- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,314.06
- Government Page
- Oct/16/23 2:54:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, not only will it save lives, but a universal public pharmacare program would save the sick, workers, hospitals and employers billions of dollars.
The Liberals need to make that happen. It is not just NDP supporters who are saying this. All the studies and reports show that. Even the Liberal Party delegates voted for universal pharmacare at three straight conventions.
When will this government stop dragging its feet and offer a real universal pharmacare program for people?
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Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the previous member's speech. I never knew I was part of the government. I want to set the record straight, but I will also go a step further: We are not propping up the Liberals; we are using our leverage and bargaining power to force them to do things they never had the courage to do before.
I am pleased to rise to speak to a subject of tremendous importance to me and to all my colleagues in the NDP caucus. I am referring to the living conditions and quality of life of seniors in Montreal and across Quebec.
I congratulate and thank the member for Shefford for taking the initiative to introduce this bill, which will truly improve the lives of the people we represent and who are finding it very hard to make ends meet at the moment. Seniors are the population segment most affected by the rising cost of living because their incomes are stagnant. When someone's income is fixed or practically fixed and inflation is 7%, 8% or 10%, it shows and it hurts. We hear it a lot in our communities.
Saturday was the International Day of Older Persons. I was lucky enough to take part in a march in my riding of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. It was organized by the Comité d'action pour la qualité de vie des aînés de La Petite‑Patrie, a group working to improve local seniors' quality of life, and it ended in Montcalm Park. Afterwards, a number of seniors, mostly women, took to the stage to speak to elected officials from various levels of government about their reality and the fact that they face extremely difficult, impossible choices. They talked about the cost of food, housing, rent, home adaptations, health care, medication and many other things.
Seniors live on a fixed income that does not change, or barely changes, which results in poverty. If they do not have the good fortune of receiving income from a private pension plan and possibly from the defined benefit pension plan that enhances old age security, they are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement if they are poor enough. However, even then, the situation remains extremely difficult.
It is a travesty that a country as rich as ours, a G7 country where the average per capita income is so high, is abandoning these generations of Quebeckers who built modern-day Quebec, the generation of people like Lesage, Lévesque, Parizeau, Bourassa. Today, these people are sometimes stuck in long-term care facilities, in private residences that cost an arm and a leg, where there are no services and they are isolated. As a progressive and a social democrat, this breaks my heart. I do not want to live in a society that looks the other way and allows this to happen.
I want to take this opportunity to speak on behalf of the women who addressed a crowd of hundreds in La Petite‑Patrie on Saturday. I will share with the House their demands, which line up with the bill. There are seven demands and they are not very long.
First, they are calling for real home support, because that can make a big difference in a person's life, especially if they are isolated or have unfortunately lost their spouse.
There is currently more than a two-year wait to receive home care. Seniors want to age in their own homes, with their memories, and they need more help and support to do that. One thing that must be done is to ensure the quality and continuity of care, as well as to increase and protect funding, which currently accounts for an insufficient proportion of the budget envelope.
I see that as a perfectly legitimate, noble and understandable demand.
I would also like to commend the work of Dr. Réjean Hébert, who has spent years tackling the issue of home care, which is obviously related to health transfers in Quebec. We need to think about the priorities we want to set as a society to be able to take care of seniors in their own homes in order to have an impact on their quality of life.
Home care would also help relieve the pressure on hospitals. Why would a senior go to the emergency department when they could stay at home and be cared for by a nurse, social worker or personal support worker and avoid the endless lineups?
The second demand is better access to health care, again on the health theme.
Access to basic health care is still difficult, despite the fact that some services have returned to the [local community service centres]. Unfortunately, spots open up at a snail's pace, which forces seniors to travel outside their own neighbourhoods for simple blood tests. The wait for a new family doctor is very long, and it is unacceptable for a person aged 70 or more to be on a waiting list for several months [and sometimes even several years].
Again, this comes back to funding our public health care system. Access to basic services, tests or examinations can sometimes be very distressing and time-consuming for everyone. It is even more important for our seniors.
The third demand has a more human dimension. It is about being cared for with dignity. Seniors want “a doctor who takes the time to listen to their patients”. They want to be more than just a number. Health care is not a factory. Seniors are calling for the following:
To be treated with respect. Respect for the person's physical integrity. The right to end their days in dignity and respect. Better training for health care workers and first responders on proper treatment and compassion.
Once again, more training is needed. Health care workers also need to take a more humane approach where they are not always running from one patient to another, or one client to another, to use the current terminology.
There are still four more demands. The next has to do with 50,000 new social housing units.
The wait time for social housing is getting longer and longer. As a result, many seniors have to pay exorbitant amounts for rent because they are still waiting for a subsidized apartment. Access to housing should be a right, and Quebec needs to invest in buying or building new social housing units to meet the demand.
Once again, the federal government can collaborate. Today, we are paying the price for the years of disinvestment in social housing and housing co-operatives by the Liberals and the Conservatives. The situation is disastrous for everyone, including seniors.
Another demand is for an increase in old age pensions. The text reads as follows:
Senior women represent the poorest segment of Quebec's population. They should never have to choose between putting food on the table or being able to get to a doctor's appointment.
That is the reality. These are the agonizing choices that many seniors, including women, are facing right now.
This brings me to the heart of the bill before us today. For some ridiculous and absolutely inexplicable reason, the Liberals decided to increase old age security for people aged 75 and over, but they did absolutely nothing for people aged 65 to 74.
We have never seen this kind of discrimination or distinction before. People aged 65 to 74 have the same growing needs, and they are dealing with the same inflation, the same cost of living and the same housing crisis. Why would they have fewer needs than people aged 75 and over? Did the government just want to save money, so they decided that those individuals needed to find part-time work, which is a little harder for those aged 75 and over to do? To me, that is serious.
The Conservatives sought to raise the retirement age to 77, and now the Liberals are kind of playing the same game. They are telling people aged 65 and over that they need to take care of themselves because they have a little more autonomy and that the government will only take care of people aged 75 and over. I think that position is incoherent and really hard on our seniors aged 65 and over, who are suffering as a result.
Lots of people came to talk to me about this on Saturday in La Petite‑Patrie. These individuals were experiencing this injustice and they asked me how I could explain it. I could not explain it. I would like to hear the members of the Liberal party in the House explain it. The NDP feels it is totally unacceptable to create two classes of seniors in our country.
There are lots of things we can do to help seniors. We need a universal public pharmacare program. I said universal and public, not a hybrid system. A lot of people are still falling through the cracks in the Quebec system. This plan is a step in the right direction when the alternative is nothing at all, but that is not what others, including Quebec unions or the Union des consommateurs, are calling for.
Seniors also need access to dental care. I am very proud that the NDP is forcing the Liberal government to make sure that, starting early next year, people 65 and over who earn less than $70,000 a year, which includes the vast majority, will have access to dental care. The dentist will send the bill directly to the federal government. This will improve the health and finances of all our seniors in Quebec.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé.
He spoke about the Quebec model and pharmacare, but Quebec has a hybrid system, one that is both public and private. That means many workers pay a fortune for supplemental coverage.
Does my colleague not agree with the Union des consommateurs du Québec, the FTQ, the CSN and the CSQ that we should have a universal public pharmacare system?
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- Apr/28/22 2:30:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers have made a clear choice. They want a universal public pharmacare plan. An overwhelming majority, specifically 73%, of those surveyed in Quebec are in favour of such a plan.
Why is that? Because they know they are paying too much for their prescription drugs, and the cost continues to rise. People know that a universal plan will lower drug prices and improve their health. For Quebeckers and Canadians, the question is no longer how, but when this will happen.
Will the government answer this call and come up with a solution to bring in a pharmacare plan?
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- Apr/26/22 10:52:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am extremely pleased to rise today to take part in this discussion, this very important debate. I applaud the excellent speech given by the previous speaker, my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway. She did a great job presenting the progressive and humanistic vision of concrete gains that the NDP wants to achieve for people, including citizens, tenants, seniors, those who are struggling, and the less fortunate.
While it is not perfect, the budget does have some good points, and I will talk about them. The NDP managed to get some of the things we wanted, but not all of them, and we will continue to work on those.
This also stems from the fact that Quebeckers and Canadians voted in another minority government in Ottawa, with roughly the same proportion of members for each party as before. Voters told us to work together and come up with solutions, much like Jack Layton told us back in the day. In fact, our campaign slogan in Quebec in 2011 was about working together, so we in the NDP have used our strength, the fact that we hold the balance of power, to negotiate with this minority government in order to make gains and progress.
I too will come back to the very real gain of having a dental care program. It is a major breakthrough. At the NDP we have always been very proud of being the force behind our universal and free public health care system. The system still needs to be improved, of course, and we obviously agree that transfers to the provinces need to be enhanced.
The system presents us with an absurd situation where some parts of the body are insured by the public plan but others are not. For example, my heart is insured, my lungs are insured, but my teeth and my eyes are not. It is as though the human body is a puzzle and some pieces are insured but others are not. Dental care, for example, is a major piece.
During the last election campaign, when I was door‑knocking and talking to the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, Montreal and Quebec in general, people were very pleased with and receptive to the NDP's proposal to provide accessible dental care free of charge to people who earn less than $90,000 a year.
I believe that this budget sets out a clear game plan. Beginning this year, children under 12 will be eligible for free dental care. Beginning next year, teens, seniors aged 65 and over and people living with disabilities will be eligible. In the third year of the plan, all households, families and individuals earning less than $90,000 a year will be eligible. Fully one-third of Canadians will have access to dental care, whereas currently they do not.
We know that this has a considerable impact on people's lives, and especially on their wallets, because dental care is very expensive. If people have to pay out of pocket and cannot do so, they will not go to the dentist for cleaning or care, even though they should.
I believe that this has an impact on one's self-esteem, personal life and professional life, when it comes to choosing a career. The quality of dental health care is a question of social class, and I am very proud that the NDP, the opposition party, was able to get dental care into the budget. This will deliver tangible results for people.
This is not about creating a federal program with federal dental clinics and federal dentists. This is about instituting an insurance plan that will cover the bills for people eligible for this program. The bills will be paid by the government so that people do not have to pay out of pocket, which will help families in Quebec and all across Canada save thousands of dollars a year.
I am also very pleased to see a game plan for pharmacare. The first steps of the Hoskins report will be implemented through a bill slated to be introduced next year. This will be an important step forward.
We pay far too much for medications, which hurts workers, businesses and the government. A public, universal pharmacare program that is, of course, negotiated with the provinces, would represent a breakthrough that would help everyone. Quebec civil society, the Union des consommateurs du Québec, the FTQ, the CSN and the CSQ have all called for such a program.
The NDP believes that this can be done while giving Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation. However, we believe that this program would have so many benefits that it would ultimately be worthwhile for everyone, for both workers and employers.
The cost of supplementary health insurance is staggering. It has been skyrocketing for years. There are workers who must sign up for these supplementary insurance plans through their job. For example, I have met people who work part time in grocery stores in Montreal, and 25% of their salary is used to pay for these company insurance plans, the supplemental insurance packages. A universal public pharmacare program could represent a nearly 25% increase in salary for people who work part time, particularly in grocery stores.
Another major gain we won in this budget was redefining the term “affordable housing”. Under the Liberals, affordable housing in Montreal could cost $2,225 a month according to CMHC rules. This is completely absurd and out of touch with reality. We negotiated a review of this definition so that it would not exceed 80% of the average price of housing in a municipality. For Montrealers, that means $730 a month for affordable housing. That is quite a difference. We have just lowered the price of an affordable unit in CMHC projects by about $1,500, but we are also increasing the percentage of mandatory affordable housing units in projects from 20% to 40%. I am particularly proud of that. Home ownership and being able to pay the rent is a big concern for people. Again, in the last election, people often talked to us about health care and housing. For years, there has been a serious housing crisis in Montreal and in Quebec in general. We should be proud of this win.
One area in which the budget does not pass muster is the environment and the climate crisis. We would have liked to see much more ambition and action from the Liberal government. It is cutting one small oil subsidy, but it is creating a sizable new one with the tax credit for carbon capture, which is an inefficient technology. It is a kind of high-tech magic wand that will not appreciably reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The Liberals' failure to deliver meaningful results in this area is appalling. Their greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan is just not good enough right now. They talked about targeting 40% to 45% reductions, but that does not meet the IPCC target of at least 50%, which is what the NDP campaigned on. Within that 40% to 45% range, they are aiming for the low end, the 40%. For the oil sector, the goal is 31%. Essentially, the government is giving the oil sector a gift when it is one of the industries, together with transportation, that should be working harder.
Recently I was amazed to learn that Canada's greenhouse gas emissions had gone down for the first time since the Liberals have been in power, but that was for 2020. In 2020, the economy was on pause because of the global pandemic. They celebrated that decline even though they had nothing to do with it and the economy was basically a standstill. There were no trucks or cars in the street, no transportation, no manufacturing. That is not how we are going to meet our international obligations and provide a brighter and more reassuring future for our children and grandchildren. We are not going to get there with decisions like the one on the Bay du Nord project, which, fortunately, is not in the budget. It is a ministerial order. A decision like the one on the Bay du Nord development project is not going to take us in the right direction because we are once again going to increase oil production in Canada through a totally irresponsible project. Yes, we are aware that extracting oil in this way is less polluting than the oil sands, but production in the oil sands has not decreased either. That oil produces 85% of its pollution when it is burned, when it is consumed. That means that if it is consumed abroad because we exported it, it is not counted as part of our record, which is completely unrealistic, anti‑scientific and hypocritical. It should be factored into our record because we are the ones who decided to extract it.
We are extremely disappointed in the climate and environmental measures in the Liberal budget. We managed to make some progress for Canadians, but we will continue to work hard on other issues, including the environment.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île for his speech.
I obviously agree with him that our public health care system has really been devastated by the Conservatives' cuts to provincial transfers, cuts that the Liberals maintained.
However, my colleague and I do not quite agree on the impact of a universal public pharmacare program, which would not only enable the public health network to save money on drugs, but would also help workers and businesses save too.
My colleague does not agree with the FTQ, the CSN, the CSQ and the Union des consommateurs du Québec that there should be a universal public pharmacare program to ensure better coverage for everyone and reduce the cost of drugs. It would also mean savings for Quebec's health care network.
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Madam Speaker, we have arrived at many of the same conclusions. Conservative cuts to health transfers did a lot of damage, and the Liberals only compounded the error, which bears repeating.
The health care system is under pressure, and the federal government needs to increase transfer payments in a sustainable, stable and permanent manner. We are aware of this, and we agree.
There is also another solution for saving money. Does my colleague agree with the FTQ, the CSN, the CSQ and the Union des consommateurs du Québec that we need a truly universal public pharmacare program that will reduce the cost of drugs for people, businesses and our health care network?
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