House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 77% of the vote.
Health May 26th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, today the WHO designated Toronto a SARS-infected area once again. Despite its recommendations, there are still no compulsory screenings, no personal interviews, and no third party screenings.
I assume the health minister spoke to the WHO this morning. Did she tell the WHO that we are complying, or did she come clean and say not yet?
Health May 26th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, it is not so important how fast we react. It is how we react that is important.
Two months ago the WHO recommended that SARS interviews be given at airports to passengers arriving from infected areas. It has also been two months since the Canadian Alliance called for tighter screening measures at those pertinent airports.
The minister is now blaming airport screening on airport authorities. Rather than blaming the airport authorities, why has the minister not actually implemented those screenings herself?
The Environment May 26th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand and address this important motion concerning prevention and human health. We must consider all aspects of the motion as we look forward in the 21st century to providing health care for a population that is very concerned about it.
We had a debate last year that raged, and rightfully so, because it is important that we discern how much our health care system is under stress and how we can work toward solving its problems.
The motion reads:
—to take necessary measures, including the drafting of legislation,...
It is interesting that we will actually be looking at drafting some legislation toward this. It goes on to read:
—to prevent medical conditions and illnesses caused by exposure to identifiable environmental contaminants.
That is a worthy and lofty goal. Who would say no to cleaning up an environmental problem when it comes to human health? From that aspect I actually applaud the hon. member for bringing it forward because it increases the debate around this whole area. That is to be commended.
In the health policy of the Canadian Alliance we recognize the important role of wellness promotion and disease prevention. We have and will continue to support the evidence based initiatives to safeguard human health as an alternative to the costly crisis management approach to health care that we have seen over the last number of decades.
Last year we put $112.2 billion of Canadians' hard earned tax money into health care. That is up by 6.3% over the previous year. When it comes to public health expenditures, it is $79.4 billion. That is up by 6.2% from 2001. We can see that the dollars continue to go into the health care system. The new money flowing from the health accord of February will be $34.8 billion over five years. That will certainly increase those numbers that I just listed.
Our aging population will increasingly be users of the health care system. Looking after their health needs will put a strain on the system which will only continue to intensify. We have to look at that. We must take reasonable measures today to improve human health for tomorrow. The whole idea of crisis management in health care has been long overlooked. We have to look further upstream if we are to sustain the health care of Canadians over the long run.
There are a number of areas on which we should be taking action because they pay such dividends in the future. I would like to quickly mention a few of those. In Quebec, a number of people are addicted to tobacco smoking. It becomes a very serious concern. We will win on this whole area of tobacco, not by attempting to drive up taxes and with initiatives to warn people about it, but by drying up the demand for the product by educating individuals about how terrible, devastating and addictive tobacco is and what it can do to limit their quality of life. It is very important that we continue to look at prevention in that area. To that end I believe every member of the House is very concerned about it and should be, because we see the ravages and the costs of not dealing with it in our population today.
We also have to look at work and family related stress. The number one reason that we actually hospitalize people, at least it was the case when I was serving on a regional health authority and the figure astounded me, is not cancer or heart disease but actually mental illness or stress related conditions. It is a serious problem that has to be looked at. What is causing it? Maybe we need to do more than treat it with drugs. We need to look at why we have a nation that is so stressed and which lives in an environment that causes it serious complications. We have to look further upstream.
We could look at HIV-AIDS and the whole idea of what is going on there. We are going through a review of that in the health committee right now and we will be issuing a final draft report. This is a 100% preventable illness and 100% fatal. We must understand all the dynamics of this serious disease.
Witnesses have told us that the new drug therapies that are coming along for HIV will approach $30,000 per patient per year. There are 4,000 new cases of HIV per year in Canada. When we look at what the costs of that will be in the future, it becomes astronomical.
Only 10,000 lives could be saved if we dropped the rate of infection by 50% over the next five year period. That would total a $1.5 billion saving over a five year period. The idea of looking upstream to prevent people from becoming inflicted with these diseases has become much more important.
We look at obesity as a ticking time bomb in a nation that is overweight. We have a generation of children that are crowding the 30% rate by reaching the obese status in our schools. All of these are serious problems.
A recent study says that 2 million Canadians age 9 to 12 are so inactive and have such poor diets that when they hit their thirties they are at a high risk of serious heart disease and problems that we normally associate around the age of 60 and 70. These children and the impact that their health will have on our health care system will be phenomenal as we go forward.
It is interesting that we are still wasting time as a government by going through the initial stages. The government initiated a $50 million study a few months ago that said we needed to find the causes of obesity. It is fairly well known that poor diet and a lack of physical activity has a lot to do with obesity. I do not think we need a $50 million study to figure it out. Perhaps a $50 million investment in doing something about it would be a much better use of those funds.
A targeted, effective wellness promotion and disease prevention effort will help improve the lives of Canadians and result in reduced health care expenditures in the long run. This must be looked at. I think that is where the motion is leading. It is saying that when it comes to the environment that there are some things in our environment that need to be checked and looked at.
The idea of identifying environmental contaminants and being able to do something about them, such as legislation, is a lofty goal. It all sounds very well and good. Who does not want to prevent medical conditions because of environmental contaminants? It goes without saying that we support the initiative.
The problem with the motion is that it is so open ended and vague that I have serious concerns about what is being said and asked for. The motion mentions necessary measures, but necessary measures to prevent medical conditions and illnesses could be carried to an extreme. It might mean the banning of perfumes in offices or perfumes all together if they are seen as an environmental problem, or pesticides and getting rid of pesticides completely. There is a move afoot to do that. Is this necessarily in the best interests of a population? Some people would say yes and others would say no.
An improvement here would be the replacement of the word necessary with reasonable. That would perhaps be a better way to take a look at the motion. Reasonable conditions might be more palatable. We also have concerns with the term identifiable environmental contaminants. These are identifiable by whom and using which criteria? These are some of the problems that we have.
What is exactly meant by environmental contaminants? Does it mean pesticides, industrial chemicals or naturally occurring toxins? It becomes an issue that we have a difficult time understanding. The whole idea of what we can actually do when it comes to legislation that would supposedly come out of this motion becomes confusing. It is often looked at in other legislation as was mentioned by the previous speaker.
Although the motion speaks to concerns that we have, I definitely have some concerns about the loose language. I encourage members of the House to investigate the motion, to vote freely on it, and I challenge them to look at whether the language is tight enough to be supported.
Health May 14th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the minister said last night she did not agree with the former finance minister.
He has said the health accord does not deal with the fundamental issues of health care. Clearly this means that the health accord is at risk of being ripped up in the future by the next Prime Minister. The former finance minister is the same man who gutted health care in the mid-90s.
How can the health minister guarantee Canadians that the former minister will not dump the accord?
Health May 14th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the former finance minister has been crossing the country stating that the health accord did not deal with the fundamental issues of health care.
He suggests that he will rip up the health accord upon becoming Prime Minister. The Canadian Alliance, the provinces, and the federal government stand behind the accord.
Will the minister repeat today what she said last night, namely that the former finance minister was wrong about the health accord?
Supply May 13th, 2003
Madam Chair, I rise on a point of order. My point of order is that when I was speaking and there were points of order it came off my time directly. My point is that if the hon. member had 10 minutes, I would suggest that the clock was used up prior to that.
Supply May 13th, 2003
Madam Chair, I rise on a point of order. My colleague from St. Albert has actually made this point before. I would like to reiterate it. If there is a question we would like to hear it, so that the minister can actually deal with the estimates. This is an issue that has limited time. We only have half an hour left. It is very important that we get in all the questions we possibly can. It is absolutely absurd for an individual to come in here, give a speech that has been previously prepared and not deal with questions to the minister. It is valuable time and we would like to see this happen.
Supply May 13th, 2003
Madam Chair, I would like to go back to the minister's last answer because she likes to quote Dr. Heymann, the executive director of the WHO. She claims that Dr. Heymann said that Canada was the first to implement screening measures at airports.
I would like to say that it is not so important how quickly this was done, it is how effectively it was done. He obviously felt that it was not done effectively. On April 23 he said that we now had these areas with a high magnitude of disease and a great risk of transmission locally outside of the usual health workers. He said that we were still exporting these cases.
April 23 was the day on which the WHO actually gave the travel advisory to Toronto. The next day, April 24, Dr. Heymann said:
When you see exportation of cases it makes you question whether the control measures going on are effective to control the disease. Possibly Toronto was not able to really control the spread.
When we hear these kinds of comments coming from the same individual, obviously he was very concerned and convinced that we were exporting the disease. The screening measures at the airport were not done appropriately and are still not being done appropriately. The minister has suggested that she is doing everything appropriately and in a timely fashion. I would suggest that is not happening.
We know that someone can leave China, arrive in a third country, and then travel on to another airport in Calgary or Edmonton, for example, without appropriate screening measures in place for SARS. If the minister has learned anything she should learn that we cannot take a passive approach to something as serious as SARS. It could elevate into a national disaster yet. Now that we have it contained, I would ask the minister to please not do that.
Does the minister have the appropriate screening measures in place right now for those third party travellers coming into this country? We know that the SARS virus is out of control in China and, as sure as we are in this place this evening, we are in danger. Will the minister do the right thing and make sure those measures are in place?
Supply May 13th, 2003
Madam Chair, I just wanted to say that we had this debate earlier in the evening with the previous Chair and a decision was made at that time. However I will leave it at that and hope there is discretion on both sides so we can continue in a civil manner.
Supply May 13th, 2003
Madam Chair, we had this debate earlier in the evening. The decision at that time was that if the question lasted a minute then the answer would be roughly a minute. It could not be disproportionate, within certain bounds. My challenge is that that has not taken place this evening.