- Member of Parliament
- Minister of Health
- Liberal
- Ajax
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,982.00
- Government Page
He said: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to talk about Bill C-64, which is an opportunity for us to move forward with pharmacare in this country. In the first order, the bill represents the best of what Canadians should expect from the House, which is different parties working together to find common ground and solutions.
I will start by thanking the member for Vancouver Kingsway for his work in what were often challenging conversations and negotiations, but which led to an exceptionally important bill that is going to do incredible good across the country. As well, I want to thank the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, the House leader for the New Democratic Party, for his work as House leader and now as health critic. In all orders, when we are facing something as challenging as the protection of our public health system and making sure Canadians get the care they require, working in a non-partisan way to drive results is exceptionally important.
I will speak to what is at stake, say a bit about what we have been doing in health and then talk specifically to the legislation that is in front of us today.
It was a stark day for me yesterday because I had two very different kinds of conversations. One conversation was with somebody who was saying, in a roundabout way, that maybe it would not be so bad if our public health care system became private. It is important to focus on what that would mean for this country and why it is something that we should all be adamantly opposed to.
If we allow our system to become a private health care system, there would be a migration of dollars toward a private system and expertise, in which the private sector would take that which was easy and lucrative and leave that which was difficult or involved folks who did not have the means to be able to pay for those services. This would leave less money in a public system that would be dealing with the most expensive problems and the most intractable issues. Over time, we would then see more and more migration of that which was easier into the private system, which would mean that people who do not have the means could not afford the same kind of care.
In a very practical sense, that ends up in the following type of situation: I had an opportunity to be in the United States with my partner for a weekend, and we witnessed a man collapse. It was clearly a person with not a lot of means. He fell unconscious to the ground. We went to his side and called 911. When he became conscious, his first thought was not about his health or worrying about what had just happened to his physical body; his concern was how he was going to be able to afford what just happened to him. I thought about the phone call I made to 911 and whether this was what this man even wanted, because now he has to think of exorbitant health costs to get the care he needs.
Even those who do not fundamentally care about whether their fellow citizens, regardless of their financial circumstances, get the same level of care as everybody else in the country, even if we cannot compel people's morality to care about the circumstance of whether somebody in their own community gets the same level of medical care that they do, the reality is that when somebody does not go to a hospital to get checked for something that is minor, because they do not have money, then it becomes something major. We are then left with the existential question, when that person becomes so sick that they are on death's door, of whether we just let them die or whether we pay the exorbitant costs that we have allowed to accumulate through not having a system that took care of those problems in the first place.
For the prognosticators of doom about our health system, for those who push the idea that we should just allow it to deteriorate and not make the investments or say that it is too difficult, they have to be honest about the future they are painting for Canadians in this country and the type of health care system that they would be left with. It is one where only the affluent have the opportunity to get the care they need. We can imagine a world where nurses cannot afford the care and services they require, but the affluent they are serving do. I do not think that is a society we want to be in.
That is why the investments we are making in health care are so critically important. The federal government has come to the table with nearly $200 billion to invest in partnership with provincial and territorial governments over the next 10 years. In the same spirit as the legislation, the question was not asked about one's partisanship or one's jurisdiction, because I do not think Canadians are interested. They want to see answers and forward progress.
I really want to commend the health ministers across the country because, over the last 10 months, as I had an opportunity to work with them to negotiate the agreements we signed, it was a spirit of co-operation and putting the health of Canadians first. It does not matter whether it was Adriana LaGrange in Alberta, Tom Osborne in Newfoundland and Labrador, a Conservative and a Liberal, or Adrian Dix, a New Democratic health minister in B.C.; they understand we have an important job to do and that we need to focus on what unites us and how we make things better.
The results were incredibly detailed health agreements that not only put money into the system but also showed exactly how that federal money is going to be spent. Thus, Canadians can view where those dollars are going to go to improve their health system and issues such as the health workforce, where we make sure that we have the doctors and nurses Canadians need and that everybody has a relationship with a doctor in this country. In addition, this enables us to put common indicators across the country so people can see the progress their province is making.
We know what is measured is achieved, and for the first time in our health system, these agreements put common indicators across the country so we can see the progress occurring in our health system and see what those investments are doing on key indicators identified by CIHI, which is an independent agency dealing with health data.
However, in dealing with the urgency of the now, let us recognize that our health system has been enormously strained. Throughout one of the darkest periods in public health that, certainly, we have known in our lifetime, health care workers were asked to do Herculean amounts of work. They were asked to rise to an occasion and do more than I think any reasonable person could be expected to do, but they met that hour and did it. As in health systems all over the world, instead of being met with a break, they were met with even more work, with burnout, with all kinds of mental fatigue and mental health issues as a result of the pandemic, with a backlog of procedures and with a health system that was even more overwhelmed.
What was remarkable about that period of time, going back to the spirit of co-operation, is that we made extraordinary progress. This was when the health system was fully aligned in the darkest moments of the pandemic, everybody was given more agency to practise at top of scope, jurisdiction was of distant consideration and people's immediate urgent health needs were first. We are dealing with that, with these workforce agreements and the work we are doing bilaterally with provinces and territories, but it is not enough to deal with the crisis of now. We have already made such huge progress. On where we were a year ago versus where we are now, that progress is evident through our whole system, but we recognize we also have to be upstream.
That brings me to another conversation that I had yesterday. I had the opportunity to be with the member for Ottawa—Vanier at a denture clinic in Vanier. Here is another example of parliamentary co-operation, where two parties came together and recognized an essential need in this country, which is that some nine million Canadians do not have access to oral health care.
We have now seen more than 30,000 seniors, just in the first few days of this dental program, receive care for the first time. I have been able to see what that means, in many instances by going into clinics. I will talk about what I saw in that denture clinic in Vanier. A denturist was talking about a senior who had not had their dentures replaced in 40 years; they did not have the money. This senior had no teeth and used a black apparatus to crush food in their mouth. One can imagine the dignity and the spiritual change in that person when they came in and realized that, after 40 years, they were finally going to get teeth in their mouth. The denturist being able to describe that moment, the pride they had in being able to deliver that service and give that senior that dignity, was absolutely extraordinary.
I had an opportunity in my own riding, just a few days before that, in Ajax, to meet with a senior. I never had a chance to meet him before. His name is Wayne. He sometimes goes by “Moose”. He was talking about himself and his wife. He had a need for partial dentures, and he had other oral health problems, as did his wife, which they had been putting off. In terms of what it meant to him to feel seen and to be able to get those issues taken care of, the truth is that we know it is not just a matter of dignity. It is not just a question of what kind of country we want to live in. What about the cost?
I think of Wayne and his inability to pay for the medical care that he needed for oral health care. Left untreated, Wayne could very well end up in a hospital room with an unnecessary surgical procedure, placing his life at risk. Imagine the staggering cost of that.
Dental care is not about some kind of boutique political intervention. It is fundamentally about making sure that people get the preventative care they need. It is part of the overall action that we are taking as a government, not only dealing with the crisis of the now, but also casting our eyes into the future and asking how we can work together.
Clearly the Bloc Québécois members have concerns about the jurisdiction issue, which I completely understand. It is a concern for me too. However, in my opinion, this is not a question of jurisdiction. It is actually a question of co-operation. There was one question that dominated my conversations with Quebec's health minister, Christian Dubé: How can the Government of Canada and the Province of Quebec work together to improve our health care system?
There are plenty of opportunities for us to work together in a spirit of co-operation to improve our health care system. It is easy to pick quarrels, point out differences and raise the issue of jurisdiction. However, I believe that for Quebeckers, what really matters is their health and government action.
Dental care is a great example of that. In Quebec, the Minister of Heritage has done extraordinary work in her riding. Almost all the providers in her riding have signed up, meeting a lot of that misinformation that was coming from the Conservatives with true facts. The experiences of those providers have been extraordinary. That is an example of us working together.
I said to Minister Dubé in Quebec that if they want to administer the program, it is no problem. Our care is about the patients, not about the jurisdiction. Our only requirements, if a one wants to take it over, is that one has to have at least the same level of care, number one, and number two, we are not going to give more to administer the program than it costs us to administer it. If it costs one more, that is something one has to bear on one's shoulders or look internally at how one is operating one's system.
That is an example of making sure that we get the care now and that we fix the question of jurisdiction later. For somebody who has a dental emergency, for a senior who does not have teeth in their mouth, they do not care about jurisdiction. They care about care and about getting it done. That is what we are focused on.
Before I come to pharmacare, one of the other things we are doing is about school food. When I was at Heart and Stroke, I had the opportunity to lead the Ontario mission and to be the national director of children and youth. One thing that was shocking to me was that when a child has one healthy meal, it can totally change their health outcomes. It does it for a couple of reasons. First, just the act of eating fruits and vegetables and healthy food has a transformative effect on health and prevents chronic disease and illness. Second, how does one learn if one is hungry? Third, one actually gets to develop a taste for healthy food that lasts one's entire life. Therefore, this is an extraordinary investment that is going to make a massive difference.
We are also taking action on marketing to kids with front-of-pack labelling and taking action with the $500-million fund to develop capacity for mental health services on the ground in communities across the country. I could go on and on, but I only have a short period of time to talk about the thing that we are here to talk about. I see the member for Vancouver Kingsway, and I want to thank him for this.
When we talk about contraceptives, it is incredibly frustrating to me that, over the last number of days, we have seen a march and a protest here to try to take away women's rights and take away their right to choose. We have seen over 80 Conservative members, I believe is the number, who have been endorsed because of their belief that they should take away a woman's right to choose, and that is fine. I am pro-choice, and there are members who are not.
However, what I do not understand is if someone is against a woman's right to make a choice about her own body, how can they also be against giving her contraception? What choice is she left with? Let us look at that very specifically. If a woman today is in need of contraception and does not have the money for it, what are they supposed to do? Maybe they can find the money for oral contraception, but it has a failure rate of 9%. An IUD has a failure rate of 0.2%, but it costs $500 up front. For the women who do not have the money to pay for it up front, they are left with a less effective tool to be able to have control over their sexual and reproductive health.
How, in the one order, can we say to a woman that they are not allowed to choose or make a choice for their body, but in the other order, say that we are not going to help them get contraception to be able to make a choice about their body that way either? In other words, they get no choice. What conversation is being had about sexual health? If someone is against giving contraception to women and against them having a choice over their body, then they would at least talk about sexual health.
For women, it is extremely important to know that their body is something that they should always have autonomy over. Sex is something that should feel empowering and should make them feel like themselves. It is something they should never be coerced or pressured into. It is something that they should never feel ashamed of. It is something that should feel pleasurable.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Mark Holland: There are members laughing.
Madam Speaker, imagine that? As health minister, I cannot talk about whether or not sex is pleasurable. Do members? Do members know how much sex people have in this country?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Mark Holland: Madam Speaker, they are laughing again, and that is so juvenile.
Guess what: In this country, or in any country, people have sex. How often does that result in a baby? Less than 0.1% of the time. Most of the sex people are going to have in their lives is for pleasure. Why is it important to be able to say that sex is pleasurable? The reason is when someone thinks that their body is there to serve somebody else, rather than to serve themselves and their pleasure, then they are going to be more likely to accept abuse, more likely to accept manipulation and more likely to be hurt.
I will say this lesson hit home for me very hard in my life when I was young. In my life, I was faced with deep sexual violence that happened when I was a kid. My family did not talk about sex. The result of that was me being afraid of my sexuality and of sex, and linking sexual violence to somehow being part of sex. I did not understand what sex was, and I was deeply confused. That is something that caused me an enormous amount of damage.
We know that sexual identity issues are a leading cause for teen suicide. Many young people struggle with many questions: What do I do? Do I please this person? Do I please myself? Is it okay to please myself? What do I want? It is okay to be ourselves, and we need to be able to say that in this country. It is okay to have autonomy over one's body.
Again, I will ask the question: If someone is against contraception and against choice, in terms of abortion, then how come one cannot talk about female sexuality? Is it because they do not want women to have any choice at all? That is an important question.
Therefore, making sure that women have access to the contraceptive medicine they need is absolutely essential to women having autonomy and control over their own bodies. It is, frankly, about making sure that they are not used, manipulated or have a negative experience with that.
Lastly, I will talk briefly, because I know I am pretty much out of time, about diabetes. Diabetes medication is so essential because if diabetes patients do not have access to the medication they need, and far too many Canadians do not have the dollars for their medicine, it means they are going to be much more likely to experience heart disease, kidney failure, blindness or limb amputation. It is yet another example, like contraception, where the money we would to spend to make sure that people get medication would actually save the health system more than it costs by avoiding all kinds of disastrous health outcomes. It is not just a matter of social justice or preventative health, but in this instance, it would bring huge savings to our health system.
Why are Conservatives against it? They say that it is fantasy. Then, let me try to negotiate it. When I talk to the provincial health ministers across the country, they are ready to act. If Conservatives are against it because they think the system is too expensive, then what is their alternative? How would people get their medication? They do not say that. If it is just that they are against the idea that people should get the medicine they need, then they should have the honesty to say that is their reason. Then, we can have a debate about the merits of the type of country we live in and whether or not those medications are available for the people who need them.
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- Apr/29/24 2:40:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, replacing science with slogans and replacing research and evidence with talking points will not fix the problem. There is not a person in the House who is not ripped apart when we watch somebody lose a loved one to this crisis, but to meet it with partisanship, to meet it with pretend solutions and to do things that have failed in other jurisdictions is a disgrace for those who have lost family members.
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- Feb/29/24 2:45:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the representations made by the member are inaccurate, and I would invite people to read the documents, which have been fully redacted.
However, this is the contrast with a party that is focused on partisanship and differences. The member opposite talked about working with another party and what that might accomplish. What about dental care? When we focused on co-operation, we were able to get dental care for this country. We were able to make sure that nine million Canadians, including three million seniors, will have access to dental care. They are voting against that. They are against that. Are they against pharmacare? Are they against the other fruits of co-operation that come from—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/18/23 2:56:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, more games. This serves the parties across the way. It is partisanship. It is obvious. They keep asking questions on things that have nothing to do with reality.
That is the case for CBC. Attacking the independence of the CBC is totally unacceptable. It is an attack on an independent institution that is very important for our country.
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