44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by wishing all of our colleagues a happy Valentine's Day, and I hope they will be able to celebrate it even though many of them are in Parliament, far away from their partners. Nonetheless, I wish them a very happy Valentines Day.
Today, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-10, which authorizes a one-time payment of up to $2.5 billion to be made to the provinces and territories for any expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2022, in relation to COVID-19 tests. The bill also allows the Minister of Health to transfer tests and instruments used in relation to those tests acquired on or after April 1, 2021, to any province or territory, or to any body or person in Canada.
This spending is obviously necessary, since health care costs are skyrocketing nationwide. Health care spending grew by 12.8% in 2020, approximately three times the average growth rate from previous years, and 2021 saw record spending.
The government played a role in this increase, of course, by increasing health transfers by $5 billion during the pandemic. Of this amount, $4 billion went to meeting urgent needs in the health care system, and $1 billion was invested in the vaccination rollout. This may seem like a lot of money, and it is. It undoubtedly covers some of the additional expenses generated by the health crisis, but only a fraction, considering that more than $30 billion was needed to finance pandemic-related activities in 2020 alone. These one-time payments are simply a band-aid solution. They do not address the real problem, which is the lack of structural health care funding. This underfunding is one of the major reasons that health care workers in Quebec and across Canada are in distress. They lack the resources to fight the waves that have been hitting us for the past two years.
I would like to reiterate the Bloc Québécois's demand, which has united Quebec and the provinces in a manner rarely seen. Even the National Assembly is unanimous. The federal government must increase its contribution to overall health care costs from 22% to 35%, or from $42 billion to $70 billion. If the federal government is to maintain its 35% contribution, which is far lower than the 50% it used to pay up until the 1980s, the transfers will have to be indexed at 6%. This annual indexation will be necessary to offset the costs associated with population aging, drug costs and technological advances.
Our request that the federal government increase its contribution to health care to 35% of overall costs is reasonable and realistic. The Conference Board of Canada proved that this increase will be economically viable for both the federal and provincial governments. Until the health care systems of Quebec and the provinces are adequately funded, the government will have the Bloc Québécois to deal with. We will not stop pressing this demand, since it is the key condition for ending the COVID-19 crisis once and for all.
We need to face the truth and think about the future. It will take many years and a lot of resources to catch up with the backlog that was already a problem in our health care system before the first outbreaks and that will only get worse with the delays currently caused by the pandemic.
My colleagues and I call on the government to start negotiations on health transfers immediately in order to “strengthen our universal public health system,” as the Minister of Health’s mandate letter clearly states.
I would also like to take this opportunity to remind my colleagues of something I have mentioned before in the House in previous speeches. The fight against COVID-19 will continue as long as Canada does not provide support for the global vaccination effort, especially in developing countries. All of the experts we had the opportunity to talk to are unanimous: As long as the pandemic is not over everywhere, it will continue to threaten us here.
Of course, Canada contributes to the various global vaccination initiatives of the World Health Organization. However, it can and must do more. It must provide logistical support for developing countries so that the vaccines can be efficiently distributed to the population. It must donate its surplus doses in a predictable manner in order to allow the receiving countries to administer them within a reasonable time frame.
The federal government must also stop saying that it is open to lifting the patents on the vaccines and treatments while voting against the proposal when it comes time to take an official stand. The Bloc is asking the government to play a leadership role by openly taking a stand in favour of lifting the patents at the next meeting of the World Trade Organization on the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS.
These past two years have also unequivocally shown the importance and urgency of improving the independence and reliability of our supply chains. This pandemic will not be our last, especially in this era of climate change.
An analysis of the challenges we have faced since the initial outbreaks makes it clear that we must rebuild Quebec’s pharmaceutical sector. We need targeted tax incentives to promote the establishment of biopharmaceutical research and production centres. Partnerships between our university research centres and industry must be encouraged through support for issue tables focused on these goals, and we must continue increasing research budgets.
The consolidation of our supply chains will ensure, among other things, that our national emergency reserve is supplied by Canadian providers. Shortages of rapid tests like we saw last December are unacceptable when the pandemic has been going on for almost two years. Local production would allow us a certain independence from foreign suppliers, who are driven solely by the laws of supply and demand, and help manage our reserves so as to ensure that we have sufficient supplies for our needs and can prevent loss by channelling our surplus doses to NGOs that will make good use of them.
The investments provided for in Bill C-10 are essential, but we expect the government to immediately start tackling the numerous other challenges we face. We have an opportunity here to develop a strategic economic sector while taking drastic and appropriate action to strengthen our health care systems, the institutions that are the very foundation of our social contract and that have been hit hard. I urge the federal government not to miss the boat.
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Madam Speaker, we agree with the principle of a public pharmacare program. However, Quebec is often well ahead of Canada and the provinces when it comes to social programs.
When the federal proposal clearly includes the right to withdraw with full financial compensation, we will vote in favour. We absolutely support the fact that Canada needs to improve its plan, provided that Quebec can get its hands on its share of the money and improve its own programs.
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Madam Speaker, Ottawa is always trying to centralize powers.
Canada is increasingly evolving into a unitary state. It is trying to infringe on jurisdictions that are often not its own.
In this instance, we are told that the government is going to move forward but only on the condition that all kinds of programs and supports are created that allow it to encroach on Quebec's jurisdictions. By adding conditions to the funding, the government is condemning Quebec, which has been engaged in state building since the 1960s, to once again becoming a province like any other that is permanently obsessed with funding its health care system. Quebec will be forced to abandon all of its other efforts.
It is becoming more difficult to build our nation state as the home of the Quebec nation because the province is being fiscally starved.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to be brief.
I actually said that we were in favour of the bill. There are things missing from it, but we are in favour of it. We cannot be against what is right. This is a transfer, and we are by no means against transfers.
I do not think I ever said in my speech that we needed to slow down transfers for rapid tests.
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