the ownership of a Canadian carrier. That is a good thing.

If one professes to believe in allowing the market to decide, and allowing strong competition, why should we prohibit any individual or group in this country from having greater ownership of Air Canada? What is so wrong with having a person or group own a larger share of Air Canada or Canadian Airlines, or any company for that matter?

It is not right for the government to impose those kinds of restrictions upon a private carrier. It limits and creates a barrier to that company becoming as effective as it could be.

On the issue of competition, as I am sure most people here would agree, we would like to see two carriers, competitive, healthy and profitable, being able to take on not only other groups within Canada but also around the world, and win, which they can do.

The sad state of affairs today, with both of these companies having trouble, is that we are looking toward a merger. As my colleague, our critic, has mentioned before very eloquently, rather than having a merger take place in an environment of chaos, let us do it in a relatively controlled fashion so that market forces can take place, but we can be left at the end of the day with a merger that will strengthen the airline industry in our country. I think that is what we all agree ought to happen.

We need a level playing field, so that both groups can compete or both groups can merge.

The truth must come out about what is really going on. The issue of debt levels is very important in terms of how investors look at both companies and there has been a lot of misinformation about what the debt levels are in both companies.

According to the most recent information we have, Canadian's debt is around $1 billion and Air Canada's is around $9 billion. Many of the employees of both companies do not know that. They have been fed different lines as the political battles take place over the merger of the two companies.

As our eloquent transport critic has mentioned, we want to ensure that if we are left with a single carrier there will not be price gouging and there will be legislation in place to protect the public from it.

On the issue of service to small communities, given the nature of our country, its broad scope and sparse populations, we need access to adequate transportation facilities, in particular by air. We want to make sure that people in remote areas will be serviced properly and we will press the Minister of Transport to make sure that whatever comes of this there will be consideration in the legislation to ensure that those people living in remote areas will be protected.

The employees of Air Canada have a legitimate concern about their rights. Because they have a younger staff, if or when they merge with Canadian Airlines, they fear they will be taken over and put at the bottom of the barrel. That would not be fair and it would not be equitable.

On the other hand, Canadian Airlines' workers fear that if they are to be merged with Air Canada, which has a larger number of employees, their numbers will diminish and they will lose employees, which would be equally unfortunate.

We ask the Minister of Transport to ensure that there will be fair and equitable treatment of the employees of both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.

On the issue of the proposed legislation to review the airline merger, there are a couple of points that we would like to put before the Minister of Transport. First, we take offence to and oppose the Competition Bureau being reduced from its legislative role to an advisory role. We would also like to see the transport committee take a larger role in this and advise the minister as to how this should take place. Members of that committee should be involved. The Competition Bureau, with its rules and regulations governing competition within the country, should not be suspended for this particular merger. That is not correct. It also adds an element of partiality which I know the minister would not like to see in this particular merger, given the well known connections that he and the government have with Onex Corporation. However, that should not preclude Onex from having a fair go at being able to merge these groups.

In closing I would like to say that members on all sides of the House are very much in favour of ensuring that whatever comes out of the Air Canada-Canadian Airlines trade war, which is what it is, we will be left at the end of the day with a strong airline industry which will be profitable and able to continue to take on competition and win in the aggressive airline transportation industry.