So V ote

Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

May/30/24 3:10:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share the member's concern. I was concerned and disappointed, frankly, at the recommendations that were there. They do not seem to comport to the experts who I have spoken to across the country. That is why I have asked immediately for the chief public health officer to review this independent task force decision, to make sure we convene the best science and the best experts to be able to inform the decision that makes sure that every woman in the country gets the guidance they need to protect their health.

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May/30/24 2:46:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there it is. I wondered, as they continually put down our country, who they want us to be and what they want to emulate. Now we know that they prefer to have a United States model, for example, of health care. I was down south a couple of months ago with my partner, and an individual fell over. When they came conscious after I called 911, their concern was not their health; their concern was money, that they did not have the money for care. I do not want to live in that country. On this side, we will fight for public health care, we will fight against the cuts the Conservatives want to bring to our health care system and we will make sure that every Canadian gets access to the care they need.

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May/29/24 11:53:50 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I hope to talk to the hon. member on the first order, about natural health products, because the bill that was voted on today would remove our ability to recall contaminated products, such as products contaminated with fibreglass or E. coli or feces. That is extremely concerning, and hopefully the member will be reconsidering that position as the bill moves to committee. In terms of the other item, I would be happy to follow up with the member.

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May/29/24 11:45:37 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is precisely because diabetes is a precursor illness, that diabetes, when improperly managed, leads to heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney failure and amputation. It is unfortunately right now costing, as of the latest estimate, from 2018, $28 billion to our health system. It is estimated in a 10-year period to increase to $37 billion. We have to turn the tide. We need to make sure that people are effectively managing their diabetes so that we do not get those bad outcomes, so that it costs the system less. Fundamentally, it really is an issue of prevention.

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May/29/24 11:14:48 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I would say that our health care system has always been iterative. We have built it out a piece at a time. However, one of the most frustrating things for me, as health minister, is to go to different parts of the country and hear stories of things that we could do on a preventative basis and are not doing. I mean, we could talk about Iqaluit. I was up talking with Inuit leaders about tuberculosis outbreaks there. There are things that we still have happening—

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May/29/24 10:49:59 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is very important to ensure that communication is quick and effective, but it is also very important to ensure quality and health at the same time. I can certainly work with my hon. colleague and with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to ensure prompt communication with stakeholders. It is important. We must ensure that the process is as quick as possible. In the meantime, we must also ensure quality and health.

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May/29/24 9:11:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is one of the most heart-wrenching things in the world. I can go back to my time at the Heart and Stroke when I headed its Ontario mission. I was the national director of children and youth, and I would see folks who had heart attacks and strokes because they did not have access to their diabetes medication and were not following a proper regime. As I mentioned, it can lead to all kinds of other terrible outcomes. Adherence to these medicines is essential for their health. It is also essential as a matter of cost reduction. It is extraordinarily expensive to allow somebody to get into a catastrophic state. We need to get out of the business of crisis management in health care. We need to be up the stream preventing these things. The Public Health Agency of Canada has done extraordinary work, but we need to do a lot more work on prevention. The future in this country is avoiding illness before it ever happens and making sure that people live long, healthy and full lives by avoiding illness and disease and keeping our hospitals empty because the services are simply not needed.

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May/29/24 9:08:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe it was Teddy Roosevelt who observed that many people sit on the sidelines and cast criticism, and he noted how easy that is to do. It requires no talent or ability to sit from the sidelines and cast criticism, or to mock or attack those who try to make things better. I think it is owed to every Canadian that every member in the House stands in their place and offers solutions. I can tell members that when it comes to health care, I have heard nothing. The only thing I have heard from the Conservatives is what they will not do. They will not do dental care. They will not do pharmacare. They have not said what they are going to do with the investments we are making elsewhere in the health system in mental health and other areas. What is their plan for those who are uninsured? What is their plan for those who are in need? What is their plan when 70% of chronic disease and illness in this country, most of the things that fill our hospitals, are preventable? They have no plan. Their only plan is to criticize our action, to phone around and hope they can stop a dentist from participating so we do not get the political credit of a senior getting dental care. Then we wonder why people get cynical about our profession. This should be a place where we debate solutions, where we have, lined up against each other, two plans to make things better in this country. Their way has been tried. It's the idea of trickling things down, cutting taxes for the most affluent and crossing our fingers for everybody else. We recognized that Adam Smith's invisible hand was not enough. We learned it sometime around the 1800s. We need social safety nets. We need strong health care. We need to make sure that as people are competing and participating in our marketplaces, they are not allowed to fall through the cracks. That does not happen by doing nothing. It does not happen by cutting. It happens through hard work and the courage of action.

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May/29/24 8:56:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, a private member's bill that was adopted today would have a disastrous impact. I hope the committee is taking a look at it. While we can recall a tube of lipstick or a head of lettuce that were contaminated, if a natural health product were contaminated with mould, mildew, feces, arsenic, salmonella or E. coli, the bill would stop our ability to pull it off the shelves. That is totally irresponsible and reckless. We need to make sure we put health first.

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May/29/24 8:55:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, responding to health needs in rural and remote communities is exceptionally challenging. I was just in Nunavut, where we were able to announce, with federal support, a new MRI machine that means that so many folks in Nunavut are not going to have to go south for that care. We still have a ton of work to do. There is a lot of opportunity and potential in remote medicine, and we have to make sure we use the existing potential workforce there for health issues.

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May/29/24 8:53:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Minister Hindley is retiring and there will be a new health minister. I am talking to Minister Hindley and the incoming minister on that very matter.

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May/29/24 8:49:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have talked with Minister Hindley in Saskatchewan, and we had a conversation about the essential nature of public care. That is where we have to be, and I want to see that done through collaboration and co-operation. I think that is the best way to get there. It is going to be the continued approach, but the Canada Health Act is my responsibility, obviously, to enforce, and keeping care public is essential.

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May/29/24 8:48:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the first order, there is the government of Nova Scotia and there is the government of Manitoba, and I am sure there are going to be others, where elections get decided on health. I am sure Ontario will be no different. My approach as health minister has been to try to focus on the positives. There are lots of places I disagree with my provincial counterparts, but one of the reasons that common indicators are so important is that we would be able to see in data how people are doing and get people to ask—

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May/29/24 8:47:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the first thing is the interpretation letters that we need to issue, which I think will be critically important in helping to stem that. Second, we recognize that provinces may have taken some actions coming out of COVID to try to reduce burden but that we need to see the gaps closed and public systems protected. Under the Canada Health Act, we have made reductions in instances where private health care has been present, and we have the ability to do that in other places.

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May/29/24 8:32:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first the member opposite says that health is an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec, then the member says that the government needs to do more in the health field. In my opinion, the member's position is a little strange. The funds provided to each province are subject to a minimum annual increase of 5%. These funds are not reduced; they automatically increase by at least 5%. Additional amounts are also paid under agreements specifically designed to improve the situation. The problem with our health care system is not money. It is really about transformation. In times of transformation, it is vitally important that we avoid picking fights. Picking fights is easy. The right thing to do is to work toward achieving results in a spirit of co-operation.

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May/29/24 8:18:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very sincerely hope that the Conservative Party will change its position. If the Conservatives get the opportunity, as I am sure they do, like I do, to talk to people like Raphael who are getting oral health care for the first time in an extremely long time and hear what that does for their dignity and what it is going to mean for prevention, I hope this is something we can all get behind. At a minimum, I wish that the Conservatives would not give misinformation to providers. This program is simple to use. It is working effectively, and it is seeing people across the country get the care they need.

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Context: House Hansard - 309 - May/6/24

May/29/24 8:11:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise. I am going to be splitting my time with the Minister for Mental Health and Addictions. I want to start by simply thanking the officials who are here today, not only for their presence, but also for the incredible work that they do on behalf of Canadians every day. The Public Health Agency of Canada and, indeed, everyone at Health Canada did an extraordinary job during the pandemic, helping us have one of the best pandemic responses anywhere in the world, and they continue to help lead the way in overhauling our health system and meeting the challenges that confront a modern health system. I speak of the pandemic, and that was a time that was so challenging for so many, particularly for those within the health workforce. I want to acknowledge, in particular, those within the Public Health Agency and within Health Canada. In that period of time, there was a lot of hope that, coming out of the pandemic would mean that things would be getting easier, but of course, the reality is that we had wait-lists, backlogs and burnout, which meant that, not only in Canada but also all over the world, there was an enormous amount of stress coming out of the pandemic. A lot of the weaknesses that existed in our health systems across the country, in the provinces and territories, were exposed, as they were all over the world. It is easy to see problems. We certainly hear a lot in the House about people reflecting a mirror on the problems of the day. That requires no skill or talent. It requires a simple ability of observation. To imagine how we can move through the challenges that we are in to a better time, to a time that is better for the health of Canadians, to a time that is better for this country generally, requires a great deal of courage to jump into the unknown and imagine what can be done. The conversations that I have had with health ministers across the country, be they Conservative, New Democrat or Liberal, have been in a spirit of co-operation, of coming together to focus on solutions, to not focus on just observing what is wrong, but on having the courage to imagine what could be right, in how we can make investments and do things together. The federal government has pledged just a little less than $200 billion to health care over the next 10 years. That has manifested itself in 26 agreements, signed in every province and every territory. Each of those agreements lays out a blueprint for how we deal with the challenges of primary care, making sure that folks get access to a doctor, making sure that seniors can age at home and age with dignity, that we have places for them when their health fails. Building upon that, because we knew it was not enough, we looked upstream and took essential action. I want to thank the work that was done, particularly with the member for Vancouver Kingsway and the NDP House leader, the now health critic, to pave the way, along with our caucus, for a national plan on dental. We have seen that plan, which that the Conservative leader says is not real and does not exist, in just over three weeks, has already served 120,000 claims. That is over 100,000 seniors getting dental care, many times for the first time. We are also taking action on pharmacare to make sure that women have access to the medicine they need for their sexual and reproductive health and making sure that diabetes patients have access to the medication they need to keep themselves healthy. Of course, this builds on the work that we did in Charlottetown on a digital charter, talking about data, interoperability and the ways that we can work together as jurisdictions to improve our health system. In the last budget, we also saw essential action on school food to make sure that kids get the nutritious food they need. We are taking action on personal support workers and drugs for rare diseases. We have a strategy and are moving forward with agreements with provinces. We also, very importantly, through bulk purchasing, have seen more than $3.4 billion each and every year saved in the cost of drugs for Canadians by taking collective action together.

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Context: House Hansard - 300 - Apr/16/24

May/6/24 3:57:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, each of these actions does not stand on its own. They are part of an overall plan to make sure that we have the best health care system in the world. We cannot have the best health care system in the world, just as a point of fact, if one-third of Canadians do not have access to dental care. We cannot have the best health care system in the world if women do not have access to the contraception they need or if we have diabetes patients who do not have access to their medication. As an example, Sarah, in an Ottawa clinic, was talking about people having to reuse syringes because they do not have the money to get new devices. Also, we think of the school food program, about kids getting the healthy food and nutrition they need. We think about what we are doing for the safe long-term care act and, as the member mentioned, the 26 agreements signed across the country, whether they are on aging with dignity, working together, primary care, nurses or doctors. What we are seeing with the provinces and territories is that, by working together, we are able to make huge change everywhere in our health system to improve it. What we all need to be doing in the space of health is to be focused on data, evidence and moving forward because, I will say, and I know the member feels the same way as I do, that what Canadians expect of us is to not talk about our differences. This is not to try to find problems and spend all of our energy criticizing things, but to find solutions and answers, to drive that forward and to make things better. That is squarely where our mind is focused, and I know that it is squarely where the health ministers across the country of every political stripe are as well. I look forward to the meeting we are going to be having later this week with all health ministers.

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Context: House Hansard - 297 - Apr/10/24

Apr/16/24 11:10:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was true in the 1960s and it is true now, that there are purveyors of doom. There are those who try to push people to despair. When one does not believe in a public health care system, what does one want people to do? One wants people to despair, because nothing comes from despair. All change comes from looking at what is hard and true and driving for change. Let us talk very specifically. Every health care system in the world is facing extraordinary backlogs as a result of COVID and stress on their system. It is a question how we meet that. These 13 agreements and these investments of $200 billion are demonstrating that we are meeting that challenge. In these plans, in articulated detail, is exactly how we are going to get to the health system Canadians deserve. With respect to dental care, we have thousands and thousands of dentists who have signed up across the country. Secondly, just on Thursday, I met with the dental associations, and I can tell the House that we are down to a couple of minor issues and that I am extraordinarily confident that over the next number of months, we will see virtually every dental office in the country participating in this program.

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