- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Rivière-du-Nord
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $105,330.31
- Government Page
- Feb/16/23 12:18:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I have a great deal of respect for him as well. I know that there are many health care issues in British Columbia. My heart goes out to the people in that province.
That said, I agree with the premise of the motion, which is to prohibit private health care and try to improve public health care. Yesterday, Quebec introduced Bill 10, a bill to restrict the use of staffing agencies and self-employed workers in the health and social services sector. Last spring, in April 2022, it adopted a plan to implement necessary changes in health care. We are concerned about this issue, and we are working on it. I am convinced the same thing is happening in British Columbia, Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. We just have to do things our way, and the federal government must stop interfering in the provinces' management of health care—
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- Feb/16/23 12:16:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I know this member as a great parliamentarian and a very competent legal expert.
That said, obviously we are not against mental health care. I have never met anyone in Quebec who was against apple pie. Everyone likes it. People with mental health issues need to be taken care of. I hope the rest of Canada has the same concerns. In fact, I have no doubt that they feel the same way. The issue is not whether we want to take care of people with mental health issues. The issue is who is going to take care of them. Pursuant to the Constitution Act, 1867, could each province not have its own provisions to address its own specific concerns, which differ from one province to the next? After all, that is a fact of life.
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- Feb/16/23 12:14:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I can tell my colleague is that we dream similar dreams but have different ideas about how to achieve those dreams.
He dreams of a great nation from coast to coast to coast with rules that apply from coast to coast to coast to everyone who lives from coast to coast to coast. We dream of our own country, of Quebec. We know that we have one way of doing things. It is not better, but it is different from how things are done elsewhere in Canada. We dream of the alliance my colleague talked about. I have nothing against the Canadian Confederation. On the day that Quebec becomes a country, we are not going to build a fence around Quebec and tell others they must stay out and we will stay in. We want an alliance and trade relations. We want a lot of things. We are going to get along with our neighbours.
However, this marriage has a problem, because we do not see things the same way. We want to make our rules, and we want Canada to make its rules. Then we will see what we can agree on. I will always be happy to shake hands with my colleague and work with him to make life better for everyone in the great and beautiful country of Canada and in Quebec.
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- Feb/16/23 12:04:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I agree with my colleague from Jonquière. He is very reasonable.
I would add to the list of the problems with this government the fact that it has been unable to issue paycheques properly for years. I have been a member of the House since 2015, and we have been hearing about the Phoenix pay system all this time. I was a lawyer before I became an MP, and I had business clients. If they had not been able to give their employees paycheques, they would have gone bankrupt and been taken to court. I will move on to other topics, but let us just say that this government has not proven it has the competence to manage the affairs of the provinces.
I would say that there are two big problems with this NDP motion. First, it does not respect the division of powers set out in the Constitution Act, 1867. We know that health is not a federal but a provincial jurisdiction. The federal government's role, with all due respect to my colleague opposite, is to transfer money to the provinces so they can manage their health care systems. As was mentioned, the federal government has no competence in many areas, certainly including health care. The federal government does not manage any hospitals, clinics or anything else to do with health care. It is dreaming if it thinks it can impose its vision on the provinces.
Second, there is the issue of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court ruled that, under the charter, the federal government cannot restrict access to private health care in the provinces. I will talk about that in more detail later.
When I look at this constitutional problem, I realize that the NDP does not seem to understand that the feds have nothing to do with health. I was thinking about it this morning and thought it felt like a legend. The NDP dreams of a totalitarian federal government that controls everything and of a country where the federal government is all-powerful, like a supreme authority. That is the federal legend and the NDP's dream.
Mr. Mario Simard: Is it the myth?
Mr. Rhéal Fortin: Madam Speaker, the myth, the legend, that is what we are talking about today. Beyond the legend, there is a constitutional problem, because health is not a federal responsibility, but rather a provincial one. There is also a problem in relation to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects a certain number of rights. It protects privacy in section 7, among other things.
This is not the first time a situation of this kind has been brought before the courts. My colleague from Jonquière talked briefly about the Supreme Court of Canada's Chaoulli decision from 2005. The chief justice, Justice McLachlin, supported by Justices Major and Bastarache, agreed with the findings of Justice Deschamps. I quote:
[T]he prohibition on private health insurance violates s. 1 of the Quebec Charter and is not justifiable under s. 9.1...The prohibition also violates s. 7 of the Canadian Charter and is not justifiable under s. 1...While the decision about the type of health care system Quebec should adopt falls to the legislature of that province, the resulting legislation, like all laws, must comply with the Canadian Charter.
Again, it states that “the type of health care system Quebec should adopt falls to the legislature of that province”.
The Supreme Court wrote that over 15 years ago, but the NDP members did not read the Supreme Court decisions, and that is okay. I know they have other things to do, like dreaming up this legend of a totalitarian Canadian government and trying to promote it. That cannot be easy, and I would not want to be in their shoes. I understand why they might be busy.
However, it is still important to read the Constitution and the charter at least once, to know what we are talking about and to avoid such huge traps. The New Democrats set this trap for themselves by proposing, on the one hand, that the federal government meddle in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions and, on the other hand, that the federal government completely violate the provisions of the charter.
That said, is it a fatal error? Yes, interfering in provincial jurisdictions is a fatal error.
I do not think that the federal government has any business meddling in areas under provincial jurisdiction. It can try, but it will end up in court. After a few years, the Supreme Court will say, as it already has, that this cannot be done. The federal government can try if it wants. We shall see.
Is the charter question fatal? No, it is not. I must concur.
We could contravene the provisions of the charter and say, “Too bad for section 7, we are still going ahead with a measure that would prohibit nurses from accessing private health care.” Even if it violates the charter, it could be done. How would we go about it? It is easy. The charter contains just such a provision. It is section 33, which reads as follows:
Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter.
The Chaoulli decision dealt with section 7. When I read the charter, I see that it can be overridden. Yes, what the NDP is proposing violates the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is a major sacrilege, clearly, but section 33 allows for the charter to be overridden.
The only problem is that just this week, mere hours ago, the NDP was getting all worked up and crying foul because Quebec had the nerve to use this notwithstanding clause to protect French and secularism in Quebec. Scandalized, our Canadian federal Prime Minister said that he would go to the Supreme Court and ask it to declare that the provinces cannot use the notwithstanding clause that his father gave them many years ago when he had this legislation passed. He said that they should have to go through the courts first and so on.
We argued that this did not make much sense since section 33 states, “Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature”. That is what Quebec did, that is what the federal government detests and that is what the NDP finds so outrageous and astounding. However, that is what the NDP will have to do if they want to follow their motion to its logical conclusion.
Are they going to follow their motion to its logical conclusion? Perhaps. If they do, we will bring back our motion, which they defeated this week. After all, a person cannot enjoy ice cream one day, be allergic to it the next, and then enjoy it again the day after. It either works or it does not.
If they want it to work, I am willing to consider it. There will still be the jurisdictional issue, which remains unresolved, but we could at least resolve the charter aspect. If they want to continue down that path, with that reasoning, we will follow their lead and allow them to apply for a charter exemption. We know that they are entirely within their rights.
However, if they persist in saying that we are not allowed to do it, it is hard for me to see how they can logically say to us that they want to contravene the charter and violate the division of powers.
Again, this legend exists only in the minds of my esteemed colleagues in the New Democratic Party or, should I say, the New Liberal-Democratic Party. I am not sure what to call it anymore.
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