Keith Martin

[National Forum On Health, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this health forum seems to be a bit of a farce. The Prime Minister says one thing, the Minister of Health says something else. The terms of reference were supposed to be released. They have not been.

What, if anything, specifically does the minister know about this health forum? What are its terms of reference? When is it going to be?

[National Forum On Health, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Health.

Last week in this House the minister refused to release the terms of reference for the national health forum. The minister said: "The terms of reference of the forum will be released when we are ready to release them".

If the minister is truly interested in using the national forum to stimulate a nation-wide debate on the future of our health care system which is currently falling to pieces, why is she unwilling to release the terms of reference?

[Health, June 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw the statement about truthful.

I would though like to have a straight answer on this if I may. What are the terms of reference of the health care forum?

[Health, June 2nd, 1994]

I will say this much, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to have-

[Health, June 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, nothing grates the sense of an opposition member more than to continue to have our serious questions not answered with truthful straight answers.

[Health, June 2nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

The minister stated in a Toronto Star article on May 28, 1994 that she has the terms of reference for the National Health Care Forum. This forum would have a four-year mandate and a budget of $12 million.

Will the minister acknowledge today that our health care system is in critical condition and requires emergency care? Is she going to take four years to make decisions to save Canada's health care system?

[National Workshop On Infectious Diseases, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, every day in the country emergency response personnel, paramedics, firefighters, nurses, and physicians run the risk of contracting contagious and infectious diseases.

The United States has already proceeded with a national protocol on the matter and the previous Parliament's standing committee on health made numerous recommendations on just such a policy.

Given these precedents, will the minister present a strategy to protect the health of emergency response personnel, and what will this strategy be?

[National Workshop On Infectious Diseases, June 1st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

Last Friday the Minister of Indian Affairs answering on behalf of the health minister said that the national workshop on infectious disease notification had been postponed because there was no agreement on an agenda. There is much speculation that the workshop was postponed as a result of pressure from special interest groups.

I want to know two things. First, why was this workshop postponed? Second, when will it be rescheduled?

[Supply, May 12th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her fine speech. It was very eloquent and does in fact address some of the issues of why people become young offenders in the first place.

However, I will submit to the hon. member that one of her statements in the initial part of her presentation was false, the statement that crimes committed by youth are in fact not statistically increasing at all. Crimes committed by youth are in fact increasing at a greater rate than those by other people and in fact crimes that are of a violent nature committed by youth are increasing at a far greater rate.

Many years ago in putting myself through school I was a correctional officer in a maximum security detention centre and have worked as a doctor in jails. One of the most tragic things in working with youth as well as adults is that they find when they get out of the system there is nothing there for them.

I remember last summer a youth who was 15 pleading with me and saying: "Please, Dr. Martin, do not let me get out of this institute. This is the third time I have been in here. When I go out I know I am going to come back in here again".

It broke my heart to tell that kid, that poor individual, that I had nothing to offer. As a constructive suggestion for members, I would ask members to please look at some kind of system for these individuals, particularly the youth in the detention centres, for some way in which they do not regress into the lives that they had before. Tragically, as has been pointed out in this House, many of them come from environments that are profoundly tragic. They find themselves going back into those situations.

I would like to ask the member what specifically-please, I do not want any rhetoric-is she or her party going to do in order to rectify the problems that we have in young offenders today?

[Supply, May 12th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know from the hon. member exactly what she and her party are going to do to guarantee that the rights of society will be protected over the rights of the criminal.