44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2024 02:00PM
- May/29/24 8:50:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with respect to long-term care standards, with seniors living in long-term care homes, there were horrible effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seniors died from negligence. Families lost loved ones before they could say goodbye. Can the minister inform the House when Canadians can expect to see mandatory standards for the quality of care in long-term care homes?
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- May/29/24 8:50:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, what happened in long-term care facilities across the country was devastating coming out of the pandemic, and that is one of the reasons that in our supply and confidence agreement, we have an agreement to move forward with the safe long-term care act. I look forward to working in an expeditious manner with the member opposite to realize its fulfillment.
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- May/29/24 8:50:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I hope it would have the same impact as we have had on pharmacare and dental care.
More than 54% of long-term care homes in Canada are privately owned; 57% of long-term care homes in Ontario are for profit. New Democrats, as the minister knows, have committed to removing profit from long-term care because the health of vulnerable seniors should go ahead of profit. Will the minister commit to removing profit from long-term care so seniors get the best level of care possible?
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- May/29/24 8:51:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will agree that every senior has to be able to have access to the care they need. Our aging with dignity agreements have that at their core. That is what a very significant part of the spending on the tailored bilateral agreements was about. However, I certainly want to say that we want to continue to work with the member to make sure that it is affordable for every senior to be able to get the care that they need, ideally to age at home, and where that is not possible, to be able to go to a home they can afford.
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- May/29/24 8:51:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in the last election, the government promised to hire 50,000 new personal support workers. Records show so far that it has been a little over 9,000. Why has the government not put in place better wages and working conditions, and why have they not met the goal of 50,000 new PSWs?
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- May/29/24 8:52:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a very big priority for me to get an agreement on personal support workers signed with each and every province and territory. I hope to have more news on that soon, but it is an objective that I share with the member, a commitment we made and a commitment I intend to keep.
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- May/29/24 8:52:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, now I will move on to women's health care. Abortion is health care, and the Liberals promised to expand access to sexual and reproductive health. Abortion care is still inaccessible for far too many women, especially in northern and rural communities.
Clinic 554 in Fredericton, the last remaining abortion clinic in New Brunswick, closed its doors earlier this year. Can the minister explain why the government failed to save Clinic 554 and what his government is doing to hold provinces accountable when they restrict abortion care? When will the government re-establish abortion care in New Brunswick?
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- May/29/24 8:53:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course abortion care is absolutely essential health care, and all women should have access to it no matter where they are in the country. There are still options in New Brunswick, but not enough of them. This is a conversation I have had with Minister Fitch with respect to the clinic that has been referenced. That is obviously under provincial jurisdiction, but there have been instances where we have withheld, because of actions taken on this issue, transfers under the Canada Health Act, but I would like to be able to fix this, again, with co-operation. It is essential that women have access to the care they need. Also, we talked about pharmacare and what we are doing—
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- May/29/24 8:53:44 p.m.
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The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.
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- May/29/24 8:53:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the New Brunswick government is not co-operating, what will the federal government do to re-establish abortion care in New Brunswick?
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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 8:54:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in Canadian women. One in eight women in Canada is expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer. Early detection, as the minister knows, can improve health outcomes and save lives. Breast cancer advocates and the Canadian Cancer Society have been advocating to lower the breast cancer screening age from 50 to 40. Will the minister commit to updating the screening guidelines so women are able to access critical early-stage diagnosis?
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- May/29/24 8:54:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have seen the same science that the member opposite has; it is very compelling, and it compels me that reducing the age to 40 and having early screening is highly effective. We are waiting for the release of a report tomorrow from an independent, arms-length body. Obviously there will then be a consultation period and we will be able to respond to that. However, we have to stay very close to science, and I see that seven provinces have now adopted the lower age standard, and I think that Canadians rightfully expect to see federal leadership.
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- May/29/24 8:55:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first nations, Inuit and Métis people often do not have access to health care. As clinics in or near their communities are closed, folks in the far north are frequently required to fly south, often alone and often receiving health care in a language they may not understand. Can the minister explain why the government, including the Department of Indigenous Services, has not responded to the health care needs of indigenous peoples?
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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 8:56:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 71% of Canadians use natural health products, and many people felt unfairly blindsided by the Liberals' proposal to regulate them. We remember when Stephen Harper tried to force regulations on natural health products.
Can the minister tell Canadians what he is doing to ensure that people who use natural health products would continue to have access to safe and effective products?
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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 8:57:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the dental care update.
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- May/29/24 8:57:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to be participating in this particular debate. I believe that the government has made significant progress, of course with the support of the NDP, to provide more and more services to Canadians. Things like pharmacare and dental care, which I will speak about in a few moments, are long-overdue programs. In my opinion, they are things that I have always thought we should bring into our country and work on with provinces to develop.
I will start by talking about the recent slogan Conservatives have been using. The recycled slogan they are using is “common-sense Conservatives”; they are saying that the common-sense Conservatives will do this or the common-sense Conservatives will do that. They are clapping now.
I am from Ontario. I remember the common-sense revolution of the 1990s. That was Mike Harris's common-sense revolution, and those were dark days for health care in Ontario. Mike Harris slashed health care funding. Mike Harris closed hospitals in Ontario. Mike Harris tried for several years to close the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Kingston. The community fought for years against Mike Harris to reverse that. We were lucky because, unlike the vast majority of hospitals that he attempted to close, that one we were able to save. The forward-thinking, progressive politicians of the day, one of whom shares the same last name with me, were successful in doing that. However, the reality is that it was not the case throughout the province.
The common-sense revolution was about cuts. It was about neo-liberalism. It was about removing social programs. The minister responsible for what was then called “welfare” actually came up with a welfare diet to tell people what they should eat if they were on welfare, because it is what they would be able to afford with their welfare payments. That is what the common-sense revolution was about, but perhaps the most damning part of Premier Harris's common-sense revolution is what happened in the later days of his premiership. Of course, I am referring to what happened in Walkerton.
Seven people died in Walkerton. As a result, it was widely noted that Mr. Harris's cuts and privatization of water testing, privatization of a lot of the things that rightfully belong within a health ministry and environment ministry that should not be left to the public, led to decreased testing. In Walkerton, Ontario, on one day when there was a very heavy downfall of rain, E. coli ended up in the water supply. That led to the deaths of seven people.
Conservatives applaud me when I say “common-sense Conservatives”, but if people in Ontario were paying attention to politics in the 1990s, they knew what the common-sense revolution of Mike Harris was really all about. It was about removing government from absolutely everything possible and leaning on the private sector to provide the agencies responsible to ensure that we had the right protections. Obviously they failed.
Despite the fact that my Conservative colleagues will clap when I cite their new slogan “common-sense Conservatives”, we in Ontario remember what the common-sense revolution of Conservatives was really all about. It was about cuts, about austerity and about privatization of services that should never have been in the hands of private companies, which led to seven deaths in Walkerton, Ontario.
Therefore I am very concerned when I hear Conservatives go on about common sense, including the has-been doctor who is heckling me at the back of the room over there, including—
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- May/29/24 9:02:24 p.m.
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I am going to ask the hon. member to withdraw the comment.
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