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Results: 31 - 45 of 46
Serge Legault
View Serge Legault Profile
Serge Legault
2021-04-26 12:58
A screening colonoscopy showing a polyp costs about $1,000, including care. If that same polyp is found only two years later and has turned into colon cancer, the costs can go up to $20,000. I'm talking about a public system where the patient will have to receive radiation or chemotherapy and be absent from work for a long time.
Economically, the costs are absolutely different. Investing immediately saves us money. In terms of the social cost, it is quite obvious that if we have to do a day procedure—
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-19 12:43
Currently, Quebec and the provinces believe that the chronic underfunding in health is, among other things, related to the fact that for the past 30 years, the federal government has not contributed enough to health transfer payments. Quebec and the provinces are asking for an increase, not of $0.22 but of $0.35 per dollar, which is equivalent to a 35% increase. The shortfall is therefore $28 billion. We're also asking for a 6% indexation, because we're at 3% right now. The system costs are at 5%.
During the first wave, the Prime Minister often said he would address the situation after the pandemic. Now we are experiencing a third wave. Do you think it's visionary to say that there is a before and after and that we need to invest in health care now to give the system some breathing room and care for people?
Martin Champagne
View Martin Champagne Profile
Martin Champagne
2021-04-19 12:44
I practise medicine, not politics, but we can certainly imagine right now that without major additional investments, the health care system will not survive the financial burden imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-19 12:44
Have you evaluated the costs that will result from the lack of resources? For example, let's compare the cost of a $1,000 colonoscopy to the cost of the surgery and chemotherapy needed to treat colon cancer. How much would the costs be in the latter case?
Martin Champagne
View Martin Champagne Profile
Martin Champagne
2021-04-19 12:45
In more advanced stages of cancer, each episode of care delivered over a trajectory of a few years costs several tens of thousands of dollars per year. For example, immunotherapy for lung cancer currently costs $35,000 to $50,000 per episode of care. Thus, the costs absorbed by the health care system to treat advanced lung cancer are very significant.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-04-12 12:42
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for their opening statements.
I would like to begin with Dr. Soulez and Dr. Barry.
Thank you for agreeing to take part in this meeting on the collateral effects of the pandemic, in general, including on non-COVID-19 patients. The pandemic has created two categories of patients: those with COVID-19 and those without COVID-19.
There can be no medicine without diagnosis, and your specialty is hugely important in diagnosing patients. You said the government needed to invest roughly $1.5 billion in equipment. Tell me, if you would, whether your requirements would be met if the government were to make a massive investment in health transfers, sooner rather than later.
Gilles Soulez
View Gilles Soulez Profile
Gilles Soulez
2021-04-12 12:45
That's an excellent question. As Dr. Barry clearly explained, Canada was already behind in capital equipment investment before the COVID-19 pandemic. Investments were already needed pre-pandemic, with our equipment assets significantly below the average among countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
At the height of the crisis, the rate of imaging and screening dropped drastically, and we have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. At best, we are at 90% to 95% of where we were pre-pandemic, and in most cases, that figure is 80%. We are digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole.
The $1.5-billion ask covers not just the purchase of equipment, but also things like human resources—which matter a lot. Different provinces have different needs. Some are in desperate need of equipment, such as the Atlantic provinces and Alberta. Other provinces are more in need of human resources. We have to maximize the use of all equipment, even running machines overnight where possible. That means finding ways to train the technologists who run the machines and to keep the technologists in those communities, something that isn't always easy.
Investing in information technology is also essential. Right now, most provinces don't even have a central inventory for wait lists, so patients can't be referred to appropriate IT platforms. There's no way to find out in real time how serious cases are or determine which ones are truly urgent, meaning, the ones that can't wait. That information is extremely important.
I want to draw your attention to one last thing regarding IT investment. Making sure we choose the right tests for patients is crucial. IT systems are now available to support clinical decision-making, helping to guide front-line workers, such as family physicians. The technology provides assurance that the test fits the needs of the patient, thereby ensuring testing is 100% useful.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you for your response. It's much appreciated. Indeed, let's hope, with respect, Madam Minister, that it's a budget for all Canadians and not only a budget designed for an election campaign.
In the fall economic statement and in your opening address, you pointed out that 80% of extraordinary spending tied to COVID-19 came from the federal government rather than the provinces and municipalities. I would nevertheless like to remind you that it's a pandemic, a health crisis, and that health spending is covered to the tune of almost 80% by the provinces. In my view, the federal government is not pulling its weight. Since the last election, and even beforehand, the Bloc Québécois has been speaking out on behalf of the Quebec consensus, and now on behalf of the other provinces, to increase the federal share of health financing to 35%.
Is this a measure you are envisaging?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you for your question, Mr. Ste-Marie.
With respect to support for families, individuals and businesses, the federal government has been there for Quebecers and all Canadians. We were happy for Canada to be in a financial position that made it possible to do so.
I would also like to point out that in the summer, we gave an additional $19 billion directly to the provinces and territories under the Safe Restart Agreement and an additional $2 billion for reopening schools. The safe restart funding was in large measure for health spending by the provinces and territories to combat COVID-19.
As I mentioned in my opening address, Bill C-14 will provide more funding to the provinces. There will also be measures to help support residential and long-term care centres, or CHSLDs, because we understand just how important they are.
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
Last Friday, I had a discussion with the provincial and territorial ministers of finance, including Mr. Girard, Quebec's minister of finance. I was very happy, moreover, to be able to thank him publicly for his sincere and frank collaboration. He's an excellent colleague. We discussed what else the federal government might be able to do to help the provinces and territories, particularly with respect to combatting COVID-19. I told the ministers of finance…
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would first like to thank the committee for inviting me back to speak this time to the supplementary estimates (B) 2020-21, which were tabled last October.
With me today, I have the pleasure of introduce to you Glenn Purves, assistant secretary, expenditure management sector; Karen Cahill, assistant secretary and chief financial officer; Sandra Hassan, assistant deputy minister, employment conditions and labour relations; and finally Kathleen Owens, assistant comptroller general, acquired services and assets.
These supplementary estimates (B) are the second of three supplementary estimates planned for fiscal year 2020-21. They outline new and updated spending needs for programs and services that were not sufficiently developed in time for inclusion in the 2020-21 main estimates.
The government needs to make sure that it gives Canadians the support they need during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time promoting our country's economic recovery and prosperity .
We do this by investing in critical health care and supporting the safe restart of our economy. Our spending plans, the ones you have in front of you, will help Canada thrive, and remain strong and united.
The government continues to invest in Canadians and the economy, particularly in efforts to respond to the public health threats of the COVID-19 virus and to minimize its health, economic and social impacts.
These supplementary estimates (B) present a total of $79.2 billion in incremental budgetary spending. This includes $20.9 billion to be voted by Parliament and $58.3 billion in forecast statutory expenditures.
As you know, vote expenditures require annual approval from Parliament through an appropriation bill. These types of expenditures include operating, capital, and grants and contributions.
Statutory spending does not require annual approval from Parliament because that type of spending is already authorized by Parliament through separate legislation, such as the federal-provincial transfers that are pursuant to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.
In these supplementary estimates (B), most of the $20.9 billion in new voted spending is for emergency responses to the COVID 19 pandemic, including medical research, vaccine development and purchases of personal protective gear, and medical equipment and supplies. They also cover economic responses to the pandemic, including support for small- and medium-sized businesses, salary top-ups for essential workers, and funding for provinces and territories to safely restart their economies, and bring students back to school.
Overall, funding requirements for the top 10 organizations account for approximately 85% of the voted spending sought through these estimates. Of those 10 organizations, eight are each seeking more than $500 million to support their priorities. For example, in my department, the Treasury Board Secretariat is asking for $646.6 million.
In addition, the $58.3 billion in planned statutory spending included in these estimates reflects the government's key response measures and emergency supports, including $28.5 billion for the Canada emergency response benefit, $12.3 billion for payments to provinces and territories for the safe restart agreement, $3.8 billion for medical research and vaccine development and $3.3 billion for the acquisition of protective gear and medical equipment.
These supplementary estimates (B) also include $1.3 billion in non-budgetary measures related primarily to student loans.
To conclude, my officials and I are very appreciative of the time the committee spends studying the government's spending on behalf of Canadians.
We would be pleased to take any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Shannon McDonald
View Shannon McDonald Profile
Shannon McDonald
2020-11-24 11:14
Thank you very much. I'm honoured to be asked to present to you.
I come to you today from Tsawout First Nation, where I live as a guest. I'm originally from Manitoba, am Métis and Anishinabe, and work for the First Nations Health Authority, which means that I work for the nations of B.C.
First nations look at COVID-19 in many ways through the historic lens of previous pandemics and the impacts on the population. Considering the existing health inequities that are inevitable, it seems that the funding we have received is often stated as not being proportionate to the needs, especially in the context of not only the COVID public health emergency but, in B.C. especially, the opioid public health emergency, where we have had significant losses and disproportionate impacts on our population.
At the same time, first nations, recognizing their self-determination and their ability to make decisions about their own people and their own community, have taken part in tripartite relationships, and I want to recognize the support and partnership of our federal and provincial colleagues through this. But as we move through and beyond COVID, we need to ensure that the actions and responses remain rooted in tripartite agreements, governance recognition and the relationships that have been built. We have to find ways to build from health innovation and leadership demonstrated by B.C. first nations and continue that on to battle systemic barriers and reduce those health inequities.
As of yesterday in B.C., there were over 27,000 positive tests for COVID. Among those are 956 first nations individuals, 75% of whom live off reserve.
Our funding is focused primarily on the on-reserve population. That's the way the envelopes are based. Only 44 of those active cases right now are near a community, but over the weekend, we had an additional 58 cases among first nations people. We've suffered 13 deaths thus far, which is not significant when you look at the numbers in the world, but it is certainly significant for the communities and the families who have been impacted.
In the context of the opioid emergency, we're looking at the unintended consequences of some of the public health actions that have gone forward. Lockdowns are dangerous for individuals with opioid substance use disorders, who are being told to stay home and stay alone. Programs and services that could support them in other times are shut down or less accessible during the COVID emergency. It has been extremely challenging to support people who are using alone in their homes.
The FNHA has played an active role in the development of regional plans to implement a partnership with the province. The rural, remote and indigenous community COVID-19 collaborative response framework—it doesn't fit in an invitation—is a collaboration with regional health authorities, provincial officials and health agencies.
In addition to that work and the collective response, we have also developed lines of communication about those reciprocal accountabilities, where we constantly need to be speaking to communities. We hold regular webinars with health directors, with leadership and with community members. There never seems to be enough communication. That's probably one of our biggest challenges. Mr. Alsop spoke to the issues of connectivity. For some of our communities, participating in those communications is increasingly challenging.
We recognized, for example, that there were challenges in accessing primary care during the COVID emergency, as doctors who would normally travel to communities stopped doing that.
We have set up a virtual doctor of the day program allowing for telehealth to provide those services to communities. We've also included a virtual substance use in psychiatry service as part of that, and it's been very important.
Knowing my time limitation, I can't help but recognize the work that's being done right now in the context of the racism investigation that is front and centre in B.C. working very hard to overcome those issues in health care service delivery. There is a report, of course. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond's report is expected any time, and there will be a significant resource challenge to respond to that.
One of the things we're really concerned about right now is burnout, burnout of our front-line workers, burnout of our leadership and burnout of our FNHA staff. I think we need to look at that in context and understand. For example, in a meeting yesterday, an elder said to me, “I don't want to take the prioritized immunization.” I was saying we're going to prioritize first nations among the immunization programs, and he said, “No, they're just going to make us guinea pigs. We're not priorities. They're going to use this new vaccine on first nations people to see what happens and then use it on everybody else.”
We really need to understand the context we're working within, the fears that people have and be able to respond to those.
Thank you.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you.
I made this request during the election campaign, and we reiterated it as soon as we arrived in Ottawa. We actually made it a condition of our support for the budget. We hammered away at that request. I went to Ottawa three times to ask for help. Finally it came. Let's hope that it will not be only temporary and that something else will be set up after the crisis.
Seniors are also very concerned about the state of our health care system. There was the whole issue of the CHSLDs in Quebec, seniors' residences and the care they receive. The crisis clearly shows that it is high time and extremely urgent to increase health care transfers. We are asking that this assistance be recurrent and that the transfers be increased to 6%. This is essential and crucial, because after the crisis, health care needs will remain.
Is the minister also aware that the government will have to deal with the desperately urgent issue of transferring health care funds to the provinces, including Quebec?
View Deb Schulte Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much for the question. I want to assure the member that this issue is one that my colleague the Minister of Health would probably be best to address, so the committee should probably invite her to come and join you.
We have been very supportive of the provinces during this pandemic to help address the increased costs. We gave over half a billion dollars to provinces and territories, at the very beginning of this, to assist them with the health care costs and to help them get ready to address the rising costs and the changes they would need to do in order to get the health care system ready for the pandemic. As I mentioned before, we put $2 billion on the table for protective equipment for essential workers, including those on the front lines in health care. We also provided $3 billion to the provinces and territories to help them with wage subsidies for those front-line workers, especially long-term care workers who needed to be properly compensated for working in the environment they're working in.
We've been putting a tremendous amount of money on the table to support the provinces and territories in the health sector. We'll continue to be there for the provinces and territories. You heard the Prime Minister. We're there with our military, actually going in and supporting 25 long-term care centres with people—
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2020-05-06 16:12
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad you're back. I almost missed you. I'm happy to see you again today.
I will start by commending the work of the essential services workers in my riding, who do a fantastic job and who have to go to work, sometimes even despite the incentives to stay home, such as the CERB. I think they are very brave people who have their priorities straight.
Before I start my speech I would like to make a brief aside.
Several people in my riding have called my office for information on the CERB. One of them was a gentleman who was working under the table. He thought it was totally unfair that people who do not declare their income do not have access to the CERB. I lectured him a bit by telling him that when he goes to the hospital and uses public services, our taxes pay for those services.
I find it rather ironic that earlier, in response to some questions, I heard members opposite say that we were going to allow companies registered in tax havens to benefit from the measures the government is implementing. Let's just say that this is a tad inconsistent with the lecture I gave this citizen who works illegally. I would even say that this encourages people to work under the table. In any event, there is someone better placed than me, my colleague from Joliette, who will be able to explain it to you later.
This time last year, if I had told anyone that we were about to have one of the worst health crises in Canada, probably no one would have believed me. That's what a crisis is like. As long as it is just a possibility, we pay no attention to it. We are living through this actual, real crisis, which some people predicted by talking about a possible SARS pandemic. They had already given us an indication of how this could develop.
I am thinking of what we did a little earlier when we marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands. When we're in a crisis or a war, sometimes we tell ourselves, “never again”. We want to make sure it never happens again.
I will use this as a starting point to discuss what role science might play in this crisis. I am my party's critic for science and innovation.
Let's just say that we, as public policy-makers, have a moral obligation. We must ensure that the current crisis never happens again. The direct consequences of this crisis are very problematic. We only have to think of our seniors who, as my colleague said earlier, are being left to cope on their own because we need to implement health measures. How are we going to resolve this situation? Health care funding will certainly be part of the solution. I will come back to that.
I would like to come back to the approach my party has taken since the beginning of this Parliament.
The Bloc Québécois has committed to co-operate with the government. This has earned us some successes, especially in the aluminum file. However, I feel that we need to revitalize this approach of co-operation. To help solve this crisis, our party could make a contribution, as it did for the implementation of the CERB, by putting forward its ideas.
I would like to brainstorm with you and share a few points with the government about a strategy to recover from the crisis.
A crisis occurs in two waves. During this first wave we are experiencing, the government acted in reactive mode, in other words, it responded by putting out fires. That is what it did in part by introducing the CERB and the Emergency Wage Subsidy. It had to deal with the most urgent situations. In the second wave of the crisis—and this is where things will get interesting for us—we will instead rely on an analytical or prospective mode, to use big words. In short, we will try to “understand”, “prevent” and “anticipate”, and we will propose concrete, feasible solutions.
To that end, we cannot avoid engaging in a serious reflection on research, since it is effectively through research that we can manage to control something like the current pandemic.
I therefore see two major approaches to overcoming the crisis. We will have to develop mechanisms that will help us control infectious diseases, but there is also another interesting approach that goes hand in hand with economic recovery. What will we learn from the crisis? Maybe something as abstract as climate change can become more real to us. As part of the economic recovery, we will have to use our scientific resources to find ways to prevent future uncontrollable crises, such as global warming.
There are then these two major aspects, but I am still a bit concerned because, earlier, our friends in the Conservative Party talked about the public debt as a way out of the crisis. I am well aware that public debt rises in times of crisis, but the federal government should not go back to its old ways of cutting transfers to the provinces. That is what led to the fiscal imbalance, which has resulted in chronic underfunding of health care. We are now suffering the consequences of this in Quebec. This underfunding has led to inadequate services in some seniors' centres. We will have to pay particular attention to this. It is true that we do not have unlimited resources and that we must ensure that public finances are sound, but we must not go back to a fiscal imbalance and the underfunding of health care.
There is another important issue to consider as we work to exit from the crisis. I fear that the government will decide to invest massively, as it has already done to some degree, in oil and gas. The oil sands are no longer a profitable source of energy. It would therefore be an obvious mistake, in my opinion, to want to save the oil sands as a way out of the crisis, when there are other very attractive economic sectors. I am thinking in particular of the forestry industry, which is very promising. It would be a good strategy to invest in the forestry industry as we emerge from the crisis. We should think about wood construction and forest biomass utilization. These are very promising sectors that are not unique to Quebec. They can also stimulate the economy in British Columbia. There is a whole area of research focusing on the forestry industry to help make the energy transition a little smoother. If the government decides to go in that direction, we will certainly work with it. There is then that possibility for bringing the economy out of the crisis.
I have one minute left and I haven't gotten to the main point of my presentation yet. We also have an opportunity when it comes to health care. Today, I told the Minister of Health about a Quebec initiative involving a biobank that would work in the sequencing of the COVID-19 virus. I hope that the government is also prepared to support this initiative, which is already backed by the Government of Quebec.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that we are prepared to work with the federal government if it commits to harmonizing the recovery from the crisis with the fight against climate change, which is not consistent with cuts to health care. If that is the case, the Bloc Québécois will be there to help.
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