Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
I have seen a lot of opposition day motions in the three years that I have been in the House but I have to say that this one today from the Reform Party really takes the cake.
Looking at this motion and at the record of the Reform Party after advocating and endorsing massive cuts to our social infrastructure, it seems to me that it is the height of hypocrisy to suddenly come out in favour of increasing the Canada health and social transfer purse.
Let us be very clear. The real intent of the Reform Party with this motion today is to undermine federal spending, a long term strategy that hurts Canadians rather than helping them.
The Reform Party members do not care about the CHST. They are always campaigning against it and campaigning to cut it. They do not care about cuts to health care that are so massive that they threaten our most treasured social program, health care, and endanger the lives of Canadians who are forced to wait for essential services in Canada. Even worse, it is the Reform Party that has supported a two-tier health care system. It supports privatization. It has consistently supported Draconian cuts to our social infrastructure in the name of deficit cutting. It has consistently advocated diverting dollars needed to repair our social support into tax cuts. Let us be very clear that the tax cuts which it advocates favour the rich over the poor.
Let us make no mistake. Reformers are not concerned about increasing the CHST purse. They are attempting to score political points by using the scandal at HRDC to attack all federal spending.
Where was the Reform Party after the budget? The NDP was here every single day during question period going after the government, making it accountable on health care spending and pointing out the deficit that existed. Strangely, I do not remember the Reform Party ever raising questions about the budget and health care. It had its own little campaign going on. It suddenly appears and it is now supporting the Canada health and social transfer.
There was an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on March 11. I hope Reform members will listen to this because it is an article written by one of their own members, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, a leadership candidate. In the article he talks about health care and says:
Therefore, the system needs more money. Raising taxes is not an option, nor is taking large sums from other government programs that are already cash-strapped.
This was said by a Reform Party member. Let us sort this out. I think the Reform Party needs to have a caucus meeting to determine exactly what its position is. Is it the position of the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca or is it the position from the critic for HRDC?
The member goes on to say:
However, new resources can be assessed by amending the Canada Health Act to allow private clinics and services paid for by private money only. No public funds are used in the private clinics. People assessing private services would no longer be draining the public system, thereby leaving more money and better care for those still in the public system. The private system would in effect be strengthening the public system.
That is the position of the Reform Party and this motion before us today is really a bogus motion.
Let us dwell for a moment on the $1.5 billion that the Reform Party is seeking to defer, not just from grants and contributions in HRDC but from all other government programs as a result of any increase in the budget. Exactly what would that include? What is it that the Reform Party is advocating, which it says should be diverted but which really means cut, in order to put this $1.5 billion back into the CHST?
It would include $560,000 for first nations policing programs. It would support contributions to the Canadian Blood Services of $355,000. It would mean taking $1.2 million away from the safer community initiative, something that is very important to my riding. What about the contributions to the youth justice renewal fund, something that the Reform Party has been supporting? These are the kinds of programs the Reform Party is advocating be cut, be slashed, in order to make a political point of now suddenly being in favour of increasing the Canada health and social transfer.
Many of these programs are good programs and they have been put in jeopardy by Liberal mismanagement. The answer is not to attack the programs. We believe the answer is to end the Liberal mismanagement and the politicization that has taken place.
As New Democrats we have supported job creation. We have been very clear on that. We support student employment. We support job development in areas of high unemployment. What we do not support, however, is the Liberals making a mockery of these programs through gross mismanagement. We do not support programs being approved for political purposes, as the mounting evidence clearly shows.
How many RCMP investigations do we have now? There is no question—and this is where we would agree with the Reform Party—that we absolutely need to have an independent public inquiry to immediately get to the bottom of the Liberal slush funds, the corporate bailouts and the corruption that has taken place.
We need to fix these programs so they can end up benefiting Canadians who need them. However, Reform's call to divert federal spending increases fails to address the problem and fails to hold the Liberals accountable for perpetuating those problems we are trying to deal with. In fact the government has set itself up and in doing so has impugned public servants and the entire social infrastructure. The cynicism that has grown in the Canadian public's mind has come about because of this mismanagement.
We believe that the CHST should be increased by $1.5 billion, not in diverted dollars but as a repayment of the billions of dollars that this government has taken from health care, education, social welfare and social programs since it came to power in 1993.
Canadians know from their own real experience what has happened to the health care system. They know what has happened as a result of those lost federal dollars over the last six years. We have patients living in hospital corridors because there are no beds available. We have rural and, in fact, urban areas that have a critical shortage of nurses and other health care providers. We have women and families who are forced to take responsibility for providing home care because the health system is failing.
We also know that Canadians are paying more out of their own pockets for health care than they ever were before. Why? Because the government has taken $21.5 billion from transfer payments to the provinces for health and other social programs. Despite its own glowing words of putting money back into health care in the last budget, the real evidence shows that for every dollar spent on tax cuts only a piddling two cents went into the health care system. Is it any wonder then that more and more Canadians are paying out of their own pockets for health care and that it is on the rise?
Our federal government used to pay 50% of health care. It was a partnership between the provinces and the federal government. It is no longer a partnership. It is a total disgrace and Canadians know that. We know that the 50% has now dwindled to 14% in the most recent budget. This Reform motion really does not change that.
The real threat to our health care system is the two-tier system and privatization. The biggest threat in that regard is the Reform Party which is crusading for privatization. We see it in Alberta, in Ontario, from its own leadership candidates and from its members here in the House. They have been aided and abetted by a government in power that simply does not have the guts to stand up and stop what is going on, to say clearly to Alberta, to Ontario and to privatization that it will not stand for it and that it will see this stopped.
We in the NDP have been very clear that we want to see a restoration of public funds. We want to see federal funds go back to 25%. I ask the Reform Party if it is prepared to support that. If it is committed to the CHST, is it prepared to support our call that it at least go back to 25% of federal funding and increase after that?
In conclusion, the problem with this motion is that it has no credibility. It will not solve the problem for HRDC. It will not even help medicare. It certainly will not help the Reform Party as it desperately tries to gain trust with Canadians on health care.
This motion simply will not do it. That is why we in the NDP will not support it. We will continue to go after the government to make it accountable on health care. We will also expose the Reform Party for really what is a very phoney motion.
