Keith Martin

[Supply, February 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment les députés du Bloc québécois pour avoir introduit cette motion.

This situation is felt by members from across the country. All constituents will tell them that one of the greatest concerns they have is the state of affairs of our health care system. Every member in the House knows that and every member wants to fix the system.

Where we disagree perhaps is in how we want to do that. We have seen tragically played out under the parliamentary playground that exists a system where politics is taking precedence over reason and facts and where politics is taking precedence over trying to solve the problems.

If this were a petty problem were people's lives were not at stake this could continue with very little problem. The longer we wait to fix the problems within our health care system, the more Canadians will suffer and die. Members know this and also people in the public know it, sometimes from very personal experience.

The scope of the problem is massive. Across the country in hospitals, in clinics, in homes and in families we see that individuals who require essential health care services are not being provided with these services.

I will give some specific examples. In emergency rooms, 12 out of 14 bays where I have worked will be held up with patients waiting to get a bed.

Some of these patients need to get in the intensive care unit. Intensive care units have been blocked off because the hospital does not have enough money to pay for the nurses and the beds.

We have patients needing acute care services waiting in a busy emergency room for a bed. If a tragedy took place at that time, a motor vehicle accident, people would die because the services would not be there for them.

We have situations where children are put into the same rooms as dying adults. We have situations where men and women are put into large rooms with the only thing separating them being a thin sheet. All these people are sick.

We have people being discharged from hospital sick who need to be in hospital not because the health care personnel want to release them but because they do not have a choice.

We established that we have a problem with what we are asking for in terms of medical care and the resources we have. The government has money to put into health care. Understandably the government wants credit for doing that.

As my hon. colleague, the health care critic for the Reform Party, has mentioned, it serves the public not one advantage to have the political turf wars taking place preventing that money getting into the hands of the caregivers who desperately need it provide for Canadians in their moment of greatest need.

This is a turf war. It is not only taking place in health care. It is taking place in education and in areas across the country where problems are not being solved because the feds and the provinces cannot get their act together.

The federal government is in a unique leadership position. For the first time in recent memory it has an opportunity. It can call together the provincial ministers and their areas of jurisdiction to come together and say “what are you guys doing and what are we doing?”

Let us make sure the feds do what the feds do best and the provinces do what the provinces do best. Let us have a co-ordinated system where the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, not what is taking place now where there are so many levels of bureaucracy that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.

Furthermore, that system is leading to political inefficiencies and therefore inefficiencies in the way we get those services to the Canadian public.

Money is being sucked out of the management of health care instead of getting to patient care in the trenches. That is a profound tragedy.

When there is somebody who needs bypass surgery, when there is an elderly lady who has been waiting over 12 months and is in severe pain, waiting to get a hip replacement, it cannot be said to that person that we are doing our job.

I can only implore, as my colleagues have done from across party lines, the federal government to work with and not against the provinces in making this happen and also to make sure the provinces put the money they will get directly into health care.

Health care is a provincial responsibility. That is in our Constitution. It does not preclude the government from funding.

The government, we have seen, has taken away money to balance its budget. It has taken money away from health care. The government now has money to put back into health care. The government should do that.

Furthermore, we should be making sure that money goes into the meat and potatoes, into the muscle and bone of health care. In the process of cutting budgets we have cut the fat but we have also cut the meat, the muscle and the bone of health care.

As a result, we are seeing a very compromised health care system. That is why under our current system people are leaving this country, the rich, to get health care elsewhere.

I am going to speak personally and not on behalf of the Reform Party. If we are to solve this problem of limited resources and an increasing demand for health care in the future, and it will increase as our population ages and medical technology becomes more expensive, we have to think out of the box.

We have a Canada Health Act that was constructed in the 1960s and 1970s. That system was fine under the economic circumstances of that era. In 1999 we have a very different set of circumstances and we better realize that. We need to look at other models in other parts of the world such as Australia and in certain parts of Norway where they have managed to utilize their resources in such a way to ensure that people's needs are being met.

This entails getting away from the notion that the Canada Health Act has all the answers for us. Above all else we must ensure our health care system will be there for those who need it the most, the poor and underprivileged. They are the ones who are being compromised in the system today.

By preventing private services from taking place where private moneys are exchanged only in the private setting we deprive people from getting health care. Furthermore, we deprive the health care system of money without raising taxes. A private system completely independent of the public system where only private money is exchanged and no public money put into it would enable resources to get into the health care system without raising taxes.

In this system the rich would be subsidizing the poor. As it stands, people in the poor and middle class who are dependent on the public system would have services quicker and in a more efficient fashion because more public resources could be poured into the public system as individuals went into the private system. That solution benefits the poor and middle class and would seek to strengthen a publicly funded health care system that desperately needs fixing.

We do not want any kind of system that prevents the poor and middle class from getting health care services when they need them. The system we have now is preventing the poor and middle class from getting health care services when they need them. The government is rationing health care services to the public. We have created restrictions preventing people from getting the services when they need them, furthermore preventing the system from developing so it can be strengthened.

If we adhere to the current system and do not think we can make a made in Canada health care system, we are not only deluding ourselves but we are compromising the health and welfare of Canadians across the country.

All members, especially in the Reform Party, want to make sure we have a strong, publicly funded health care system for Canadians in the future. We are committed to doing that and working with whomever else wants to do the same.

[Canada Customs And Revenue Agency Act, December 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset we oppose Bill C-43. It is a pleasure to speak on the bill and on Group No. 1 motions.

There are good things in the bill. No doubt, as my colleagues have mentioned, there are good things about reducing duplication, about improving the efficiency within the tax system, with having one agency to collect taxes. In my province of British Columbia we have a mess.

We have a mess in the tax system, particularly on the provincial level, where it is so complex that it is costing businesses to pay and implement the provincial tax structures. They would prefer to have a flat system where everything was taxed, believe it or not in some cases, than have the system they have now that is costing them an extraordinary amount of money just to implement it.

We support those elements in Bill C-43 that will streamline the system. However, if we are to a Canada customs and review agency that will be a super agency, the Canadian public must have the assurance the agency will be transparent and accountable to parliament and therefore to the Canadian people.

We insist therefore that a couple of significant provisions be made in the bill, provisions we feel are essential if the bill goes through. One is to ensure we have a taxpayer bill of rights. This taxpayer bill of rights is a check. It is a balance. It is an assurance to Canadians that they will be protected from an agency. Canadian do not mind paying fair taxes but they do not want to be ripped off.

Some of the elements in the taxpayer bill of rights would include tax laws in plain language that are understandable to Canadians as opposed to the system now where even a person with a Ph.D. finds it very difficult to understand. Taxpayers should be treated properly, fairly and with honesty and have an avenue to complain where the complaints are heard and not merely swept under the carpet. They should be informed of overpayment in a timely fashion.

One of the complaints I am sure we all get as members of parliament is that even though Canadians are asked to pay their taxes on time, and if not they are made to feel like a criminal, if somehow they overpay it can take a month of Sundays before that money is paid back.

Penalties ought to be applied fairly to all individuals. The right to record any and all meetings with Revenue Canada should be there on the part of the taxpayer. The taxpayer should have the right to appeal any Revenue Canada rulings and that CCRA should waive penalties and interest wherever possible where taxpayers have acted in good faith in their payment of taxes but for circumstances perhaps not in their control or due to an unfortunate oversight they happened to pay less than they should have.

Canadians are overtaxed. Most Canadians do their best to pay. Sometimes they run afoul of the payment schedule. We beg and we ask that taxpayers are not made to feel like criminals, that amendments can be made on compassionate grounds to make sure they will pay their taxes in a way that is fair to them.

We want a fair tax system, not a tax system sitting there like a cudgel over the heads of taxpayers and is used to bash them over the head like a group of bovines.

That is not what Canadians want. They want a fair tax system. They do not mind paying their tax, but they do not want to be treated as slaves to a large system that can be created.

It is for those reasons that we want to ensure a taxpayer bill of rights is put forward. The other thing we want is an office for taxpayer protection. This office of taxpayer protection is another element of adding transparency, another check and a balance and a protection for the Canadian people.

We want this taxpayer protection office to report to parliament each year on the state of the CCRA. A chief advocate can be used to present this to parliament and that chief advocate can present 25 of the most serious problems in the system to the House so they can be acted on in a timely fashion rather than what usually happens where it is ignored or tossed under the table.

Also, this office can be used to assist taxpayers in resolving disputes with the CCRA and can act as an advocate for last resort for the taxpayer. This would be a very constructive role by the government. We hope the government listens.

If the government instituted those two solutions then it government would have the support of the Reform Party in passing this bill. We will not support this bill unless those checks and balances are there and unless the Canadian public is protected from the CCRA.

Let us talk on the larger issue of tax cuts. We have been accused of somehow favouring the rich. We have been accused of instituting a plan that will destroy social programs.

If that were the case we would not support tax cuts. The cold hard facts that have been seen across the country and around the world are that tax cuts improve the health and welfare of people and can generate more money for government to save social programs.

That is one of the reasons the Reform Party came here. We saw the degradation of our social programs. We saw the destruction of our health care, our education system and the social safety nets that are there, thankfully, to help those who through no fault of their own are unable to work.

It has been sadly 20 years of overspending by governments that has caused the mountain of debt and that has caused such a huge amount of interest payments that have eroded into the spending capabilities of government to support the social programs we have all come to be fortunate enough to have in our blessed country.

Let us look at the facts. What do taxes do? Let us look at the tax burden briefly for a second. If we look at individuals, if we look at ourselves versus the United States, we can see that personal taxes have increased over the last three decades 136% in Canada personally compared to 31% in the United States of America. Those are the facts.

In the OECD Canada suffers the highest personal income tax burden of any major economy as a revenue proportion of GDP. Our ratio is nearly 18%. In the U.S. it is 11% and 10% in Britain. Britain lowered its tax rates. Ireland lowered its tax rates. It decreased the complexity of its tax structure, decreased the complexity of the rules and regulations that choked the private sector. As a result, its economy is booming.

Lessons can be learned. Let us take a look at the tax increases by the government. The government likes to say it has decreased taxes. Au contraire. They have actually increased although they have been nibbled away at the tax burden a little bit.

Tax brackets and credits have not been indexed to inflation, therefore we have had bracket creep that has increased taxes 18%.

The CPP tax increase of 73% has actually increased the total tax burden on Canadians by over $1.3 billion in excess of what the government has actually decreased. I challenge any member from across the way to refute that argument.

On the issue of the benefits of tax cuts, if we look at the 10 states in the United States with the lowest taxes they have had a 20% higher amount of money and a growth rate in jobs far in excess of those 10 states with the highest tax rates. The lowest tax rate states have had a much higher rate of income for their average citizens. If we compare Ohio, Michigan and Ontario the job creation to the marginal tax rates in the United States is much lower than Ontario and as a result the job creation rates were much higher than what we found in Ontario.

If the government wants to do something constructive and productive for Canadians it can restore full indexation to the inflation of federal tax credits and income brackets, eliminate the 3% and 5% federal surtaxes and reduce each of the three federal income tax rates by 2%. The government should listen to that. If it listens to that Canadians will be wealthier, healthier and have social programs and will be better off.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. secretary of state has done a tremendous amount of work in providing constructive solutions to the health care field. He has written some very eloquent articles on this issue which many of us have read with great admiration.

I think that we have to proportion our resources in research on the basis of mortality, morbidity and the effect on the patient and their families. I compliment the government for putting more money into research in the last budget. It is something that is long overdue and the government needs to be commended for that.

However, I think there are some novel ways in which we can get more money into the research areas. Perhaps one way of doing that is to ensure tax exemptions and tax cuts for people who wish to invest in research facilities. They can use that as a tax write-off. But also moneys can be used within the system to do more research into prevention. What we tend to focus on is dealing with the problems. I draw the attention of the House to the head start motion that was passed in the House in May 1998, my private member's motion, that dealt with prevention in crime and with the basics of children in the first eight years. If we adopted that motion and dealt with those solutions we could save a lot of people's lives and a lot of money across the country.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. This motion explicitly asks for Canadians from coast to coast to be involved. The last time I checked, the aboriginal people of Canada are Canadians.

I draw the attention of the hon. member to the work of the members for Skeena, Wild Rose and others in the Reform Party who have been asking for input from aboriginal people. In fact, these members have held meetings with aboriginal people, asking them what we can do to help. Over 100 aboriginal people have attended each of these meetings.

For the first time, many of these grassroots aboriginals—not the chiefs, not their political leaders, but grassroots aboriginals—are saying thank you to the Reform Party for helping them to get their message out in the House of Commons.

The grassroots aboriginal people have not been heard on this issue. As the member acknowledged, and I know she has worked very hard on this issue, they suffer the worst possible socio-economic conditions in this country. Members of my party have been working very hard to ensure that their message is heard loud and clear.

Over $8 billion is put into aboriginal affairs. However, it has been argued that only $1 out of every $20 gets to the people on the ground. That is appalling. There have been accusations by aboriginal people of the misappropriation of funds by aboriginal leaders. However, when they ask questions, they get the cold shoulder. The first nations are abused, not only by the system which non-aboriginals created, but also by their own people.

I would argue that what the government needs to do and what the minister of Indian affairs needs to do is listen to the grassroots aboriginal people.

The minister came to my riding. Aboriginal people from the Pacheenaht reserve, Becher Bay and elsewhere have been asking the minister for years for answers on where the moneys are going and expressing their concerns about abuses on the reserve. The minister met with the political leaders, but did not speak to the people putting forth the accusations, one of whom was the hereditary chief of a band. It was embarrassing.

I plead with the minister to listen to these aboriginal people and not to wave off what they are saying because of what she has heard from their leaders. The minister should work with the aboriginals to solve their appalling conditions. The first nations should be given the tools they need to provide for themselves.

The aboriginal people do not want separation. The grassroots people do not want the political nirvana of separate statehood or nationhood, but they do want health care, jobs, education and a safer future for themselves and their children.

[Supply, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Reform supply day motion. It has an essential role to articulate to the people of Quebec and the rest of Canada what we plan on doing to strengthen this country, to strengthen social programs for all Canadians. I compliment the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley for her leadership on this issue.

The Canadian federation is not only based on constitutional principles. Indeed, our country primarily strives to help those who are less fortunate and to provide them with the necessary support.

The federal government definitely has the financial resources to ease the plight of the poor. We all remember how Canadians got together to help their Quebec friends when they had to deal with floods, in the past.

This definitely shows that, when some real disaster occurs, we Canadians help each other. Canadians are once again displaying their fundamental qualities to promote the social union.

The social union is integral for the future of Canada and for the future of Canadians. As my colleague for Macleod just mentioned, it speaks to a stronger partnership which Canadians hold dear to their hearts and which is critically important for the health and welfare of Canadians. It speaks to the saving of our social programs, in particular health care, education and welfare.

The Government of Canada has a fiduciary responsibility to work with the provinces in these areas, and yet what we have seen is the destruction of these programs. These programs have been gutted from within. As a result, people who work in these areas are hanging on by their fingernails. Indeed, the Canadians who are supposed to benefit from these programs, particularly health care and education, are suffering. As we all know, health care and education are being destroyed.

If the government wants to hide behind the Canada Health Act and say that Canadians are receiving health care when they need it, it is either not telling the truth or it has its head stuck far into the sand. The cold hard reality is that Canadians are not getting health care when they need it. The Canada Health Act is being violated in four of its five principles. As a result, Canadians needing treatment for cancer, or urgent medical care for heart operations, down to the most mundane operations, are waiting. While they wait they suffer and their families suffer.

For the last few years the government has been content to sit on its hands and say that the status quo is acceptable. It acknowledges that there is a problem, but it has not put forth any constructive solution. Instead it has pointed its finger at us in a derogatory way, saying that we want to destroy these ideals. If we wanted to do that we would not have put forth this motion to save our social programs: health care, education and the supplemental income required by people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

Reform wants to save these social programs and put them on sound fiscal footing within the resources we have available to us. We have to speak practically about this. We are willing to introduce in this House a solution that involves asking the federal government and the provinces to work together to ensure that the feds do what the feds do best and the provinces do what the provinces do best. Is there agreement on this? Indeed there is.

The vast majority of premiers have asked, have pleaded, have begged the federal government to engage in a discussion with them so that in the 21st century we will have social programs that will benefit all Canadians, that will be there for all Canadians in their time of need and will be on sound fiscal footing. That is the essence of this motion.

We also do it from the point of cost. Having the provinces and the federal government doing the same thing is patently idiotic. It is duplication. The left hand does know what the right hand is doing and it is a waste of taxpayers' money. Why do we not let the feds do what the feds do best and let the provinces do what the provinces do best?

It would also benefit national unity because we would then see a willingness on the part of the Government of Canada to work with all of the provinces, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, and the territories to ensure that these social programs are sustainable.

Let us look at Quebec the day after the election. The Quebec people have clearly said that at this point in time they do not want a referendum. They want strong social programs, a strong economy, lower taxes and a better future for themselves and their children. That is what Canadians from coast to coast want.

Despite the best efforts of everybody inside and outside this House, the federalist message does not get to the people of Quebec outside of those in Montreal. Les gens du Québec outside Montreal, in Chibougamau and other cities, do not hear the federalist message because the issue of national unity has taken place between the political and intellectual elites of this country. This message does not penetrate the barriers that exist within the francophone, separatist-leaning media in Quebec and does not get to the French-speaking people of Quebec.

One only has to travel outside Montreal to see that the people live in an information vacuum when it comes to federalist solutions. They live in a bubble into which the rhetoric of separatist politicians is continually introduced.

The truth of what the federalists are proposing, the love that Canadians have for Quebec under the umbrella of equality for all, does not get through. Because that message does not get through the people of Quebec are left with a biased and warped view of what happens outside Canada. I would also argue that what happens within Quebec is not as well known as it should be outside its borders.

If we are going to keep this country together we have to engage in communication between the people of Quebec and the rest of Canada, between the rank and file people in the trenches, on the ground and in their homes, people to people, not between politicians or intellectuals in university.

While the message in yesterday's election says that Quebecers do not want a referendum at this point in time, it clearly did not say they do not want a referendum at all. I would argue that what is going to happen is that the people of Quebec are going to wait until their health and welfare is improved through the Government of Quebec and when they are on stable footing then they will look for a referendum.

We have a narrow window of opportunity. The federal government must meet with the people of Quebec in the trenches, eyeball to eyeball.

There was a large meeting in Montreal of Canadians from coast to coast asking the people of Quebec to vote no in the last referendum. Why did the French-speaking separatist politicians hate that so much? Because it bypassed their power and their control. It got a strong federalist message directly to the people.

Some may argue that is what tipped the balance in favour of the no vote. That is possible. Therein lies a lesson. With back and forth communication between people we will have a chance to keep this country together. If we fail to do that we will certainly be looking at another referendum, again putting Canada at the precipice of a breakup.

[Tobacco Act, November 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to speak today to Bill C-42, a bill that we have been working on for a long time to try to address what members from across the way have said is the single greatest threat to public health in this country. They are quite correct.

However, I am absolutely dismayed by the comments which have come from the other side. The government claims to be the great upholder of smoking prevention in this country. It was this government that had the single greatest negative impact on the health of Canadians when it rolled back tobacco taxes in 1994. This undid 15 years of good work in the prevention and decrease of tobacco consumption in this country, particularly for our youth.

There was a solution to the smuggling problem of the time that did not involve rolling back taxes, but the single act of rolling back taxes has led a quarter of a million children in Canada to take up smoking. Two hundred and fifty thousand children are now smoking when they would not have done so before.

This message was given to the Minister of Health by the ministry itself. The Ministry of Health told the Minister of Health that if he rolled back the taxes a quarter of a million young people would pick up smoking, that it would have a devastating effect on the country with respect to health care costs, not to mention the humanitarian effects on those people, and that it would affect those most affected by tobacco consumption and cost, the youth of Canada. Yet the government went ahead and did it.

I understand the circumstances. A great deal of smuggling was taking place, particularly in certain areas of Quebec and Ontario. But there was another solution, a solution which we presented many times to the minister. It was a solution that had worked before: an export tax.

We had the same situation in 1991-92. The government of the day introduced an $8 export tax on each carton of cigarettes. Each carton that went to the United States would be stamped and an $8 fee would be paid by the tobacco company. That completely cut the legs out from bringing that tobacco back into Canada with the benefit of the price differential between the United States and Canada. Six weeks after it was introduced that measure caused a 70% decline in tobacco smuggling.

However, the prime minister of the day, Mr. Mulroney, caved in under pressure from the tobacco companies. The tobacco companies told Prime Minister Mulroney that they would leave the country if he brought in a tobacco export tax. He removed the export tax and smuggling resumed. If we look back in history we will see that the solution was there.

What we presented in 1994 was a solution. Do not roll back the taxes; implement an export tax. The smuggling that took place at that time not only involved cigarettes, it also involved guns, people, alcohol and other contraband. Tobacco was a conduit for the smuggling that was unfortunately taking place on such reserves as Kanasatake and Kahnawake, to name two. It was run by thugs attached to organized crime, particularly from the United States.

No one talks about the aboriginal people on those reserves and how some of those people were held hostage to criminals within their midst, many who came from the United States. Police officers were apparently told that they could not touch the smugglers going back and forth across the border because the government was afraid of an Oka crisis. This had nothing to do with Oka. It everything to do with thugs taking advantage of a political problem within our country, thugs who were by and large American. We buckled under and to this day that smuggling is still taking place.

This is my message for the government. If it truly wants to deal with the tobacco epidemic, and it is an epidemic within our midst, then there are solutions. The solutions are: raising the taxes to the level they were at before February 1994, applying an export tax to cut the legs out from underneath smuggling, enforcing the law where smuggling is taking place, and dealing with appropriate education, which the government, to its credit, has begun to introduce. However, although it promised a large sum of money for that purpose, a large chunk of money has unfortunately not yet been seen by the appropriate organizations.

In looking at the scope of this problem we can look at what happened before 1994 and since 1994. As I said before, there are 250,000 more children smoking. In 1961 there were about 13,000 smokers who died. Twelve thousand were men and 1,000 were women. In 1996-97 that figure climbed to a whopping 48,000. There are 48,000 people every year who die of tobacco related illnesses.

The numbers have changed. Tobacco consumption deaths among women have climbed dramatically. Tobacco deaths among women have now surpassed all other causes of cancer related deaths, including breast cancer. That is a profound tragedy.

To put it in perspective, 48,000 people die every year from smoking related deaths. Forty-two thousand people died in World War II. That means that every year more people die from tobacco related illnesses in Canada than those who died in World War II.

The solutions are there. What we can do, as I said before, is raise the taxes to what they were, increase the export tax, enforce the law and address the education issue.

We should not start talking to individuals when they are 17, 18, 20 or 22 years old about quitting smoking. As the member across the way quite correctly mentioned, people start smoking when they are 10, 11 or 12 years old. They do not start when they are 20.

As a result, our efforts must be addressed to younger individuals. I would submit that we have to start at ages 6 and 7. If we start at that age then perhaps we can have an effect. We should not hit them with the fact that their mortality will change. Teenagers and young children do not understand that. If we tell them they are going to die young, they know that. In fact, statistical evidence shows very clearly that young people know they are going to die young. They know the effects of tobacco. Interestingly enough, many teenagers feel they are not going to be smoking two years after they leave high school. However, 80% of them will still be smoking eight years later.

We have to address their sense of narcissism. We have to address the fact that their skin is going to look older sooner, that their breath is going to smell foul, and that their hair and skin is going to smell foul. We have to address young girls in particular. I hate to address that group, but it is the group that has increasing consumption. We have to tell them that although it keeps them slimmer, which is one of the primary reasons for them to smoke, it also makes them grow older faster and it is not sexy, despite what they may claim.

Although that is a brutal thing to say, if we address it at their level, in a way that they understand, then we will get into their psyche and have a profound effect. We must address their narcissism, not their mortality. We must tell them about what it will do to them physically, how it will age them and how they will smell.

Although there is some movement in that direction I think the government can certainly play a very constructive role in convincing health care groups to deal with it in that way.

With respect to this bill, I would suggest that there are a number of amendments that could have and should have been made. The fact that the government is going to extend tobacco sponsorships for two more years is ridiculous. That will put it at five years.

Members on the other side claim that this is somehow going to address the issue of sponsorship and it is going to protect companies. All they need to do is look at the experience in Europe. Europe did the same thing. They introduced laws very quickly. Sporting events and such got other sponsors, including car racing.

It is continually brought forth that car racing, tennis matches and such would somehow not occur in this country if we did not have tobacco groups to sponsor them. That is completely untrue. Again, the government only needs to look at the experience in the United States.

Another thing that could have happened was to put a ceiling on tobacco company sponsorship promotion expenditures during the delay period. The government could have put a ceiling on that but did not. It could have taken a leaf from Quebec's book. Quebec has implemented a similar measure with good effect.

Sponsorship promotions should not be permitted on the inside and outside of stores where tobacco is sold. That could be done now but it is not being done.

The government believes that tobacco companies can be trusted. This is complete nonsense. Tobacco companies have been asked to do things voluntarily. They have weakened their own so-called voluntary restraint by introducing tobacco advertisements within school zones. This happened in 1996, after the government had implored them to adhere to fair-minded rules and regulations so that children would not be subjected to tobacco advertising within and around schools. Tobacco companies surreptitiously did it anyway. They thumbed their noses at the government and the Canadian people.

The government could have introduced other things. It could have ensured that cabinet would determine the exact starting date of the ban. Right now it is an open book. It could start December 1 this year, December 1 next year, or the year after. That needed to be in this bill and it is not.

The government could have had a delay period for tobacco sponsorship promotions. It could have specified that sponsorship promotions for foreign events could not occur in Canada during the transition period. It could have banned the use of famous individuals in advertising and prevent misleading advertising.

From looking at the good analysis by the Ministry of Health on advertising, we know that those advertisements are geared to children no matter what the companies say. I sat on the health committee four years ago. I was shocked when people who had been bought and paid for by the tobacco companies appeared as witnesses in front of the health committee, big guns from the United States who were obviously paid a lot of money. They had been in high positions in the U.S. government. When asked pointedly if they thought tobacco had a negative effect on the health of people, their response was “we are not doctors; we do not know”. Those kinds of blatant and obviously misleading comments by witnesses should never be tolerated. They give insight into the actions and beliefs of the tobacco companies.

We need not look any further. Tobacco companies have been caught putting added nicotine into tobacco. They up the nicotine content which ups the potential for addiction.

We can also look at their actions in other countries. What they do in China is appalling. China has an enormous health care problem with cancer, emphysema, bronchitis and other related illnesses related to tobacco because tobacco consumption is going up. In some countries the tobacco companies sponsor parties and dances which are geared to children. They give out free cigarettes for no other purpose than to ensure that the children become addicted.

It has been mentioned in the House many times that tobacco, as with cocaine, is the leading most potent addictive substance we know of today. We know very clearly that despite what they say, tobacco companies gear their advertising, their work, their efforts not to adults but to youth. A good chunk of their efforts are designed to hit that vulnerable group.

Tragically the government fell into the trap by lowering taxes and rolling them back. This is despite repeated warnings by the Ministry of Health that this is going to affect children deleteriously. This is despite the fact that this is going to cost the Canadian taxpayer billions of dollars, not only in health care costs, but also in the loss of revenue from taxes and losses in the gross domestic product. It is not just a matter of death. Smokers have greater chances of becoming sick than non-smokers do. Smokers stay away from work longer. The cost to the gross domestic product is enormous.

There are obvious effective solutions, particularly with respect to the cost. Studies show that the price elasticity on demand for tobacco is very high, especially with respect to children. The higher the cost, the less they smoke; the lower the cost, the more they smoke. It is not rocket science. This is perhaps the most important message the government needs to listen to.

The government can twiddle all it wants around the edges of this issue. It can talk about plain packaging. It can talk about sponsorship. It can talk about education. But when it comes down to the cold hard facts, the single most important determinant in consumption is price, particularly for the youth.

I implore the members across the way to look at the information that has been put out by the health ministry. It is unfortunate that the Minister of Health has chosen not to speak to this bill yet. It does not look like he is going to speak to it and I wonder why.

I wonder if the minister truly is ashamed of this bill. Perhaps he is ashamed that the government has not taken a more proactive approach, a more effective approach particularly in view of the fact that he has been caught holding the bag for what his predecessors have done. The minister has been left holding the bag for an implementation strategy which, rather than lowering tobacco consumption, has increased it and not in any small amount. It is a huge amount, a quarter of a million children, and every month that we fail to change the situation, 10,000 more children will take up the tobacco habit. I cannot believe that despite the clear evidence this government continues to pursue the course and tack it is taking.

The government submits that it is the great upholder of the health of Canadians. A former Minister of Health said during her tenure “I would do anything, anything, to prevent one child from picking up smoking”. That minister and this government has failed, failed, failed in that promise.

The government would find a great deal of co-operation across party lines in pursuing an effective tobacco strategy. Please do not buckle under the threats of the tobacco industry that it would pull out of Canada. Do not buckle under the submissions the companies make that this is not addressed to children. Do not believe that this is going to prevent race car driving, tennis tournaments and other such events from taking place in this country. The facts do not support those allegations. In fact the tobacco industry has very little credibility anywhere in the world.

We can see what is happening in the United States today. The companies are paying hundreds of billions of dollars to state governments because of the cost they have incurred to those governments. They are willing to pay large sums of money, which they have, to get out.

We cannot let them off the hook. While prohibition does not work, and no one is advocating that, there are effective measures that have been implemented around the world. Before 1994 Canada was a world leader in dealing with the tobacco issue through its education strategies and by increasing the taxes on tobacco.

If we take a lesson from what we have done historically, if we do not buckle under the tobacco companies and if we work together on this issue, as the hon. NDP member mentioned in the health committee, we would be addressing the most important health care issue affecting Canadians today. Tobacco is the greatest public health care issue affecting Canadians today. This has been echoed by the member from the NDP and the member from the Liberal Party. It has been echoed many times by my colleague from Alberta and our health care critic, and members from other parties.

I implore the government to work with our party and other parties to come up with an effective strategy to deal with tobacco consumption. This bill simply does not cut the mustard.

[E & N Railway, November 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the E & N railway on Vancouver Island is a rundown commuter railway operated by VIA Rail. It has been propped up by Canadian taxpayers in the amount of $2 million a year. However, the trains routinely break down leaving commuters stranded. It is incredibly inefficient.

Now the rail line is going to be purchased by an American group called RailAmerica Inc. This could be a major tourist attraction and generate a lot of money.

However, what does this say about the case of Canadian investors in this country? The fact is that they and the rail line are compromised by high taxes and complex rules and regulations which prevent them from investing in these worthy endeavours.

My other concern is what if RailAmerica decides to abandon the rail line? What will happen to the commuters who depend on the E & N to travel to work? Will the Minister of Transport guarantee that the sale of the E & N to the American company will include a provision safeguarding the public interest?

[Points Of Order, November 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am here to speak on the point of order concerning Bill S-13, an act to incorporate and establish an industry levy to provide for the Canadian anti-smoking youth foundation, a bill that I personally support. I rise not to speak on the merits of the bill but to address the concerns raised on the point of order by the hon. member and also to compliment the hon. member for St. Paul's for her action on this as a member of parliament and as a physician.

This bill would not have come up if not for the failure of the government to deal with the issue of smoking in Canada, a failure of a government that in 1994 lowered the tax rate on cigarettes which has caused nearly a quarter of a million children to take up cigarette smoking. Bill S-13 attempts to deal with it. That the bill had to be brought in this way is unfortunate but it has been dealt with and brought in this way because of the government's failure to actually do very much on the issue of smoking in Canada.

I would like to speak on procedure and the way this is done is supported by a number of precedents, including Bill C-32, the Canada Shipping Act, and the Canada Petroleum Resource Act that show very clearly this is a levy and not a tax.

I encourage you, Mr. Speaker, in your position as an upholder of the House and as an upholder of the rules of the House, to look at that issue and see very clearly that the hon. member for St. Paul's is correct in her assessment and that the government House leader is not.

[Health Care, November 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as an emergency room physician, I can tell the minister that a person waiting two days to get into an intensive care unit is not good care.

I ask the minister once again. While Canadians dawdle, people die. People want hospital beds. They want surgery when they need it. They do not want more rhetoric from this government. They want action, not more words.

Again I ask the minister will he put money back in health care and if so, how much? Tell the Canadian people right now how much money will go back into health care after you have taken $7 billion out of it.

[Health Care, November 18th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, if the health minister had one of his loved ones on a waiting list suffering or dying, he would be singing a different tune today.

This government has been saying for five years that it wants to fix health care. Instead it has eviscerated it to the tune of $7 billion.

Let us see if it has proof behind those convictions. How much of this $10 billion surplus will the minister put back into health care?