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Context: House Hansard - 162 - Feb/16/23

Mr. Maninder Sidhu (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:04:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), and consistent with the current policy on the tabling of treaties in Parliament, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the treaties entitled “Amendments to Annexes I and II of the International Convention against Doping in Sport”, notified on October 1, 2022; “Protocol on the Status of International Military Headquarters set up pursuant to the North Atlantic Treaty”, done at Paris on August 28, 1952; and “Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents”, adopted at the Hague on October 5, 1961.

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Hon. David Lametti (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:05:04 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-40

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-40, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal a regulation (miscarriage of justice reviews).

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Mr. Peter Schiefke (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:06:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities entitled “Enhancing the Efficient, Affordable Operation of Canada's Airports”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report. I also want to add that the committee has done an outstanding job. Thank you to the members, witnesses, clerk and analysts.

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Mr. Dan Muys (Flamborough—Glanbrook, CPC)

Feb/16/23 10:06:40 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today and table a supplementary report on behalf of my Conservative colleagues on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. This supplementary report is tabled in both official languages. It is in response to the report that was just tabled by the committee chair, and I would echo his words. We thank the chair and our colleagues on the committee from other parties for their collaboration on the recommendations contained in that report. However, Conservative members believe that the recommendations do not go far enough and are tabling this supplementary report as a result. Our report makes four additional recommendations that reflect witness testimony we heard. They include a comprehensive review of airport governance, operations, training, accountability and fee structures, a competition review, the removal of the federal carbon tax on air travel and to permanently scrap the ArriveCAN app. Conservatives believe that any effort to enhance the efficient, affordable operation of our airports is incomplete without these steps, and more. We ask for a government response to our supplementary report.

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Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Feb/16/23 10:08:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition initiated by my constituents Mike and Dianne Ilesic, whose son Brian, along with two other victims, was brutally murdered in an armed robbery. A fourth victim survived but sustained permanent head injuries. Mike and Dianne felt some sense of relief believing that they would never have to face Brian's killer at a parole hearing, after he was the first mass killer to be sentenced under a law passed by the previous Harper Conservative government that gave judges the discretion to impose consecutive parole ineligibility periods for mass killers to take into account each life lost. However, that law was struck down unjustly by the Supreme Court last year. Now Brian's killer could be eligible for parole in just 14 short years. Mike and Dianne were alarmed when the Minister of Justice failed to respond to the decision and even went so far as to say that he respected the decision. Mike and Dianne, along with petitioners, are calling on the Minister of Justice to, for once, stand up for victims and respond to this decision by invoking the notwithstanding clause so that families like theirs never have to endure a parole hearing, and so that the worst of the worst mass killers in this country remain behind bars, where they belong.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/16/23 10:09:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, just listening to the last presentation, what I heard was more of an explanation, followed by what the essence of the petition was. I raise it to your attention so that members are aware that it should not be in that fashion.

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The Speaker

Feb/16/23 10:10:07 a.m.
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I want to remind the hon. members that when presenting a petition, they are here to give us a very concise explanation of what the petition is, not to go very long and make a statement. We will keep that for the debates that come out later on when they are dealt with in the House. The hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Feb/16/23 10:10:30 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be concise. My constituents from Union Bay have signed a petition calling on this House and the Minister of Environment to respond to the environmental disaster that is taking place in my riding. They cite that there is significant risk to workers and the environment associated with ship recycling due to the presence of a wide variety of hazardous materials in end-of-life vehicles. Most importantly, unlike other jurisdictions, they cite that Canada lacks standards on ship recycling and that unregulated ship recycling activities are putting our oceans, coastal communities and workers at risk. They are calling on the government to develop enforceable federal standards to reduce the negative environmental and social impacts of ship recycling that meet or exceed those set out in the EU ship recycling regulation; provide assistance through loans and grants to long-term, reputable ship recycling companies to facilitate implementation of new federal standards into their operations; and develop a strategy for recycling end-of-life federally owned marine vehicles. This is an obligation of Canada under the Basel Convention, and the petitioners are calling on the government to act.

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Ms. Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:12:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of the residents of my riding of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, principally Iranian Canadians, who are urging the Government of Canada to expedite the implementation of the sanctions that it placed on the Iranian regime and the IRGC and to continue to support the fight for human rights for Iranian women, children and political prisoners. While this government has implemented some of the most far-reaching sanctions of any country and there are signs that the pressure from the protests internally and from sanctions from many countries, including Canada, is resulting in positive movement, the sanctions must continue. The petitioners are calling on the government to invest resources to expedite the continued enforcement of these sanctions and not only ban sanctioned persons from entering Canada, but investigate and remove those who are in Canada as soon as possible. They also petition the government to freeze and/or seize any Canadian financial assets belonging to those who are sanctioned. I would like to add that many Iranian Canadians were hesitant to sign this petition requiring their full name and location, for fear that they or their families would be targeted by the IRGC, both abroad and in Canada. Their fear is real and they call on the government to continue to implement and increase these sanctions until freedom and peace for Iranians in Iran, Canada and elsewhere are restored.

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Mrs. Karen Vecchio (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC)

Feb/16/23 10:13:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to present this important petition, and I am hoping that we will see many more of these come forward, demanding that the Canadian government urgently follow through with the actions against the Iranian regime, which includes making the regime, the IRGC and top leaders inadmissible to Canada, expanding sanctions against those responsible for human rights violations and denying them entry to Canada, and investing more money to allow sanctioned Iranian persons' assets to be quickly frozen and seized. Petitioners ask that the regime and its most senior officials, including the IRGC, be immediately banned from entering Canada, that current and former senior officials who are present here be investigated and removed from the country as soon as possible, and finally, that the Government of Canada, along with its partners and allies, have Iran removed from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. I am so proud to present this with 31 signatures from Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/16/23 10:14:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am also honoured to rise today, like my hon. colleague from Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill and my colleague from the Conservative Party. A number of us have received petitions from constituents and concerned Canadians about the appalling situation for the citizens of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the petitioners note, has demonstrated a history of violence against its own citizens, including the killing of 1,500 protesters in November 2019, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is at the epicentre of the Iranian regime. We know that women in Iran have long faced legal, political, economic and social challenges, and we have seen increased violence in a crackdown against women and girls, who are being killed even for the simple failure to wear a scarf as prescribed by the regime. The women and girls have been at the forefront of the recent uprising. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to follow through with actions against the Iranian regime, which include making the regime, the IRGC and top leaders inadmissible to Canada, expanding sanctions against those individuals responsible for human rights violations, denying them entry into Canada and, through the Minister of Global Affairs and the Government of Canada, along with our partners and allies, having Iran removed from the Commission on the Status of Women within the United Nations. These and many other measures the petitioners hope the Government of Canada will pursue with vigour.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney

Feb/16/23 10:16:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43(2)(a), I would like to inform the House that all New Democratic Party speaking slots will be divided in two.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:17:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

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Stand
Ask

The Speaker

Feb/16/23 10:17:03 a.m.
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Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

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Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP)

Feb/16/23 10:19:21 a.m.
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moved: That, given that, (i) during the 2021 federal election campaign, the prime minister was harshly critical of the Conservative Party of Canada proposal to encourage “innovation” in the health care sector by expanding for-profit provision of publicly funded services, (ii) the prime minister has now dramatically changed his position and has lauded as ‘’innovation” Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s proposed expansion of for-profit clinics, (iii) for-profit clinics would poach workers from the public system and lead to longer wait times, (iv) there are multiple public reports of two-tier health care in Canada, where people are charged for faster access to care, such as family doctors or surgery, the House call on the government to: (a) express disappointment that the prime minister has promoted Ontario’s for-profit health plans as “innovation”; (b) ensure that recently announced health care funding is not used for the expansion of for-profit health care, but instead used to rebuild and innovate within the public system by hiring more staff and reducing wait times; and (c) enforce the Canada Health Act and immediately move to close loopholes that allow for the growth of two-tier health care in Canada. He said: Mr. Speaker, Canada's health care system is based on the principle of access to care based on need rather than ability to pay. A well-designed, well-funded single-payer system can provide fair, effective and high-quality care to make this a reality. Our public health care system is certainly facing some challenges, but the solution lies in strengthening our public health care system, not weakening it. If we introduce private funding, then need will come second to ability to pay. That would result in less accessibility, longer wait times and higher costs in the public system. It would also lead to increased administrative costs, in other words, more money for insurance companies and less money for health care. Introducing private payment prioritizes care based on ability to pay, not need. It leads to worse access and wait times, as well as higher costs in the public system. It also leads to higher administrative costs, which means less money for patient care. There is not only little evidence that private, for-profit investor-owned corporations can provide better quality care or reduce costs. In fact, there are many examples that show precisely the opposite. Those seeking to improve the quality, equality, access, efficiency and equity of health care services in Canada can do so by focusing on strengthening our public system rather than dismantling it. Proponents of privatization claim that increasing private pay and/or private for-profit delivery will reduce wait times, either overall or for those in the publicly funded system specifically; reduce costs to the public system; and lead to better health outcomes. There is perhaps no more serious and dangerous myth in Canadian politics today than that statement. I want to review the situation today and some of the factors that show this is not the case. Everyone deserves health care when they need it, no matter the size of their wallet. No one should need to wait in pain because there are not enough health care workers or because the wealthiest jump the queue. However, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, today people are waiting in pain for hours, days or weeks, and sometimes months or years. Folks are losing their quality of life while they wait for surgery. In addition, health care workers are run off their feet, burned out and exhausted in every corner of this country. The Prime Minister could make things better for patients by hiring and rebuilding the public health system. Otherwise, he can contribute to making the crisis even worse by helping to fund for-profit schemes that will poach staff from the public system. We are not surprised the Conservative Party loves for-profit care. It will make billions for corporations and rich CEOs. This is right out of the Conservative playbook: starve a public service and use that as an excuse to hand it off to the private sector. A condition of federal health care funding should be investing to fix public universal Canadian health care, not funnelling funds and staff into for-profit facilities. New Democrats want health care to move towards more public delivery, not farther away from it. If new bilateral health agreements do not result in thousands of new health care workers in our public system, it will fail. Ottawa urgently needs to partner with the provinces and territories to help provinces train and hire more health care workers, respect current health care workers and pay them better, and recognize the international training of thousands of health care workers who are already in Canada and ready to work. During the 2021 election, the former Conservative leader said that “he would support provinces in introducing privately led health care ‘innovations’”. At that time, our current Prime Minister told Canadians this was evidence that a Conservative government would threaten Canada's public health care system, saying that the Conservative leader “believes in a for-profit, private health care system and he will not tell people what exactly he wants to do with that.” My, how things change once one is in office. The Prime Minister recently reversed his position by calling Ontario premier Doug Ford's private for-profit clinic scheme an example of “innovation”. Let us just quickly review the privatization plans by Conservative premiers across the country. Doug Ford has said that he wants to divert funding from his province's hospitals towards for-profit surgical clinics. His plan includes an expansion of private cataract surgeries, MRI and CT scans, minimally invasive gynecological surgeries, and knee and hip replacements. Ontario's plans to contract out to private for-profit clinics for cataract surgeries is expected to cost the government 25% more per surgery. Moving only hip and knee replacements to for-profit clinics will benefit owners, with an estimated windfall of half a billion dollars annually. The owners of Herzig Eye Institute, one of the top private surgery clinics that lobbied the Ford government to expand private cataract surgeries, have donated thousands of dollars to the Ontario Conservatives. In a recent throne speech, Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson announced her government's intention to seek out private partnerships to deliver health care. Saskatchewan is moving forward with plans to reduce its backlog of surgeries by privatizing certain procedures. In January, Alberta announced that it is contracting Canadian Surgery Solutions to perform more than 3,000 orthopaedic surgeries covered by the provincial medicare plan. Why are they doing this, and how are they getting away with it? There are several loopholes here, but I want to itemize one of them. There is a serious loophole in the Canada Health Act. As we speak, private clinics across Canada are advertising to prospective patients that within weeks they can get surgeries that typically take six months or more under provincial health plans. All the patient has to do is pay them $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the clinic. CIHI estimates that the average cost per joint replacement operation in public hospitals in Canada is $12,223, which means that the private clinics are charging patients roughly double what the surgery costs the provincial medicare system. To those who claim that private surgery is cheaper, one can tell right away that when one adds profit and extra administrative costs, diverting money to the private system will cost our public system more. Doug Ford says, “Oh, that is okay. We are still paying for it with public dollars”. Why would Canadians ever tolerate paying twice as much for surgery in a private system than they would in the public system? The Canada Health Act prohibits extra billing. This means that doctors are banned from charging patients more than the medicare rate for an insured service. However, private clinics are getting around that by operating only on patients from other provinces. Imagine the loophole in this country where, if one is in Manitoba, one can sell a private surgery to someone from Ontario but not somebody in Manitoba. This violates the fundamental principle of the Canada Health Act. It is a gaping loophole in our system. We are calling on the government to close that loophole right now if it truly cares about public health care as it says. It is not only those kinds of surgeries, though. Maple, a Loblaws-funded virtual care business based in Toronto, is charging patients $69 per doctor's visit or $30 per month for 30 visits per year if one wants to go bulk. In-person service would be covered by Ontario's public insurance plan. Ontario has insured virtual visits under OHIP, but Maple has found a way around the province's rules by connecting patients with a nurse practitioner or physician outside of the province. This is another gaping loophole. That is not to mention the odious practice that has been going on in this country for years, where people appear at private clinics only to be upsold. They come for cataract surgery but are told that if they want a better lens, they have to pay more. That kind of introduction of private pay and access to health care is a fundamental violation of the medicare system that Canadians hold so dear in this country. Let us talk about the evidence against privatization. A recent study led by Dr. Shoo Lee, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto and former pediatrician-in-chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, looked at international experiences to determine what impact private financing would have on Canada's health system. That study found that private financing, both private for-profit insurance and private out-of-pocket financing, negatively affects the universality, equity, accessibility and quality of care. It is not just that study. A recent study of England's National Health Service found that as outsourcing to the private for-profit sector increased from 2013 to 2020, so did the rates of death from treatable conditions. I look forward to hearing any questions. Let us stand up for public health care in this country and make sure that every dollar of public funding goes to public health care in Canada.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/16/23 10:29:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the motion brought forward by the New Democrats. I have always felt that a good, healthy debate and discussion about Canada's health care is long overdue. I welcome the idea of bringing the Canada Health Act into the debate. My question to the member is specific. When I was the health care critic in the province of Manitoba, I used to argue that one of the greatest threats to Canada's health care system was not only the issue of financial resources, albeit that is critically important, but also the way we manage changes. We could probably have a healthier health care system if we saw more provincial comparisons, learned the best practices and looked at ways to improve or manage the changes necessary to meet future demand in our health care system. Can he provide his thoughts on that?

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Mr. Don Davies

Feb/16/23 10:30:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not disagree that provinces and territories should be sharing information and best practices, but the debate today is about national leadership. It is about the member's government and what it is going to do to help ensure that we not only protect but also strengthen and expand our public health care system. When the Prime Minister of the member's government is applauding a privatization plan by a Conservative premier in this country, that is not the kind of national leadership we need. We want the government to say plainly to Canadians that every additional dollar of health care funding in this country will go to strengthening our public health care system and not be diverted to private, for-profit care. That would make our public system worse. It would increase costs, extend wait times and make care for Canadians worse.

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Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)

Feb/16/23 10:31:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for his presentation and for speaking on this. I know he is very well aware that there is a difference between federal and provincial health care. The majority of health care in Canada falls into the provincial jurisdiction. He sort of alluded to this, but could he provide his thoughts on whether we need to sit down, look at the Canada Health Act and consider that section straight off the bat? Do we need to address that for Canadians?

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Mr. Don Davies

Feb/16/23 10:32:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we absolutely need to open up the Canada Health Act, but we need to do it for the purpose that the NDP is talking about today. This is to close the loopholes that are allowing private, for-profit care to creep into our system. Right now, we have a shortage of doctors in our hospitals. We have a shortage of nurses in this country. Staff are burnt out at every hospital. How can it possibly be a positive development to allow private clinics to drain people from that system and then allow access based on private access to care? We have to add profit and administrative costs to the system. By the way, the United States pays 31¢ out of every dollar to administration. In Canada, we pay under 2%. Administrative costs are much higher in the private system. If we drain those workers, what is going to happen to the wait times in the public system? Obviously, they will get longer. We need to close the loopholes to make it clear that all publicly insured services in this country are delivered in the public health care system. Let us build up our public system. Canadians deserve to have timely access to world-class care. They are not getting it now. New Democrats will continue to make proposals so they can get that.

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Mr. Luc Desilets (Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, BQ)

Feb/16/23 10:33:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very nice to hear my colleague speaking French. His accent is excellent. I would like to once again remind him that Quebec and the provinces are the ones responsible for the health care model. The Supreme Court clearly ruled in that regard in Chaoulli. It stated that a person who is waiting for surgery cannot be banned from using private health care. What does my colleague think about that?

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