CPAC - Wednesday, May 22, 2024 - 07:00 p.m. (ET) - Segment #3

sadly on behalf of Canadians who are already demanding their free medications which we know is many years down the road with the plan that the costly coalition has created. We also know because of their desire to ram this through as a piece of legislation that there are studies planned in the Committee Committee looking at opioids, a disaster and looking at breast cancer screening to save lives of young women in Canada. Because of the rammed down nature of this motion on this bill that those studies will be missed. Do I believe that we need more time study this in Health Committee? I do. I don't believe that having ten hours of witnesses when we have, you know, tens of 20s of witnesses who want to appear to talk about this that that is goings to be a -- going to be a significant problem. I wish to move seconded by the member from fun royal that the motion -- fun fun royal that the motion be amended by adding to Paragraph A, the minister of health and his officials be ordered to appear for witnesses for no less than three hours. Thank you, Madam Speaker. >> The Speaker: Mr. Ellis seconded by Mr. Moore moves the following amendment, that the motion be amended by adding to Paragraph A, the following, the minister of health and his officials be ordered to appear as witnesses witness Foss -- for no less than three hours. The question in order, the Honourable Parliamentary Secretary. >> Madam Speaker, the member has officially -- that the Conservative Party doesn't believe in the health care system. And their record commodities -- shows that. We made a 10 billion commitment to health care over the next years so future generations can see this. We have health accords with all provinces and territories. We We look at dental programs that is a success. The pharmacare program and this government wants to work to make a difference. The Conservative Party just criticize because they do not support a national health care system. My question to the member is why? >> The Speaker: The Honourable Member for Cumberland-Colchester. >> Thank you, Madam Speaker. I had the great opportunity and privilege to be educated in this country as a physician, as a family physician and work in this country as a family doctor for 26 years. So I take great umbrage at what the Member across wishes to say about my feelings around the health care system. I would go so far as to say it's one of the reasons why I had my residents take over my practice to come here and work inside this system to make the health care system better. What I don't support is a health care system where we see between 17 and 30,000 Canadians dying every year because of the lack of access to the health care system which I place squarely at the feet of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition. >> The Speaker: Questions and comments. The honourable member from New Westminster-Burnaby. >> I have great respect for my colleague and I work with the Health Committee but he made the case for passing this legislation. He talked about the Harper cuts and the Clark of health care funding -- and the slashing of health care funding. And the liberals have not been quick enough to restore the funding that the Harper Government but the Harper Government was the major part of the problem that we have in health care today. The emergency rooms across the country are populated by people with no access to dental care. The Conservatives voted against. The Canadian nurses Association tells us hundreds of people have to go to emergency rooms because

think can't afford their medication. And the NDP offers pharmacare. If he's aware the problems in the health care system does he apologize for the Harper cuts and is he willing to understand that dental care and pharmacare are key elements to trying to bring down the number of people in emergency rooms and bring better health care to all Canadians? >> The Speaker: The Honourable Member for Cumberland-Colchester. >> Sadly the Member is misinformed and is giving misinformation to the Canadians. I'm glad that the spirit Mr. Harper levels rent free in the head of the NDP costly coalition. They love to bring him up. We though on thisid so of the House -- we know on this side of the of the House that the funding went up every year under the Harper Government and the misinformation and the disinformation provided by the member sadly, I sometimes enjoy working with him as well but we know that people -- the majority of people in emergency rooms are not showing up because of dental purchases that's a nontruth and if they didn't show up because of not affording their medication, showing up in the emergency room is no help. It's foolishness to keep this Government in power. >> The Speaker: >> Voice of Interpreter: A brief question. The Honourable Member for Jonquiere. >> Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was closely listening to my colleague earlier. He's a doctor. He spoke about gaps in the health care system. But I never heard his leader say whether he agrees with the province's request to bring health care transfers up to 25%. And to 35% rather. Would he agree with that? >> The Speaker: The Honourable Member from Cumberland-Colchester. >> Thank you, Madam Speaker. I thank my colleague for the question. Nine or ten months ago, the leader of the opposition spoke about this. And the answer to the question is that we wish to respect the transfers that currently exist. That's very important. We also need to find ways to improve the health care system and respect the provinces. >> The Speaker: Resuming debate. The Honourable Member for salberry. >> Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm happy to rise to speak to this debate but I'm saddened because the Government has limited debate with complicity from the NDP. Which means I cannot say everything I would like to share and debate with my colleagues because we're under a time allocation motion for a very important piece of legislation which will impact on the provinces. It will impact and overstep into areas of provincial and territorial jurisdiction. And it may also cause turmoil in the existing. I believe it would have been entirely reasonable to take the appropriate amount of time to debate this. In order to cast light on some of the issues with this bill. And we know that this government and the NDP are in a hurry to tick a box so that they can say that they've brought in universal pharmacare. But was not accurate -- but what's not accurate here is that this bill actually lays out a series of principles which if they're adopted and if the provinces agree, perhaps one day a long way down the road there will be a Pan-Canadian pharmacare system. But the best-laid plans, Madam Speaker. First of all, Québec has clearly expressed that it does not wish to participate in this program. It doesn't want to participate with this. With the Federal Government to create a Pan-Canadian pharmacare system. Why? Because in Québec, we already

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