Mauril Bélanger

[Health Care System, September 23rd, 2010]

You are rescinding your decision, Mr. Speaker.

[Health Care System, September 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a very simple question to you, if I may. You have declared the bill carried on division. Are you now rescinding that decision?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, September 20th, 2010]

With regard to the Marquee Tourism Events Program for 2010: (a) who are the recipients and what is the amount of each contribution; and (b) which applications of tourism events were rejected?

[Public Service, June 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, no government can succeed in the implementation of its agenda and legislation without a dedicated public service. Canadians have in the federal public service a tremendous force for public good. Our country has and continues to enjoy the benefits of a professional, honest, loyal and efficient public service.

National Public Service Week is the annual occasion when its best and brightest are appreciated for their dedication above and beyond the call of duty.

The public service is a tremendous source of know-how that is largely responsible for Canada's success. During National Public Service Week, we would like to underscore the fundamental role played by the public service in the past, present and future.

The test of all new governments is to quickly learn to work with the public service in a respectful, open and trusting manner. In this respect, the current government is too often unsuccessful.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, I certainly do support Aileen, my colleague and friend. I am glad that she has stepped up and has written to her minister of health, and perhaps her premier as well, to get the Ontario government on side. There are no problems there.

The beauty of a federation is that we have 10 provincial partners and three territorial partners. Not all of them will do things the same and not all of them will come to the same conclusions. There will be best practices.

The power of convening, which I have talked about, rests in the fact that these 10 or 13 players can be brought together and learn from each other, bounce ideas and practices off each other, all of this to the benefit of our fellow citizens. In that sense, the responsibility of the Government of Canada goes beyond just the research. It goes into ensuring that the federation works for the benefit of its citizens, Canadians.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

It is as simple as that, Mr. Chair. Let us get on with it. After tonight, the government will take notes. I would hope that the minister would see to it that there a usefulness to bringing her provincial counterparts together, or their representatives, to address this on a national basis very quickly. It is important we do so and that we been seen to do so. That is part of our responsibility as elected representatives. If it involves, as it has been suggested, that we do the same by pushing on our old provincial colleagues, I am quite prepared to do that as well.

Our fellow citizens who have MS and who have seen this ray of hope expect no less from us, and we should do no less for them.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, this is the essence of the take note debate we are having tonight, so those listening, and certainly the Minister of Health of Canada, but hopefully ministers of health and officials in departments of health across the country, realize there is a real situation that needs to be addressed quickly.

There are people who will not wait. If one has a degenerative disease that progresses and sometimes progresses rapidly, one does not want to wait for four years for the results to test something that has already been demonstrated, in a limited number granted, to seem to work and knowing also the procedure that makes it work is an established and usual and not that costly procedure.

If people need to spend $10,000 to get themselves to Bulgaria or to Poland in order to have the procedure done, instead of waiting for four years, I understand those people. I also understand that we as parliamentarians, whether here or in provincial assemblies, have a responsibility toward our fellow citizens and we had better get on with it.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

I am not too sure of the question, Mr. Chair. If it is a matter of working co-operatively with the provincial authorities, absolutely. There are jurisdictions and we have to respect them. However, the fact that the administration of health is essentially a provincial jurisdiction does not detract from the fact that federal-provincial co-operation is everywhere. The Canada Health Act speaks to that.

There are insured procedures for instance and I believe angioplasty is one of them. Therefore, why is it being offered to some patients who have a venal insufficiency related to their heart, but not offered to patients who have MS and they have a venal insufficiency related to MS. Is there a discrimination here? Could it even be a case that we could end up in front of the tribunal?

Those are the types of debate I believe must be addressed in federal-provincial relations. Whether it is through a federal-provincial conference, or a meeting of ministers of health, or of the deputies or the heads of whatever departments on that, therein lies the power to convene and the usefulness of that power.

If the Minister of Health of Canada says that we have a situation where we have 75,000 Canadians who have seen a ray of hope and now expect us to do something about it and that they should get together and see what they can do, I think they would applaud her.

[Multiple Sclerosis, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Chair, around Christmas time I received a phone call from a friend of mine, Kent Kirkpatrick. Kent is the chief administrative officer for the city of Ottawa and he has MS. I came to know him before I became an MP and he has done very well as chief administrative officer for the city of Ottawa with fairly serious responsibilities. He is a very intelligent and serious fellow. He was calling to arrange a meeting with Mr. Katz, another MS patient, who wanted to meet with me and perhaps two or three other people. We arranged that meeting early in January.

Mr. Katz introduced me to a doctor who is a Fellow at McMaster. He is an American but he is a Fellow at McMaster. He introduced me to this notion, which I admit was fairly new to me, this chronic cerebral spinal venous insufficiency and the possible treatment of it which is basically angioplasty that Dr. Zamboni had done in Italy. The results of some treatments had been released a couple of months before in November. I must admit to being impressed with that information, but what impressed me most was the feeling of hope expressed by the four or five folks I was meeting with. They were afflicted with MS, but the feeling of hope was so obvious in their voices, their body posture and in their eyes. I resolved to try to find out more about this to see where it was headed because it was new to me.

With some effort from my colleagues, in February we had a round table on neurological diseases that my colleague from Etobicoke North helped organize. I talked to her and my colleague from St. Paul's to get a sense of where this was going. After reading a bit I discovered there was some fairly blatant tensions in the MS Society between the traditional approach taken to treating MS and the people who thought that the treatment applied to CCSVI could be a solution to at the very least alleviate some of the symptoms.

I gather from what I have heard here tonight that it is fairly well accepted, if not fully scientifically yet, branded, but a fairly accepted hypothesis with some growing anecdotal evidence that it does indeed provide alleviation of symptoms and some hope. So much so, that two constituents paid $10,000 each to go to Poland to have it done. They are back and are feeling quite better, so this just feeds on itself. We now have a situation where the tension has grown beyond the MS Society. We have seen it a bit here in the House tonight, but it has also grown in the medical society.

I read today a letter to the editor of Maclean's magazine, June 21 edition. It is from Dr. Bradley Dibble, a cardiologist in Barrie, Ontario. He writes, “The resistance to CCSVI treatment for MS from the neurological community surprises me because they aren't even consistent when it comes to this kind of problem. As a cardiologist I am asked by neurologists on a daily basis to investigate patients with unexplained strokes to see if they have a small hole in their heart called the patent foramen ovale, PFO, and if I find one to have it closed with an invasive procedure. This is despite the fact that there are no clinical trials to show us that this is the right thing to do for these patients. There does appear to be a slightly higher incidence of PFO in unexplained strokes although they are present in about 25% of everyone on the planet and some observational information showing that this reasonably safe and not too costly invasive procedure appears helpful. To me, this sounds a lot like CCSVI, an association that has identified the procedure that can address the abnormality and some early observations that suggest a benefit. My neurology colleagues need to start moving forward and offer this procedure to MS patients and see how they respond”.

I think that pretty well sums up the debate that I am hearing here tonight.

I do not like to participate, and I will not, in any blame game. I am here to try to make things progress, make things better for my fellow citizens, those of Ottawa—Vanier and beyond.

Yes, there is some movement on the research side and I applaud that. It is the way to go. And that is definitely a responsibility of the federal authorities. But it does not stop there. There are also other authorities. One should never underestimate the power to convene. I was on the government side, at one time. I was in the cabinet and the power to convene is a very potent force. I would encourage the Minister of Health to use that power to convene.

There is a convention being called for the summer. That is fine. But there is also the power to convene federal-provincial meetings and those can be quite successful in provoking things to happen. It seems to me that is the stage we are at, so there might be a usefulness to having a federal-provincial meeting on that. I would certainly encourage the minister to consider that. I think it would be highly desirable. It is highly desirable on the part of the 55,000 to 75,000 Canadians who suffer from MS and who would love to be able to see if indeed, through a diagnostic, the CCSVI treatment, the angioplasty, could help alleviate their symptoms. I think we owe them that. We owe them the benefit of exploring whether or not we should be doing that, and quickly.

There seems to be a consensus tonight that there is a parallel track here between the research and the scientific affirmation of what is CCSVI vis-à-vis MS. Is it a cause, or is it a side effect, and can indeed angioplasty really alleviate the symptoms? It seems to be able to. We all know angioplasty is a fairly established procedure in this country. It is done regularly to tens of thousands of patients who have heart surgery. It is not as though we are inventing angioplasty here. It is done. It is a common thing.

So, if indeed, performing angioplasty on a venal insufficiency for people who suffer from MS can alleviate those symptoms, for heaven's sake, let us get there.

I accept the comments that we should be pressuring provincial colleagues as well. I have talked to my provincial counterpart and I will do so again. I will even formalize it in letters if need be because that is where we are at. We have a responsibility to our fellow citizens. We have over 50,000 people who suffer from MS in this country. They have a ray of hope projected for the first time in a long time.

They need to know whether or not, through a diagnostic, they have CCSVI and therefore could be afforded a treatment which is not, by all accounts, something that we would be reinventing here. I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound that we should not be reinventing the wheel. Well, angioplasty exists. We do not need to reinvent it. However, we need to apply it if, indeed, it can alleviate the symptoms that MS sufferers are experiencing.

I would hope that the government, through goodwill, and my colleagues from all opposition parties, through goodwill, could come together on this and cause something positive to happen for our fellow Canadians who suffer from this awful disease.

[Petitions, June 14th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today I am presenting a petition signed by residents of the National Capital Region. They are calling on the government to create a special immigration measure allowing Canadian citizens and permanent residents to sponsor family members who were personally and directly affected by the earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010. More specifically, they are asking the government to show more flexibility in its definition of the people who can be included in the family class, particularly concerning age.