Mr. Speaker, I thank you for recognizing that I was sharing my time with the hon. member for Nanaimo--Cowichan.
I would like to thank the member for Yellowhead for bringing forward this motion today, so that we can actually have this debate in the House. Obviously it took place in the health committee, but now it is taking place in the House. I think it provides a good opportunity for all members to express their viewpoint on this very important public health issue.
I would like to recognize the work that is being done by my colleague from Nanaimo--Cowichan, the NDP health critic, and the role that she has played in the committee of basically sticking to the principles. As she said, in responding to a question from my other colleague from Windsor--Tecumseh who asked why the health committee of Parliament decided not to proceed with any further proactive measures to ensure that labelling took place, the witnesses were divided.
There were witnesses who were advocates and who understood the importance and the imperative of this public policy health proposal. Then there were industry representatives. It has become very clear that in the health committee a majority of members, in fact I believe all but the member from the NDP, the member for Nanaimo--Cowichan, voted down a proposal to proceed with the labelling. Instead, the committee adopted this report that is now before us which is to have a further consultation and report through Health Canada with stakeholder groups.
That is fine as far as it goes, but I think it begs the question as to why this issue has been stalled for so long and why so little has been done? I want to draw to the attention of the House that my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North, brought a private member's motion before the House several years and it was approved. Her motion to place warnings and advisories on alcohol beverages was approved by the House. Since that time very little progress has been made by the federal government and Health Canada to move on that motion passed by Parliament to have labelling.
I think that is very disconcerting. It is one of these issues where there are a lot of vested interests involved, but it is critical that as members of Parliament representing our constituents and representing the broad public health of the community, that we not lose sight of the importance of requiring a comprehensive strategy of which labelling should be one component.
I represent the riding of Vancouver East. In my community we are dealing with very huge issues of discrimination, poverty, people who are facing unemployment, who are working in part time jobs, people who are living below the poverty line, and who have very poor access to health care in the city. We have seen massive privatization take place in British Columbia under Gordon Campbell who has allowed it to happen. We have seen this government be completely silent on that question and not do anything to enforce the Canada Health Act.
What this produces is an environment where we are basically creating a society where there are people who have access to resources, often private resources, they have good jobs and good incomes, but there are growing numbers of people who are now joining a part of society where the gap between wealth and poverty is growing.
Certainly, in a community like mine in east Vancouver, we can see the visibility of that. We can see the impact of that in the local community in terms of lack of housing, lack of accessible affordable health care, and lack of education.
I raise those issues because to me they are all part of the environment that creates a situation where there are a growing number of families who have very little access to real resources and support by which to make informed decisions about what they do to live in a healthy community.
In fact, we have removed many of those supports over the years, so families become more and more isolated. More and more people live below the poverty line. They struggle to make ends meet every month. They struggle to keep food on the table and feed their kids.
It is within that environment in my community and I know in many communities across the country that we need to address these fundamental health issues. We need to look at the determinants of health. We need to look at the things that will help produce healthy communities in terms of housing, resources, income, stable work, family support and child care. These are the basics for healthy and livable neighbourhoods.
I very much see this issue of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a part of that debate, because I think we can see this as we experience a society where more and more dysfunction takes place. We have people feeling the stresses of everyday life and trying to keep their families together. We can see that with a lack of support and resources people make decisions, and they may be engaging in practices such as consuming alcohol without the awareness about what the direct consequences are for unborn children and for children as they are growing up.
These are very critical issues and I feel a sense of dismay. I have now been in this House for almost eight years. I do not know how many throne speeches I have heard, but I have heard enough of them, and I think I can safely say that every single Speech from the Throne that I have heard has addressed this issue. It has always supposedly been on the government's agenda to address this issue, particularly within the aboriginal community where we have seen the incidence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder happen at very alarming rates because of the lack of supports.
It is very alarming to look at this place and hear the speeches and the fine words laid out in those speeches when the result is that really nothing takes place. I have to say for the NDP members here that we are very concerned about the direction the government has taken in sort of moving off this agenda, from the big picture of not enforcing the Canada Health Act and allowing privatization to take place to other parts of the picture. The government is being completely passive and non-active on this issue of FASD.
This has tragic consequences in local communities. I think we have to question ourselves. What is the weight and what is the balance we give to different interests who come before us?
I think there are legitimate concerns from the industry about labelling. There are questions that industry has, but surely there are also some broader principles at work here in terms of public policy and health policy. Surely if we can adopt those principles then we should be able to figure out, with all the resources that we have in this place, how to design a system that can mitigate the effects the industry is concerned about while still bringing forward a strong public message about the dangers of alcohol consumption that can result in FASD.
Surely we are able to accomplish that. This is not an insurmountable task. I think what it comes back to is a lack of political will to carry this out. With this government, this lack of political will is something that we are unfortunately all too familiar with. How many times do we have to hear about the commitment to this and that, whether it is child care, health care, housing, education or help for aboriginal people? How many times do we have to hear this rhetoric but see a complete lack of follow-through? We do end up feeling very cynical about what this government's record is all about. I think Canadians feel very cynical about that record.
While we are here today to support this report or the need for a report as far as it goes, let us be very clear that this issue could have already been dealt with if this Liberal government had decided to act even when the member for Winnipeg Centre had her motion approved by this House several years ago.
Here we have yet another example of this Liberal government dragging its feet, not following through on its agenda and dropping the ball on a significant public policy issue that has to do with the health and welfare of our children and our families. So yes, we will have this debate here in the House, but it is this government that has dropped the ball on this issue.