- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 59%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
- Apr/18/24 12:43:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an opportunity for us to say, and we are all parliamentarians here, that we have a duty to our constituents to elevate debate in the House and to speak accurately. Every time the Conservatives call it a coalition government or say we have been in power for nine years when those things are just not true does a disservice to this institution and it confuses Canadians and our democracy, and it needs to stop.
We will continue to analyze the budget, and we will come out with our position on it in due course. It is 416 pages long, and there are a lot of positive things in there, such as pharmacare, a school nutrition program—
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- Apr/18/24 12:09:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, who I am pleased to serve with on the finance committee, spoke about jurisdiction in pharmacare.
The Canada pharmacare legislation currently before the House would work exactly as the Canada Health Act does. It would offer federal money to every province that agrees to deliver diabetes-class and contraception drugs free to the citizens of their provinces through the single-payer public system. No province would be forced to participate. If the province wants to participate, they would get the money and deliver it just like any other medical service through the public health care system, just like Quebec does with all the other services.
In 2016, the Union des consommateur of Quebec made a written submission to the Standing Committee on Health on pharmacare. It said:
The explosive rise in spending on prescription drugs in Canada requires immediate action...the most effective solution would be to adopt a universal public pharmacare program. We hope the federal government will act on this issue and assure you of our full cooperation.
Does my hon. colleague not agree that Québécois deserve to have access to free diabetes medication and pharmaceuticals if 100% of it is being paid by the federal government, just like every other medical service that is available in Quebec?
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- Feb/27/24 2:32:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every Canadian should have access to the health care they need when they need it, but a new survey reveals that over six million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor. The Liberals promised to hire 7,500 doctors and nurses in the last election, but they have not delivered. While Liberals delay, Conservatives want to cut the health care people depend on.
When will the Liberals act to ensure that more doctors and nurses are hired so everyone can get high-quality and timely health care?
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- Jan/31/24 8:12:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for this bill. If we are remembering the pandemic, one particularly critical fact to remember is that Canada had the terrible distinction of having more deaths per capita than any other country on earth in long-term care homes. Part of the confidence-and-supply agreement between the New Democrats and the Liberals is for the government to introduce a long-term care act.
Does my hon. colleague agree with the New Democrats that it is time we have mandatory standards in long-term care homes in this country? Those would be to have minimum standard hours of care for people in those homes, to have set care aid-to-patient ratios and, more importantly, to make sure that the conditions of work and the conditions of care are much better and that we treat the workers in those homes much better so we can reduce infection rates.
Does she agree with the NDP that it is time to put those mandatory standards in law in this country?
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- Oct/16/23 2:52:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, millions of Canadians are going without their prescription medications because they cannot afford them. Thousands die as a result. Universal public pharmacare will cover everyone and save us billions of dollars. This weekend, NDP members sent a clear message to deliver it.
The Liberals themselves promised public pharmacare 26 years ago, and their own convention delegates voted for it in 2016, 2018 and 2021.
Will the Liberals keep their word and finally deliver the public pharmacare that Canadians need and want?
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- Jun/13/23 2:51:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today New Democrats introduced our plan to deliver prescription medicines for all. Our push comes after the health minister blocked reforms meant to save Canadians billions on drug costs. Too often we have seen the current government put the interest of big pharma ahead of patients, and it is now clear that only public pharmacare will save our health care system billions and help millions of people.
Will the health minister assure Canadians that he will put their health ahead of pharmaceutical industry profits and implement the NDP pharmacare plan?
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-340, An Act to enact the Canada Pharmacare Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to introduce the Canada pharmacare act, with thanks to the member for Burnaby South for seconding this legislation. He follows in a long line of great NDP leaders, from Tommy Douglas on, who have built and are building our great public health care system.
No one should have to face the impossible choice of paying rent or filling a prescription, yet every year millions of Canadians go without their prescription medications because they cannot afford them. This legislation would establish a framework for universal, comprehensive and public pharmacare across Canada.
It is modelled on the Canada Health Act and based on the recommendations of the Hoskins advisory council. Like the Canada Health Act, the Canada pharmacare act specifies the conditions and criteria for provincial and territorial prescription drug programs to receive federal funding. This includes the core principles of public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility.
After decades of delay, Canadians cannot afford to wait any longer. It is time to add medicine to medicare. I call on all parliamentarians to support this long overdue initiative.
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- May/30/23 3:12:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yet another study once again proves public pharmacare saves our health care system money: $1,500 per patient every year. It also reveals patients cannot access medicine because of cost. This means more hospital visits, needless suffering and billions of dollars wasted.
The New Democrats have pushed for public pharmacare for decades because we know it saves lives and money, and the Liberals have promised it since 1997. Will the minister finally implement public pharmacare to keep our bottom line and Canadians healthy?
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- May/4/23 2:50:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised universal public pharmacare in 1997. Since then, countless committees and commissions, including this government's own Hoskins report, have advised that single-payer pharmacare is the only way to go, but Canadians are still waiting for the Liberal government to keep its promise. While the Liberals protect big pharma's profits, the NDP is fighting to deliver public pharmacare so Canadians get the medicine they need.
After a quarter-century of delay, will the minister finally commit to implementing universal, public pharmacare?
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- 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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- Feb/14/23 2:47:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for-profit clinics across Canada are selling preferential access to surgery for those with the money to pay for it. They are exploiting a loophole in the Canada Health Act that is costing Canadians up to $28,000 per procedure. Even former Liberal health minister Jane Philpott says this contravenes the principles of medicare. New Democrats believe Canadians should have access to care based on need, not wealth.
Why are Liberals letting for-profit clinics pray on the desperation of patients and allowing two-tier access to care in Canada?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on this bill. The NDP will be supporting it, because we, as the party of health care, have been extraordinarily concerned about the deplorable conditions in long-term care, which COVID may have exposed but which have existed for a long time.
My question is about resources. The bill, of course, would punish people after neglect has occurred. The NDP is concerned about preventing that neglect in the first place. In the last election, the Liberal Party promised to invest $6.8 billion in safer long-term care. It also promised to invest $1.7 billion to ensure personal support workers are paid $25 an hour, and $500 million to train 500,000 personal support workers. I do not think a single dollar of that funding has flowed yet from the government.
Can my hon. colleague tell the House when the money is expected to flow, so we can take care of our seniors instead of punishing people who abuse them?
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- Apr/26/22 10:37:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to split my time with my hon. colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.
It is a great privilege to rise in the House today and speak in support of this budget. I want to say at the outset that no budget is perfect. There are many, many provisions in budgets with which we agree, and there are obviously many with which we disagree. This budget is no different in that regard, and the NDP will continue to push for all of the progressive policies that we have historically pushed for, that we know Canadians need and that, unfortunately, are not contained in this budget.
However, I rise today to speak in support of this budget, imperfect though it may be, for a couple of key reasons. As the health critic for the federal New Democratic Party of Canada, it is my unique privilege to be able to carry on the traditions of great health critics before me, going right back to Tommy Douglas, who is considered the father of medicare in this country. After examining this budget, I think that the absolutely most critical parts of it, and why all colleagues in this House should support this budget on a non-partisan basis on behalf of their constituents, are the historic elements it contains that would make Canadians healthier. I am going to focus on two parts of that: dental care and pharmacare.
All Canadians know that a year ago the Liberals in this House voted against dental care for Canadians. A year later, here we are in a minority Parliament, and because of the hard work of 25 New Democrat MPs and of the New Democratic Party of Canada, this budget includes funding of $5.3 billion over five years and $1.7 billion a year ongoing thereafter to move ahead with a dental care program for millions of families that do not have private insurance in this country, that do not have access to dental care, with an income of $90,000 or less annually, with no copays whatsoever for anyone with an income of $70,000 or less annually.
This budget includes funding to move ahead immediately on dental care for children under 12 years old, in 2022, and then next year, in 2023, expand it to all children under 18 years old, seniors, and persons living with a disability. By 2025, there would be full implementation for all individuals who meet the income criteria. This means 6.5 million Canadians, at least, would have access to primary dental care within the next 36 months because of this budget.
I want to talk for a moment about dental care. I think everyone knows intuitively, without being a physician or having health care credentials, that dental care is a critical part of overall health. In fact, it is inconceivable that we have a public health care system that covers our entire bodies but carves out a section of our mouths from the tonsils forward and says that this is not covered by our public health care system. That is not only logically incongruous, but it is actually medically ridiculous. Poor oral health is linked to other serious health conditions, including cardiac problems, diabetes complications and even low birth rate and premature birth in women. Poor oral health can even kill.
We pride ourselves in this country, I think across all aisles in this House, on having public health care, meaning that everybody, regardless of their station in life and their income, has access to primary health care. That is not true when it comes to dental care. When it comes to dental care, we have two-tiered, private access to health care in this country, and that is antithetical to our concept of what health care should be in this country.
I should also point out that it is not just limited to physical health. People with poor oral health or bad teeth suffer from enormous mental health challenges as well. There has been a lot of focus on mental health from all parties in this House. I want to commend my colleagues, even in the Conservative Party, who have raised a number of significant deficiencies in our public health care system when it comes to mental health. Just yesterday, a Conservative member rose in this House and made a passionate plea for a suicide prevention hotline in this country. Mental health for people who are missing front teeth, people who are living with chronic pain, and seniors who have no teeth in their mouth and cannot afford dentures has an enormous impact on self-esteem and mental wellness. We should be as concerned about that as about any other mental health issue.
There are, of course, economic impacts. People with poor teeth have their job and career aspirations interrupted. Members can imagine interviewing an applicant for a job who shows up and is missing top front teeth. We make judgments about people, and people are embarrassed about the state of their teeth, because they are in their face. It is what we present to the world. I think it is long past time that we brought dental care to every Canadian for economic, physical, mental and emotional health reasons.
Ironically, dental care was always intended to be part of our public health care system. Back in the 1960s, the Hall commission recommended that dental care be part of our public health care system, and the only reason it was not implemented at the time was not because of cost, but because it was felt that Canada did not have sufficient dentists in this country to provide the services. That is not the case anymore. What is the reality today? It is that 35% of Canadians, which is about 13 million Canadians, do not have access to any dental insurance whatsoever, and that understates the problem, because many more have insufficient, substandard or sporadic coverage with high copays, annual limits or high deductibles.
This budget, due to our work, aims to address this. New Democrats believe passionately and fervently in having universal access to public health care, so we consider this to be a down payment on our ultimate goal, which is universal dental care for every Canadian, regardless of the size of their wallet, through our public health care system, like every other medical procedure, whether it is a broken leg, heart surgery or cataract surgery. A broken tooth or an oral health issue should be no different.
I want to just briefly mention a couple of the key components that need to go into a dental plan. We need to create a plan with a good range of services, comparable to any normal plan in place now for Canadians, including the plans that we as MPs have. I want to see a proper fee schedule, so that all of the dental professionals who deliver these services are compensated fairly for their time and skill. We want to make sure that all dental professionals are involved in the creation of this plan: not only dentists, but dental hygienists, dental assistants, denturists and dental therapists. We want to build a system based on prevention of decay and oral disease, because ultimately, at the end of the day, that will save money.
Right now, we are fooling ourselves if we think that ignoring this problem is economically smart, because Canadians are, in record numbers, appearing in emergency rooms in every province and territory in this country every day with dental issues. In fact, I am told that the number one reason for children to enter emergency rooms in this country is poor oral health.
I want to speak for a brief moment on pharmacare, because this budget also includes steps, pressured by the New Democrats, to move toward universal and national pharmacare. This budget includes the requirement to table a pharmacare act by the end of next year and to task the Canadian drug agency to develop a national formulary, which were two of the steps recommended by the Hoskins report and part of the NDP's long-standing call.
New Democrats believe that comprehensive public drug coverage should be in place for all Canadians as soon as possible. Every year, as with dental care, millions of Canadians are forced to go without their prescription medications, simply because they cannot afford them. Again, there is two-tiered health care in this country. If people are rich, they can get medicine; if they are poor, they do not. That is contrary to Canadian values. One in five Canadians, which is seven and a half million citizens, has either no prescription drug coverage or inadequate insurance, and Canadians, ironically, consistently pay among the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
Under the agreement made between the New Democrats and the Liberals, we aim to fix this. We will do that by compelling the introduction of legislation, creating a national formulary for essential medicines and creating a bulk-buying program, so that we can start saving money.
I want to end by saying that pharmacare saves money. It would save $5 billion a year in this country; it would save businesses $16.6 billion annually; families would see their out-of-pocket drug costs reduced by $6.4 billion; and the average business would save $750, with families saving $350 a year. It makes good economic sense. I urge all my colleagues to support this budget.
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- Apr/25/22 2:31:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we just learned the Liberals are backing down on drug price reforms that would make life-saving medications more affordable and save us billions. This means Canadians will keep paying excessive costs for prescription drugs, which are among the highest in the world. Meanwhile, the Liberals choose to protect the profits of large pharmaceutical companies.
The Liberals say no one should go without the medicine they need, but this policy choice makes that happen. Will the government get moving on public universal pharmacare so every Canadian can get the medicine they need and deserve?
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