Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on behalf of the people of Similkameen—South Okanagan—West Kootenay on the issue of health care, specifically Bill C-239, an act to amend the Canada Health Act with respect to accountability. I would like to thank the member for Surrey Newton for bringing forward the legislation. It is a privilege for any member to bring forward their own legislation to be debated in the chamber.
The legislation before us seeks to establish an accountability framework for the Canada health transfer. Conservatives on this side of the chamber appreciate the member's efforts to bring in greater accountability. Indeed, all Canadians want health care dollars to be spent well.
However, members of the chamber are not elected to applaud good efforts; we are elected to study legislation in the context of the laws and measures we already have in place, to determine whether new legislation would add positively to these measures or only duplicate them. Unfortunately, the legislation before us would only add more bureaucracy to a health care system that needs more transparent accountability, and it would also fail to grapple with the government's own record on health care.
I do not doubt that the member's intentions with the legislation are to spur greater health care outcomes in our shared province of British Columbia. We all know it needs help. However, there is nothing in the legislation that would impose any requirement on provincial governments to improve health care outcomes. It would only require administrative work, duplicating work already being done. Ottawa already has a legacy of duplicating provincial regulations, adding red tape to systems and slowing down results. All we need is another layer of bureaucracy.
For example, the legislation seeks to amend the Canada Health Act. I would point out that paragraph 13(a) of the Canada Health Act already requires provinces to provide the federal Minister of Health with health care information to qualify for health transfers. Additionally, provincial and territorial governments submit health care data to the Canadian Institute for Health Information as well. There is nothing in the member's bill that indicates whether these are the data points he wants provincial governments to table with the federal government to qualify for health transfers.
If so, then the purpose of the legislation seems to be already covered by the Canada Health Act. If not, if it is different information that would be required, then that would only cause provincial health bureaucrats to spend more time collecting data for federal bureaucrats. That would be less time, not more, focusing on delivery of health care. Red tape does not buy more doctors or more health care workers.
Too many residents in my community would like any health care at all delivered, because too often they see “Sorry, we're closed” instead. At South Okanagan General Hospital, there have been more than 35 random closures in just one year. Imagine someone driving to a hospital because their baby is sick, and it is suddenly closed because there are not enough doctors or nurses. Thousands of constituents do not have access to a family doctor. We hear the same stories from Princeton to Penticton, Osoyoos, Grand Forks and Castlegar.
What is the Liberal government doing for health care recruitment to fill these gaps in communities like mine? It has brought in international medical school graduates but then does not allow them to work in our health care system. According to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, at least 13,000 internationally trained doctors are currently in Canada but not working as doctors. Every year, hundreds of Canadians graduate from medical schools abroad but cannot access a residency training spot back home in Canada.
At the Standing Committee on Health, we recently heard of two cases. First, we heard from Dr. Therese Bichay, who immigrated from Egypt where she practised as a family doctor. She was approved as a priority candidate for immigration to Canada due to her medical training, yet when she arrived, she found the doors closed instead of open. She passed all required medical exams, had her credentials verified and completed the English-language proficiency exam. She is currently working as a physician navigator in the emergency department, yet she cannot work as a doctor. She even told me she would come to my region to be a family doctor, which is in desperate need of doctors.
We are in desperate need of family doctors in so many rural communities, including ours. The Liberal government has failed to support her and the thousands of internationally educated physicians across the country, who are qualified and ready to serve, yet are sidelined and ignored.
Second, we heard from Dr. Scott Alexander, who is Canadian and a doctor, but cannot be a doctor in Canada. He trained at the University of Queensland and even had a job offer from the Australian health care system. He could not get a residency in Canada, even though he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his education. He made the sacrifice to return to Canada anyway to work in the health sciences. We thank him for this, but he should be a doctor in this country. In his medical class in Australia, he had 60 Canadian colleagues, and 58 of those colleagues are now working as doctors in Australia rather than in Canada because of the barriers in this country that limit their ability to return home to practise.
This is a broken system that the Liberals have overseen for a decade now without reform. If the member sincerely wants to see better health care, and if he wants to see better health care delivery, he should perhaps seek better support from his own caucus rather than establishing a new bureaucracy. If this Liberal member's bill is made into law, what would be the result? It demands that, if a new type of provincial health care data, which is not clearly defined, is not filed with federal bureaucrats, a province may not qualify for a full cash contribution under the Canada health transfer. For me, this raises concerns about whether the federal government is seeking ways to reduce health transfers from provinces via the back door.
We know the Prime Minister himself recently told Canadians that they need to be prepared for sacrifices ahead of the federal budget. Health care should not be one of those sacrifices. The Liberals could, indeed, find plenty of their own wasteful spending and punishing taxes to cut instead. Conservatives will work to improve health care by implementing a national blue seal standard and working with the provinces to create a nationally recognized licence for health care professionals, enabling trained and tested doctors and nurses to work in our health care system, many of whom already live right here in Canada right now.
Conservatives have always, and will always, support a public health care system that Canadians cherish.