- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Montcalm
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $126,025.95
- Government Page
- Apr/16/24 12:18:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no one will be surprised to hear me say that, by continually oppressing us, by not recognizing that we are a national government, by making sure that any recognition is merely symbolic and has no legislative impact at all, the federal government is making sure that, one day, Quebeckers will decide to take control of their own affairs and make Quebec its own country.
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Madam Speaker, after what I have heard, I would like to begin my speech by commenting briefly on the answer given by the Conservative health critic, with whom I serve on the Standing Committee on Health. In his answer, he spoke strictly about the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces and made no mention of what kind of additional funding the Conservatives would provide for health transfers. If I understood him correctly, basically, the only real option Quebeckers have is the Bloc Québécois.
On one hand, we have the Liberal Party, which says that it will give the provinces money but only on its own terms and while infringing on their jurisdictions. The Liberals are duplicating programs and efforts. On the other hand, we have the Conservative Party, which says that it will not bother the provinces and will respect their jurisdictions but it will not give them a single cent more. That is the choice facing Canadian voters, except in Quebec, where they can vote for the Bloc Québécois.
I will begin my speech with a brief comment, and I hope that the Minister of Health will listen carefully to what I am saying. He always talks about the great discussions that he has with the Quebec health minister. I will come back to that a little later.
I want to begin by saying that in June 2019, the Quebec national state, through its National Assembly, with a single voice and across party lines, responded to this desire to implement coast-to-coast pharmacare. The National Assembly and the national state of the people of Quebec have not changed their position on this issue. The motion that was adopted the day after the Hoskins report reads as follows:
THAT it reaffirm the Government of Québec's exclusive jurisdiction over health;
THAT it also reaffirm that Québec has had its own general prescription insurance plan for 20 years;
I should point out that it has now been nearly 28 years.
THAT it indicate to the federal government that Québec refuses to adhere to a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan;
THAT it ask the Government of Québec to maintain its prescription drug insurance plan and that it demand full financial compensation from the federal government if a project for a pan-Canadian pharmacare plan is officially tabled.
That is what is going on right now. This motion was moved in June 2019. The House passed a motion twice on recognizing Quebec as a nation. When we respect a nation as a national state, by allegedly giving it more than mere token recognition, then the least we can do is avoid the kind of heavy-handed approach taken by the current federal Liberal minister of health. We have to sit down respectfully with the people who administer a plan, which is not perfect.
In fact, I imagine that if the federal government was being stingy with the health transfers, it was because it wanted to funnel some of the money into pharmacare and dental insurance. We will talk about that later. In this case, the government should have come and sat down to see who has the expertise, learn how the Quebec system operates and arrange to provide the full compensation that Quebec is calling for, with no strings attached. In that regard, we need to stop all the speculation around what Quebec wants to do with the money.
Quebec’s health minister was very clear when he said, “we have no problem adding this money to the drug insurance program. But it has to be without conditions. It is not up to them to decide what the best drug coverage is for Quebeckers”.
His intention seems pretty clear. There is respect for Quebec symbolically. They call Quebec a nation to avoid looking foolish. When it comes down to it, though, this must not have any legislative consequences, period. The debate could end here if full compensation were offered. The bill provides for a list to be prepared. Earlier I asked the minister if he knew the list of drugs covered in Quebec, but he did not wish to answer my question. Do members know how many drugs are covered by Quebec’s drug insurance plan? The answer is 8,000. I wanted to bring this 792-page list, but I found it a bit heavy.
These sorcerers' apprentices would have us believe they will arrange all this in no time at all. They will create the Canadian drug agency while in Quebec, there is already infrastructure. Ottawa has so much money that they are going to create another structure. There will be a duplication of structures. Is the Institut national d'excellence en santé et en services sociaux, or INESSS, not doing its job properly? It has been 28 years since Quebec has been making decisions, analyzing all the elements at a molecular level and determining whether these elements, many of which are innovative, are to be reimbursed. They are included in the list. Whether we are talking about the public part or the private part of this mixed plan, everyone has access to the same drugs.
This would have been a great opportunity to respect the Quebec nation. The Quebec national state and all its parties are asking for the same thing. The leader of the NDP, that progressive party, is lecturing us. He is completely out to lunch, though, when he says that the health problem in Quebec has to do with the fact that the government has not invested enough in health care. The Government of Quebec increased its budget by 50%. It has enacted reforms to try to do more with less. It implemented a number of reforms and a lot of structural modifications in an effort to achieve greater health efficiencies.
We have a partner that has not been putting enough money on the table. Then, a few years later, this same partner has the nerve to say that Quebec does not know how to manage its own health care system and tries to explain how it should be done. The first thing that partner should do is hand over the money. That would be a good starting point. Quebec's current resistance to all this federal interference should not be that hard to grasp. It is easy for the Prime Minister to say that he does not care about jurisdictions. The Prime Minister does not care about the Constitution. Well, let him reopen the Constitution, then. We will see if he really does not care. The government likes to lecture everyone else, but cannot even take care of its own people. That is the federal government. I will come back to that.
One might think this bill was well-intentioned, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the devil is in the details. I asked only one question: How many prescription drugs will be covered by the national public pharmacare program with a single universal payer? Will Quebec's list be used? Will Quebec have to take any prescription drugs off its list? Will INESSS be made redundant, or will it be able to continue doing its good work? Why is a Canadian agency being created to supersede the process we have in Quebec? We are not getting any answers to these questions. However, the minister claims he has maintained a very good dialogue with Quebec. I gave an example. I think the minister is having a dialogue of the deaf, where he listens only to himself and not the other party.
It seems to me that it was quite clear when Quebec's health minister, Christian Dubé, said, “we have no problem adding this money to the drug insurance program. But it has to be without conditions”. He then added the following:
The government is not only refusing to give us the money we asked for in health transfers, but it also wants to interfere in an area under Quebec's jurisdiction. The federal government knows full well that this is a provincial jurisdiction. We have had our own pharmacare program since 1997. That is almost 30 years. We also cover the widest range of prescription drugs of all the Canadian provinces.
The federal health minister just told us that he has very good conversations with him, even though the Premier of Quebec felt it necessary to hold a press conference to tell the federal Liberal government—which is in a coalition with the NDP and was not so centralist before the NDP got involved—to mind its own business. The minister just told us this morning that they have very good conversations, but when we stand up in question period, we are told that we are trying to pick a fight. All we are saying is that the federal government should mind its own business. We are only relaying the message from the National Assembly of Quebec, not from a single party but from all parties, on pharmacare.
The reason Ottawa has money in the first place is because of the fiscal imbalance. Well, we are going to enhance our own program. I challenge anyone here this morning to prove they could do a more competent job managing our program than those who are doing it right now in Quebec City. I challenge anyone willing to make that claim to go make their case to those managing the program and prove that they have the competence. I am talking not only about provincial competence in the jurisdictional sense, but also about incompetence. In that respect, I have a short list I will return to later.
Bill C-64 has put the cart before the horse, as the saying goes. Today, rather than sitting down, holding a summit, talking to people, looking at what was being done and coming up with something of substance, the government announced an intention of putting something in place. However, it did not talk to anyone, it is not open to anything without conditions, and it is saying that Quebec must march to the beat of Ottawa's drum.
This is not well intentioned; this is a political deal to stay in power until October 2025. That is what this bill is really about. That is what is behind it, because no one could be this keen to jump into as sensitive and critical a field as pharmacare.
Drugs in 2024 are not like they used to be in 1996 or 1997. We are not talking about codeine or Tylenol. We are talking about innovative molecules that often give rise to treatments that could potentially allow patients to avoid surgeries and transplants. A case in point is Trikafta for cystic fibrosis. Patients can take two pills and a glass of water a day, instead of being hospitalized for 280 or 320 days a year, instead of having to get a lung transplant. This drug needs to be covered. How will the list be compiled, and how can we trust the federal government, which starts things but then walks away?
After all, this is the government that pilfered from the EI fund and from workers and that never did the right thing by returning the money. This is the government that dumped the federal deficit on the provinces and cut health transfers in the mid-1990s. Jean Chrétien travelled the world, boasting to the G7 countries that all he had to do to balance his budget was cut health transfers and that the best part was that people were protesting in front of the Quebec National Assembly, not in front of the Parliament of Canada. That is what the federal government is like.
It is creating a program now, but how many years will it be before the government disengages because it got the math wrong, it is unable to manage the program properly, and the infrastructure is cumbersome and redundant, when the money should be on the ground, going directly to patients as quickly as possible?
The minister delivered a very nice speech, saying the governments get along really well, the principles are sound, the Quebec government wants to co-operate. In reality, the Quebec government's response was to ask Ottawa to mind its own business.
The federal government is not even capable of handling its own affairs properly. Think about the whole F-35 saga or the lack of investment in defence. Think about Phoenix, the borders, passports, asylum seekers. The national emergency stockpile was empty when the pandemic hit. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network had been dismantled and was ineffective at the start of the pandemic. The federal government should mind its own business and clean up its own house before lecturing us.
It lectures the provinces about health care management, but it is the worst employer for federal health employees. Communities under the federal government's jurisdiction are neglected. The funding Ottawa provides for public health care is insufficient, to be sure, but the federal government treats its employees worse than the provinces do. How it can then lecture anyone, I just do not know.
The bill seeks to put in place principles, and then, based on these principles, a list will be compiled. After this list is compiled, an agency and then a committee will be established. The government is so clueless about where it wants to go with this that it is tabling a bill to create a committee that will make recommendations for rolling out pharmacare. Bravo.
The Bloc Québécois is not opposed to state pharmacare. It already exists in Quebec. It is far from perfect, there are positives and negatives, but it does guarantee minimum coverage. What we are calling for is what the National Assembly has always demanded: the right to opt out with full compensation. Given how long Quebec has been administering pharmacare, if there was a real need elsewhere, I imagine others would have followed suit. However, that was not the case. We are going to ensure that no one is ever allowed to dismantle our system or reduce our coverage.
Medication is currently free for people aged 18 and under. The system is not perfect, of course, and there are certain fees involved. However, if we had the money, we could increase free coverage without compromising on the list of drugs we cover.
Does the federal government really know how much it is going to cost to make everything free from the first dollar invested? I am not sure these sorcerers' apprentices really know what they are doing. Based on the reaction of the National Assembly and the Quebec government, I am certain the federal government has never sat down with them to have a serious conversation about it. Quebec's example and expertise are not going to be on the agenda as the government implements its system.
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- Apr/8/24 2:04:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week we were sad to learn of the passing of the former Liberal member of the National Assembly of Quebec for Chapleau, Benoît Pelletier, a gentleman who was beloved by all. Having had the opportunity to sit with him at the National Assembly of Quebec, I can confirm that. More importantly, no matter how intense his political jousting might have been, Benoît Pelletier never crossed the line of intellectual integrity. That is why he has our utmost respect.
He was one of the most prominent constitutional law experts of his generation. Within the Liberal family he embodied nothing less than the national consciousness of Quebec. He was a true federalist who believed both in the importance of Ottawa respecting Quebec's jurisdictions and in the pride of Quebeckers. Today we are losing one of the last Quebeckers who vigorously defended that perspective, intelligently and in good faith. Our thoughts are with his family and his loved ones, who will miss him very much.
Thank you, Benoît Pelletier.
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- Mar/18/24 2:40:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, even when Ottawa and Quebec agree on health care matters, the federal government threatens to say no. Quebec has reluctantly accepted the inadequate health transfer increase, but Ottawa is still threatening to turn off the tap if Quebec does not comply with its conditions within 13 days.
Even when Ottawa and Quebec have the same goals and agree on things, Ottawa threatens to withhold the money if Quebec does not sign off on each of its conditions. Does the federal government want Quebeckers to get down on their knees and beg for their money?
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- Feb/29/24 2:58:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when it comes to health, Quebeckers want care, not threats.
A year after forcing Quebec to accept an increase in transfers that cover only one-sixth of our needs, the federal government is threatening to steal $900 million from Quebec if it does not meet the government's conditions by March 31. The Liberals are once again playing political games at Quebeckers' expense and with Quebeckers' own money.
When will the Liberals stop holding patients hostage and start paying Quebec the money it is entitled to?
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- Nov/21/23 2:16:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, which we are marking with the Bowvember campaign.
Quebeckers are especially motivated this year, because it was prostate cancer that took the life of Karl Tremblay, the lead singer of Les Cowboys Fringants. He was not even 50 years old.
Growing a moustache or wearing the Procure bow tie is great, because it helps get information out there and it supports medical research. However, there is something even more important that all men can do to fight prostate cancer, and that is to get screened for it.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to extend a friendly invitation to you and to all my colleagues in government and in opposition that might, in other circumstances, be considered unparliamentary. My message is this: “Guys, go and get your prostate checked”.
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- May/11/23 4:57:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP members obviously do not want me to read that quote, and yet it is universalist. As I was saying, “Multiculturalism is much more like living side by side and harbouring frustrations with one another, with results that fall far short of the ideal presented by politicians.”
The truth is that multiculturalism rejects the idea of a common culture, encouraging the coexistence of multiple cultures side by side. It favours cohabitation based on indifference rather than on recognition and the respect of differences, which invariably leads to the ghettoization of cultures.
That is why what we in Quebec want is an intercultural model based on three fundamental principles that form a common standard that protects Quebec's distinctiveness. Being a Quebecker has nothing to do with looking like a Quebecker. Being a Quebecker is first and foremost a political choice. A person can identify as a Canadian. I respect that. They can also identify as a Quebecker. We hope that everyone who settles in Quebec can get on board with that and identify as Quebeckers. It is up to them how they identify themselves.
We are asking for respect for what defines the soul of the nation, in other words French. We cannot welcome 500,000 people a year and not tell them that Quebec's official language is French.
Secularism is a principle that my colleagues surely agree with. It is important to Quebec, which had its Quiet Revolution and separated church and state. The other principle is equality between men and women. From there, each person, with their diversity, can indeed come build the country with us and that is what we want.
How is any of that xenophobic? How is it racist? These are values born of philosophical liberalism that are meant to be at the very core of the political foundation of every member in the House.
I am out of time. I thank the members from the NDP for sabotaging my speech.
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- May/11/23 4:55:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to quote Boucar Diouf, a Quebecker who considers himself a part of Quebec society and who says that our society is a close-knit one. He said, “It is impossible to live together without truly embodying the word ‘together’. Multiculturalism”—
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- May/11/23 4:50:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is not a good look on a party that calls itself progressive.
As I was saying, these are the objective and subjective criteria for a nation to be born. The people of Quebec form a nation.
Unfortunately, this recognition here is only symbolic. Indeed, the rest of Canada has always refused to enshrine that in the Constitution, to give it a legal effect. That is why Bill 101 was necessary and was passed in 1977, although we were told it was a Hitlerian law. The Quebec nation continues to speak French today thanks to this law.
At the end of the 1990s, I was saying that the use of French was declining. I kept saying that there would be an accelerated decline of French in Montreal. I was called a language zealot.
Today, on both sides of the House, they are trying to change the Official Languages Act while still considering the Quebec English-speaking community as a minority. We are now paying the price for what happened in 1982. What happened in 1982? Why has no Quebec premier, whether sovereignist or federalist, ever signed the Canadian Constitution since 1982? That is because, in 1982, we were deprived of our nationhood and minority status, quite simply.
Who forms the minority? According to the anglophones in Quebec, they do. If, indeed, the Canadian Constitution is built on the idea that there are 10 equal territories and that minority rights are protected, where do the rights of francophone Quebeckers fit in? Francophones are the minority in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Maritimes. Although they are a minority on the continent and in Canada, francophones are the majority in Quebec, which means they have no rights. That is how it was presented to the UN.
What did the UN say to Howard Galganov? It said that the so-called English-speaking minority in Quebec was not a minority, but a community that was part of the Canadian and continental majority. These things need to be remembered because I feel that, from one election to the next, historical and sociological references get lost.
I would like to say to my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie that Quebec is asking to have its differences recognized and respected. As long as it is searching for recognition and respect of those differences, it cannot deny any other the same recognition and respect of its differences.
That is why, when people arrive in Quebec, we want to be able to welcome them in dignity. Dignity is not what multiculturalism has achieved over the years, by ghettoizing differences, turning these people into cheap labour, making them incapable of earning a decent living, even though some of them hold several degrees. Juxtaposing cultures is not what will allow us to live together in harmony.
I would like to highlight what Boucar Diouf, our national Boucar, has to say about this. On the subject of multiculturalism, he said, “It is impossible to live together without truly embodying the word ‘together’.”
Madam Speaker, I think members are talking a bit too loudly across the way.
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- Feb/9/23 5:10:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I heard my colleague say that we had better things to do than to talk about the notwithstanding clause.
However, I would point out to him that the notwithstanding clause ensures two things for the Quebec nation and the Quebec National Assembly: the separation of church and state, in the case of Bill 101, and the continued existence of the French language, thanks to Bill 96.
On behalf of a nation that intends on passing the test of time, I want give my colleague the chance to reconsider his words because if he still maintains that it is a lost cause for Quebeckers, I want to make sure that he and his party face the political consequences of their position in Quebec.
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- Feb/9/23 4:04:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, I think the minister should not start a debate on that topic. It is a diversion. It is unnecessary. He is a Quebecker. The choice belongs to him. To be a Quebecker is a political choice and it is not the same as looking like a Quebecker. I suggest to him a book by Michael Mandel, a professor of constitutional law at York University in Toronto, The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Judicialization of Politics in Canada, written in the 1990s. If he has read the book, I do not think he understood it. The same applies to the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.
Now, I would like to say that I almost stood up earlier to raise a question of privilege, because the minister is misleading the House.
The Bloc motion calls for recognition of the Act respecting the Constitution Act, 1982, René Lévesque's law, which pre-emptively introduced the notwithstanding clause into all Quebec laws. This is what—
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- Dec/13/22 2:43:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, ongoing transfers are what is needed. Everyone knows that.
As the Prime Minister digs in his heels and refuses to engage with his counterparts on the subject of health care funding, 784,000 people are on waiting lists to see a medical specialist and 160,000 people are awaiting surgery. Nearly a million Quebeckers need care but cannot get it because there are not enough resources.
Can the Prime Minister explain to those one million Quebeckers why just meeting with his counterparts to talk about health transfers is too much to ask of him?
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- Apr/25/22 11:24:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the second point reads that “we need to make sure the conditions of work reflect the care standards our seniors deserve”.
Everyone agrees that we have a collective responsibility to care for our seniors as individuals. However, the conditions of work in long-term care facilities and seniors' residences do not fall under federal jurisdiction. That is the first problem, and I will come back to it.
The third point states that “the management of long-term care facilities is under provincial and territorial jurisdiction”. Here, they are basically admitting that it is none of their business. At least they are acknowledging it.
The motion continues by saying, “we share the goal of ensuring safer, better care for seniors”. Well done. I am very happy to see that the federal government has the same goal as Quebec and the provinces, that is, to ensure better quality care for seniors. That is effectively what Quebec wants.
However, health care is not under federal jurisdiction. If the federal government truly wishes to help the provinces and Quebec, it should convene a summit to discuss a sustainable increase in health care funding and health transfers, as requested unanimously by Quebec and the provinces, which are united on this. I will come back to this point.
The beginning of the second part of the motion states that, “in the opinion of the House, the government should work with the provinces and territories to (i) improve the quality and availability of long-term care homes and beds”. Quebec already has a plan for revamping its health care system. Parliamentary debates will be held to improve the plan, to determine whether it is sound and to look at the pros and cons, but that is the responsibility of the elected members of the Quebec National Assembly, not the House of Commons.
What our health care systems are missing is financial resources, meaningful recurrent investments, and a substantial increase in the federal government's contribution. That means increasing federal health transfers from 22% of system costs to 35% and increasing the escalator from 3% to 6% per year. That is what is being called for by Quebec and the provinces, as well as by many other stakeholders. I will come back to that later.
The second point in the second paragraph of the motion states, “implement strict infection prevention and control measures, including through more provincial and territorial facility inspections for long-term care homes”. Quebec has assessed, and continues to assess, its actions during the pandemic. It is not up to the federal government to tell Quebec what to do or how to do it. Besides, the feds do not even have the required expertise. The best solution the federal government can come up with is to take best practices found from coast to coast to coast and impose them, as if that were within its jurisdiction.
The third point in that second paragraph states, “develop a safe long-term care act collaboratively to ensure that seniors are guaranteed the care they deserve, no matter where they live”. The Quebec National Assembly unanimously opposed such federal standards, and let us not forget that the House of Commons voted against imposing standards when the NDP moved a motion in March 2021, in the 43rd Parliament. The Liberals voted against that at the time.
The Liberal Party must be suffering from amnesia, because during this 44th Parliament, it is at it again with this motion. I have to say, since the advent of the NDP-Liberal government, positions have become muddled. One thing remains clear: their appetite for interfering in things that do not concern them.
Has a federal government ever been defeated in an election over issues related to health? The answer is no, because the provision of health care is not a federal responsibility. In Quebec, we have often seen governments get the boot over health-related matters.
Health has been an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces since 1867. Quebec has exclusive authority over health, except when it comes to the health of indigenous peoples, military hospitals, drug approval and quarantines. It is therefore up to Quebeckers to have this debate and make the decision. In a democracy, it is up to voters to sanction their government.
A debate has been raging for months in Quebec over the issue of long-term care and the decisions that were made during the COVID‑19 crisis. That debate is still going on, and it is the Quebec government that will take steps to correct the situation and the public that will decide, this October, if it is satisfied with the actions of its government.
Quebec already has solutions. It does not need the federal government to provide them.
In his November 23, 2021, report, the ombudsman pointed out flaws, but he mostly identified measures that the Quebec government must implement so that this never happens again.
In response to that report, the Quebec government presented its plan for reforming the health care system. The plan includes an array of measures, such as large-scale recruitment, better access to data, the construction of new hospitals, and increased accountability for executives. Additionally, the coroner is still investigating. People are calling for a public inquiry into the situation at long-term care facilities.
In any case, it is up to Quebeckers to take stock of the situation and to fix their system. I have said it before, and I will say it again: Quebec already has standards. Quebec's Act respecting health services and social services includes regulations for long-term care homes. I remind members that 86% of long-term care homes in Quebec are public facilities.
The report prepared by the Canadian Armed Forces at the end of its deployment to Quebec's long-term care homes is clear. There are already plenty of standards and rules for things like contamination prevention and control and PPE. However, that was not enough to stop the virus.
Why was Canada's federal stockpile empty? Why did we send PPE to mainland China when we were about to be hit hard by the virus? The government should answer these questions before lecturing others.
The main reason these rules were more difficult to follow is also very clear: There was a labour shortage. I will quote the Canadian Armed Forces report: “According to our observations, the critical need for CHSLDs is an improved level of staff with medical training”.
If the federal government truly wants to help the provinces and Quebec get through the pandemic and improve care for our seniors, it needs to stop patronizing us. It needs to drop this idea of mandatory national standards that are ill suited to the different social and institutional contexts, and it needs to increase health transfers, which will allow the provinces and Quebec to attract and retain more health care workers.
That is the federal government's job. It needs to increase health transfers. It knows that, but it thinks it can keep making one-time investments instead of recurring investments, even though we need to get through this pandemic.
The Bloc Québécois is steadfast in its demand for the federal government to immediately increase health transfers to 35% of costs and to index them going forward. The Parliament of Canada itself made this demand when it adopted a Bloc Québécois motion calling on the government to significantly and sustainably increase Canada health transfers to support the efforts of the governments of Quebec and the provinces, health care workers and the public. All of the premiers have made this demand. The Quebec National Assembly has made this demand. All of the unions, the FTQ, the CSN, the CSQ and the CSD, have made this demand, pointing out that the systemic funding problems facing the provinces and Quebec are hampering Canadians and Quebeckers from accessing the services they need.
On April 4, 2022, the Quebec medical community, including the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec, the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec and the Association des médecins hématologues et oncologues du Québec, along with several unions, joined the Bloc in calling on the federal government to hold a public summit on health care funding. All voters across Quebec and Canada want our health care systems to be improved. According to a Leger poll, 85% of voters support the recommendation made by the premiers and their united stance.
This motion is as pointless as the last election. It is not standards that will ensure better care, but rather the funding needed to deliver that care.
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