44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2023 02:00PM
- Feb/8/23 2:29:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, through a very difficult pandemic, yes, there have been challenges for service delivery. That is why this government has been stepping up. One area we are stepping up in is recognizing that our universal public health care system needs more support. That is why we are moving forward with investments worth $198 billion in additional money to support provinces and territories in delivering better health care for Canadians.
Whether it is with more access to family doctors, better mental health supports, better support for frontline health workers or better data and information to underpin our system, we are there to invest as Conservatives continue to push cuts.
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- Feb/8/23 2:36:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see the lengths to which Conservatives will go to pretend the pandemic never happened. It was a very difficult time for Conservative politicians at the federal level. They were not convinced about vaccines and did not like all the supports we were sending to Canadians, even though it not only ensured that millions of Canadians were kept safer during the pandemic but also allowed our economy to bounce back stronger than just about any of our fellow economies did.
In regard to supporting Canadians, our price on pollution puts more money back in the pockets of families. At the same time, we are investing $500 million so that families can upgrade their home heating.
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- Feb/8/23 2:41:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are taking action to help Canadians who are facing difficult times. Yes, there have been challenges with service delivery in the wake of the pandemic this past year. We will continue to work to improve services and support Canadians. That is what Canadians expect.
Unfortunately, the Conservative Party voted against help for dental care and help for low-income renters. It has nothing to offer Canadians except recommendations like investing in cryptocurrencies to avoid the effects of inflation. That is ridiculous and irresponsible.
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- Feb/8/23 2:44:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during the pandemic, the federal government invested an extra $72 billion to keep Canadians safe and secure. Yes, we are here to deliver services and help Canadians, especially those in the armed forces and on indigenous reserves.
We know we can deliver the best services to Canadians by working hand in hand with the provinces and territories. Canadians are counting on us, so that is what we are doing. We will work hand in hand, not constantly pick fights like the Bloc.
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- Feb/8/23 2:49:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during the pandemic, we heard horrific reports from long-term care homes, stories of seniors crying out for food and water and seniors being left in soiled diapers and linens. The Prime Minister promised to change that and did the opposite. Families say things have not gotten better.
In the offer to the premiers, there is no mention of long-term care, no additional dollars and no help for seniors. Why?
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- Feb/8/23 2:50:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have seen first-hand the challenges seniors in long-term care faced across the pandemic, and all Canadians know we all need to act together. That is why we welcomed the release by the Health Standards Organization and the Canadian Standards Association, which is a good start to new standards.
We have also provided $4 billion to support provinces and territories in their efforts to improve long-term care in their jurisdictions, because regardless of where they live, we will continue to ensure seniors receive the quality of care they deserve.
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- Feb/8/23 3:05:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for weeks now, the Conservative leader has been saying the Liberal government helped Canadians too much during the pandemic. Let me be clear. The government supports included an additional $72 billion for health care to the provinces and territories. My constituents are left to wonder: How much worse off would their hospitals and health care system have been if the leader of the Conservatives had been in charge?
Will the Prime Minister follow the Conservative leader's misguided advice on austerity and cuts to health care spending, or can the Prime Minister provide us with any policy alternatives?
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- Feb/8/23 3:09:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the past years, we have made significant investments to support Canadians, not only through the pandemic but also in the years before it, when we were investing and creating jobs. We were lifting Canadians out of poverty and preparing for a clean-energy future, which Canadians know is around the corner.
We will continue to be there to support Canadians, whether it is with rental investments, with dental care or by doubling the GST rebate for low- and middle-income Canadians. We are going to continue to be there to invest in and support Canadians. Unfortunately, the Conservatives continue to push for cuts and austerity.
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- Feb/8/23 4:43:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians cherish public health care. It is part of our national identity, a social contract that ensures we will be cared for when we are vulnerable, regardless of the size of our bank account. It is an affirmation of our collective commitment to equality and justice.
However, our health care system is in crisis. Emergency rooms are overwhelmed; health care workers are burning out; millions of Canadians lack access to a primary care provider, and patients are facing massive backlogs for surgeries, diagnostics and other procedures.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably placed enormous strain on our health care system, it did not cause the current crisis; it exposed it. In fact, its roots can be traced back to decades of poor policy choices and underfunding by successive Conservative and Liberal governments.
When our health system was first created, it was based on a fifty-fifty cost-sharing partnership between Ottawa and the provinces, but over the years the federal government’s contribution has declined far below that. This has profoundly shifted the fiscal burden for health care delivery and exacerbated pressures caused by an aging population, technology advances and increasingly expensive treatments and pharmaceutical drugs.
The results of this are clear to see on the front lines of care. Where Canada used to have 6.9 hospital beds per 1,000 people, we now have just 2.5. One in five Canadians cannot access a family doctor, the primary portal into our health care system, and Canada now ranks near the very bottom of the OECD in the number of physicians per 1,000 and wait times for essential care.
Tommy Douglas warned Canadians about the threat posed by this “subtle strangulation” strategy. He understood that opponents of public health care would attempt to starve our system of resources to lay the groundwork for private, for-profit care.
Unfortunately, his prediction appears dangerously accurate. Across Canada, Conservative premiers are exploiting the current crisis to pursue privatization, with the tacit approval of the federal government.
Alberta premier Danielle Smith has brazenly called for patients to fundraise for their own health care needs. Her government is implementing health spending accounts, a Trojan horse to inject user fees and private care into Alberta’s health system.
In a recent throne speech, Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson announced her government’s intention to expand private partnerships to deliver health care.
Ontario premier Doug Ford is planning to divert funding from his province’s hospitals toward for-profit surgical clinics. This move is expected to benefit clinic owners with a windfall of over $500 million.
We know this approach is a false solution that will exacerbate the current crisis. Just last year, in an exhaustive review of the evidence in the Cambie Surgeries case, the B.C. Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that allowing more private care in a parallel system is more expensive, fundamentally unfair and ultimately counterproductive. It found what experts and patients have long known: Privatization means line skipping for the rich, a drain on workers from a public system already short of staff and longer wait times for everyone else.
It is also poor economic policy. For-profit delivery drives up costs in the short term and make us dangerously vulnerable to corporate ransom in the long term. It is a frontal assault on our public health care system, and it must be stopped in its tracks.
Unfortunately, the government has demonstrated a troubling lack of concern in the face of this privatization agenda. The Prime Minister has even called Doug Ford’s for-profit clinics scheme an example of “innovation.” This should come as no surprise. While the Liberals may claim to defend public health care, their record demonstrates otherwise.
After promising to negotiate a new health accord in the 2015 election, the Liberal government instead adopted the very health transfer formula imposed by Stephen Harper. By unilaterally cutting annual federal transfer increases from 6% to 3%, when the need to tread water was 5.2%, Harper had baked in a recipe for systemic decay. The Liberals’ decision to adopt that funding formula has deprived our health care system of over $30 billion to date.
Now, after years of inaction in the face of a growing crisis, the Liberal government has come forward with the bare minimum needed to address this deliberate underfunding.
While initially indicating that it was offering nearly $200 billion for health care over the next decade, a claim repeated by the Prime Minister today in this chamber, it turns out that three-quarters of that money is existing Canada health transfer funding that would have flowed to the provinces and territories without any new agreement. In reality, there is only $4.6 billion per year in new federal spending on the table, and that has to be split among 10 provinces and three territories. To put this in perspective, total health care spending in Canada for 2022 was $331 billion, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
While this additional federal funding is urgently needed to help stabilize our health care system, it is far from sufficient to provide the generational fix that we need to the current crisis. It is a band-aid solution for a gaping wound. As Dr. Kevin Smith, president of Toronto’s University Health Network, just noted, “If we look at the demands—the number of new Canadians we’re expecting a year and the aging of the population—it’ll come close to addressing inflation. It won’t come close to addressing massive transformation.” Canada’s nurses are already expressing discouragement.
Most troubling of all, the federal proposal leaves the door wide open for premiers who are pursuing private, for-profit health care schemes. New Democrats have strongly asserted the condition that additional public dollars must go to public care, and yet the Prime Minister did not raise a single concern with the premiers about their privatization plans at yesterday’s summit, nor did he attach a single condition of his funding proposal to prevent it.
Canadians need their federal government to champion public health care, instead of standing back while Conservative premiers and others seek to systematically dismantle it. Real innovation is better support for health professionals, shorter wait times in hospitals and access to care based on need. It is expanded team-based care, preventative care and supports for aging at home. It is universal access to prescription drugs, dental care and mental health care.
New Democrats will never stop fighting to protect, strengthen and expand public health care across Canada. We know that we can deliver a public health care system that is world-class, timely and accessible for all, but this will not happen without national leadership, a full financial partnership and unwavering commitment to equity. The government’s offer yesterday is but a start to what needs to be done.
New Democrats will continue to do our part to build the high-quality public health care system that Canadians want, need and deserve.
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- Feb/8/23 8:03:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just before the holidays, I pressed the Prime Minister to follow through on a critical election promise, which was to fund a new $4.5-billion mental health transfer to the provinces and territories with the Canada mental health transfer. At the time I was pushing for it to be in budget 2023.
That echoed the call of 65 organizations across the country that were similarly calling for the acceleration of the implementation of this transfer and for it to be in budget 2023. They included the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Canadian Association of Community Health Centres, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Canadian Federation of Students, the Alzheimer Society and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The list goes on and on, so I appreciate the chance to come back to this question because at the time the question was not answered and I have not had clarification since.
I have two points I would like to leave with the parliamentary secretary for her to comment on.
First, mental health is health. It deserves dedicated funding. Mental illnesses and substance use disorders will affect one in three people in their lifetime. We know that the pandemic has only made this worse. Of these folks, one in three cannot get the care that they need. That adds up to almost 4,000 people in my community waiting for mental health and addictions care.
I have had the chance to speak with some of these folks myself. Last summer, I was speaking with a mom on her doorstep while she was in tears, describing her teenaged daughter and the mental health challenges she was facing. I spoke with a nurse this past summer who told me about the number of people that she is seeing at Grand River Hospital's emergency department who should have seen a psychiatrist or a mental health professional months before.
That is why dedicated funding for mental health is so important. It would also, of course, take pressure off of other areas in our health care system. It would take pressure off of emergency departments, doctors, social services and the millions of people who are suffering. It is, of course, why the 65 organizations I mentioned earlier are pushing for this promise to be followed through on.
My second point is that election promises matter. The Liberal 2021 campaign platform indicates a comprehensive plan for mental health care across Canada. The plan goes on to say that they would, “Commit to permanent, ongoing funding for mental health services under the Canada Mental Health Transfer”.
Call me a radical, but I believe it is important that political parties and their leaders follow through on the promises they make. I think it is important for our democracy that this is the case and for our Parliament to keep them accountable to it.
I expect the parliamentary secretary will make mention of an important announcement made just yesterday in health care. I have read the announcement multiple times but, as I parse through it, there is no mention of the mental health transfer specifically and nothing about dedicated funds for mental health.
My question for the parliamentary secretary tonight is this: Can she make it clear whether the governing party continues to be committed to the Canada mental health transfer, and whether the $4.5 billion will be included in budget 2023?
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- Feb/8/23 8:07:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, there is no health without mental health. That is why access to mental health and substance use supports, including at the community level, is a fundamental piece of work that we want to undertake with the provinces and territories.
I think we all know our health system is facing major challenges, made worse by the pandemic. As we work with the provinces to fix it, we have to make sure that mental health and substance use care is integrated transparently as an integral and equal part of our universal health care system.
I believe the proposal we put forward to the premiers yesterday provides both the resources and the mechanism to get us there.
We are keeping our commitment to transfer billions of dollars to the provinces and territories in the coming years to support mental health, but we are doing so by increasing the Canada health transfer, which includes mental health, and by providing $25 billion over 10 years under long-term integrated bilateral agreements.
At the working meeting with the provincial premiers, the federal government announced that it will increase health funding to the provinces and territories by $196.1 billion over 10 years, including $46.2 billion in new funding.
This funding includes an immediate, unconditional $2 billion Canada health transfer top-up to address immediate pressures on the health care system. A 5% CHT guarantee for the next five years will be provided through annual top-up payments as required. This measure is projected to provide an additional $17.3 billion over 10 years in new support.
The last top-up payment will be rolled into the CHT base at the end of the five years to ensure a permanent funding increase, providing certainty and sustainability to provinces and territories. With this guarantee, the CHT is projected to grow by 33% over the next five years, and 61% over the next 10 years.
We are also providing $25 billion over 10 years to advance shared health priorities through tailored bilateral agreements that will support the needs of people in each province and territory in four areas of shared priority: family health services, health workers and backlogs, mental health and substance use, and a modernized health system.
We believe these bilateral agreements are the most effective way to incorporate shared priorities into this funding, to reflect the unique needs of each province and territory, and to support mental health as part of an integrated patient-centred approach. The goal of this collaborative work and these bilateral agreements is to provide Canadians with a multidisciplinary system of care.
This approach integrates mental health into all the shared priorities, from improving access to mental health through primary care, to improving data and sharing information on health between the professionals that are consulted, or the approach to address the labour shortage in the health and mental health care sectors and to provide better mental health support to prevent burnout.
These are results that will improve access to the supports Canadians need when they need it.
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- Feb/8/23 8:21:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this issue is very serious.
No one likes to imagine an older member of their family having to travel a long distance for proper medical care. This government recognizes the problem, and we know of the stress and harm it inflicts on Inuit families and their communities, so we have been working hard to improve health care in Nunavut. We are constantly working with indigenous partners and territorial officials to design culturally relevant health care that will meet the needs of the community.
We have supported the health care needs of Nunavut, and the other territories, during the pandemic and postpandemic, and we will continue to support the territorial governments and the people of Nunavut, so that their health and well-being are a priority.
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