Health Care  What this means is that a person who has money can get the cataract surgery ahead of others, but the person who really needs it and probably does not have the money has to wait a lot longer. What does that $1,000 do? Does it add to hospitals? Does it help the system do a better job? Does it foster better utilization of what we have in place? No. It allows someone to get richer.

Health Care  Yesterday the minister told the provinces she is going to withhold $750,000 per month in transfer payments for health care. That is $750,000 less to treat the people of British Columbia which means longer bed closures, less care for the sick and the elderly and people are going to die. We must get our heads out of the sand. What is the minister going to do and what alternative does she have to get health care and Canada on firm financial ground?

Health Care  The total health care bill in Canada is now over $70 billion with the provinces paying 46 per cent of that bill, individuals and private insurance companies paying about 28 per cent and the federal government now paying about 23 per cent. The federal government is no longer the senior partner in health care financing. It has become a junior partner. Will the minister today admit that health care transfers are now insufficient to permit the provinces to meet the demands of the Canada Health Act?

Health Care  The minister's answer leaves Canadians wondering what it would take to convince the government that health care financing and the Canada Health Act need to be reformed. How many more hospitals have to be closed down? How much longer do the waiting lines have to become? How many more Canadians have to go to the United States for health care? How much further does the health care system have to deteriorate before the government will agree to reform the Canada Health Act and the financing of health care in Canada?

Health Care  It is tragic that today health care is under threat from the very same party that introduced it. Health care is deteriorating rapidly and soon it may no longer be the envy of the world. Our huge debt and deficits and this government's refusal to update the 30-year old outdated Canada Health Act are combining to undermine and gradually destroy the system.

Supply  The only argument I was given at the Bélanger-Campeau Commission by the person who is now Minister of Foreign Affairs was the Canadian system will protect milk production in Quebec, but if you leave Canada you will lose this protection. This argument is no longer appropriate, because we now are in a much larger market. Does the hon. member not agree that in the North American economy, in the Canadian economy, eastern and western agricultures have interests so different that trying to defend them simultaneously brings about important problems and situations almost impossible to reconcile?

Supply  It amazes me when I see stats that the turnaround on a hopper car today is actually a little longer than was required in 1923. Is this today's modern system that is supposed to help farmers survive? With the negotiations having gone on for over a year, this government failed to pass legislation to order the west coast strikers back to work.

Supply  I just want to remind us all to refer to each other by our titles or positions, such as the minister of agriculture or minister of this, unless of course that member is no longer in this Chamber, which is always regrettable. For all those of us here in this 35th Parliament I know it is a tradition that we will want to maintain.

Supply  That is to say it encourages well integrated systems, large farms which will make it such that farmers will no longer be farmers. They will become employees in large farms. Maybe they will make a better salary, who knows, but personally I do not think that is the right direction in respect of the family farm.

Supply  We lost close to 100,000 farms. This means that 170,000 men and women who used to farm no longer earn a living as farmers. Even among those who still farm, almost 40 per cent, and in some sectors over 50 per cent, need a regular job elsewhere to survive as farmers. In other words, in Canada not only is the farming population diminishing but it cannot even earn a decent living from farming alone.

National Sport Act  My concern is that the cost to young people playing hockey today is escalating to the point at which many young people can no longer play. I am sad to say that in many cases hockey is now becoming a rich man's sport. That was not the case when I was young in Montreal. We played on outdoor rinks at the peewee level, the bantam level.

Pearson International Airport Agreements Act  Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the member for Sherbrooke and Ms. Campbell-I must name her because she no longer has a riding-did not suspect that their party would be reduced to two seats. So these people said to themselves, "Before we leave Parliament and our access to government funds, we will ensure that our friends have not invested for nothing," because the names involved in the Pearson affair did not invest only in Pearson.

Income Tax Act  In the forties, the government introduced what was considered progressive legislation. In 1994, that is no longer true. In 1942 when this policy was first developed the support payers, at that time mostly men, invariably earned more than their wives so that the tax brackets of the two parents were different.

Income Tax Act  They are asking us to unleash the political will for changes that will restore a sense of fairness to all Canadians. Amending the Income Tax Act so that child support payments are no longer considered taxable income for the recipients is admittedly just one piece of a much larger puzzle but this motion before us tonight is the first chance we have had to demonstrate that we too are appalled by the statistics on the poverty endured by children in single parent families and that we are committed to restoring hope to those children.

Income Tax Act  The motion presented by the hon. member for Nepean reads as follows: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend the Income Tax Act so that child support payments are no longer considered taxable income for their recipients. This is a very interesting motion, but we should nonetheless consider both sides of its potential impact. Some of my colleagues have already mentioned that the Bloc would support this motion.