Empire Club of Canada
Speech for
The Honourable Tony Clement
Minister of Health
and
Minister for FedNor
Empire Club of Canada
October 6, 2006
Toronto, Ontario
Check against delivery.
Introduction
Thank you for your kind introduction.
I would like to begin by thanking the Empire Club for inviting such a distinguished audience of guests.
I also wish to thank Sun Life for sponsoring this event.
Canada's New Government
Over the past eight months, our new Government has repeatedly demonstrated that we are committed to getting things done for all Canadians. We have delivered on our promises and kept a clear focus on our priorities.
I have been proud to be part of that team proud to serve as the Minister of Health and the Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario, and proud to play a role in delivering a new kind of Government to Canadians.
On items and issues that matter to everyday Canadians we are delivering.
Our priorities are clear:
- Restoring Canadians' faith in the federal government by introducing the most sweeping accountability measures in Canada's history.
- Rewarding hard work and helping Canadians get ahead by reducing the GST.
- Protecting families, communities and Canada's way of life by cracking down on guns, gangs and drugs.
- Giving parents choice in child care by providing direct financial support and new child care spaces.
- Guaranteeing timely health care services to Canadians by moving towards a Patient Wait Times Guarantee.
During its first session in Parliament, our Government made significant strides in addressing each of these issues.
First, we brought forward new legislation aimed at ending a culture of entitlement and making sure that Canadians receive a full accounting of how their hard-earned tax dollars are spent.
We promised greater accountability to Canadians and we delivered.
It's no secret that Canadians are taxed too much. This tax burden hurts Canadian families and serves as a disincentive for both domestic and foreign investors. We are changing that.
That's why, in our first federal budget, our Government brought forward almost $20 billion in tax relief measures over the next two years that's more than the last four federal budgets combined.
On July 1st, 2006, we:
- Reduced the GST to 6 percent;
- Provided a new $1,000 Canada Employment Credit for working Canadians;
- Introduced a new Transit Tax Credit.
And, earlier this fall we fulfilled a Budget commitment when we exempted donations of publicly listed securities to public charities from capital gains tax, providing charities with a powerful new tool for fundraising. I understand there may be a few representatives from charities here with us today.
We promised Canadians that we would lower their taxes and we delivered.
Canada has a reputation as a peaceful and law-abiding nation. But lately, this hard-won reputation is under attack as a result of a number of high-profile criminal cases involving guns, gangs and crime.
Today we need to be more vigilant to protect our young people from violence, gangs, drugs, and predators. We are doing that and in the months ahead, my colleague Vic Toews the Minister of Justice will do even more.
At the same time, Canada is also facing external threats to our security as the menace of terrorism has drawn closer to our borders. We saw the arrest of 17 individuals on terror-related charges earlier this year.
Our Government has heard Canadians and has taken action. To protect the Canadian way of life, we have taken action to:
- Lengthen and toughen sentences to keep violent criminals and repeat offenders off our streets;
- Crack down on street racing a reckless crime that all too often kills;
- Protect our youth against sexual predators by raising the age of consent from 14 to 16;
- Provide more police to tackle crime, and make our streets safer.
We are introducing new measures to better secure our borders. We are protecting our transportation systems by bolstering security at Canada's airports.
We renewed Canada's commitment to bringing peace and democracy to Afghanistan. In doing so, we committed $15 billion desperately needed for new equipment for our military forces. For over a decade, the best military in the world was put in danger in war zones because of old, outdated equipment and we are resolving this.
We are also keeping our promise to support families. We believe that strong communities cities, towns and rural areas are built by strong families. Our Government recognizes this. We also recognize that each family is unique and parents must be able to make decisions that best meet the needs of their children, particularly in the area of child care.
Our Universal Child Care Benefit addresses this situation. It provides parents with direct financial support to allow them to make the child care choices that are right for their needs.
Parents receive $100 per month for each child under six to help meet the cost of providing child care. This puts the choice of child care options back where it belongs in the hands of parents.
At the same time, our Government is committed to working with business, community groups and non-profit organizations to create more child care spaces in Canada. Beginning in 2007, our Government will provide up to $250 million to support the creation of 25,000 new daycare spaces over five years.
Our Government promised to provide more child care choices for parents and we are delivering.
Patient Wait Time Guarantees
As Minister of Health, I know that Canadians' top priority is establishing Patient Wait Times Guarantees.
Now is the time for Canada to commit to Wait Times Guarantees which offers recourse when waits become too long. It's time to state the obvious: the status quo is not acceptable, and failure is not an option.
And, it is time to declare it unacceptable, in a nation as wealthy and as modern as Canada, to have a health system which permits unconscionably long delays and offers patients no recourse to alternate treatment options.
That is not just my opinion that is the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada. 84 per cent of Canadians polled are in favour of Wait Time guarantees. Millions of Canadians voted for them as one of our campaign commitments. Doctors overwhelmingly support them.
In Canada, we have a deal. People pay their taxes, and government provides reliable health care.
Canadians have lived up to their side of the deal; they've paid their taxes year in and year out. But they haven't been getting the value for money they deserve, because health care wait lists are still too long.
Canada's new government understands the fact that Canadians expect all levels of government to work together to get things done for families and taxpayers. They expect practical healthcare programs, properly managed.
Are Wait Time Guarantees a new idea? No. It is happening all over the world. Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and New Zealand all offer some form of guarantee.
This summer I travelled to Denmark and Sweden and learned how their Wait Times guarantees work.
For example, Sweden's National Maximum Waiting Time Guarantee 0-7-90-90, was introduced in 2005. It includes a portability option if patients wait too long.
- The "0" means same day contact with the health care system
- The "7" means patients will see a general practitioner within 7 days
- The first "90" means consulting a specialist within 90 days
- The final "90" means waiting no more than 90 days after being diagnosed to get treatment.
- 0-7-90-90
- And in recent elections a pledge was made to reduce the 90 to 60 days.
This is the kind of certainty Canadians want from their healthcare system. Change is possible. Improvement is possible. We can do it and we must do it.
Please don't misunderstand me: I know full well there are many parts of our system that operate spectacularly and in many in most instances it functions perfectly smoothly and quickly.
The situations I worry about are the ones I read about in the 25,000 letters I receive each year. Like the daughter who wrote that her mother a woman who "worked tirelessly to raise five contributing members of society, and paid her taxes diligently in the hopes that when she needed appropriate healthcare it would be available" was experiencing an unconscionable series of delays in treatment.
The daughter was worried sick, and angry over her mother's situation and her anger is justified.
That's why we are working with the provinces, territories and all our health partners to deliver a health system that will be more accountable to patients. Not processes. Not providers. But patients.
For too long, patients have been treated as a cog in a wheel. Doctors care, nurses care, family members care, but the system doesn't care it wasn't designed to put them first.
Patients need to be, deserve to be, at the centre of the health care system.
Canada's new government is committed to a patient-centred approach.
I know, it will not be possible to fix every facet of Canada's healthcare system instantly and all at once. I know reducing Wait Times is a process, not an event.
But we have to start somewhere; and the good news is we have indeed started. Canada's new government is taking action to deliver improved healthcare results for families and taxpayers.
Canadians have told us this is what they want. The Supreme Court has told us this is what we must do. And I will not rest until we do it.
What will Patient Wait Times Guarantees mean to you and your family?
A system that provides certainty and confidence that care will be there when you need it.
A system which is responsive accommodating your changing health care needs in a timely manner.
A system that is fair, based on need, and transparent, providing you with readily available information and "keeping you in the loop."
Finally, a system which is accountable, so that you as taxpayers see value for your money.
In 2005, all provinces and territories worked together to establish an initial set of benchmarks for acceptable wait times in priority areas. As they say in business, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."
With these benchmarks in hand, we can now measure against them in order to determine which areas of our system we need to make our focus for improvement.
In Budget 2006, our new government committed to honouring Canada's Health Accord by continuing to transfer to provinces an additional $41 billion over 10 years, including $5.5 billion specifically earmarked to reduce Wait Times. And we also committed to a six per cent increase in funding in each of those ten years.
Let me emphasize: each and every health ministry in every province and every territory can now budget to receive a six per cent increase every year through the Canada Health Transfer.
For the first time in over a decade, Health Ministers are working with healthcare budgets which are increasing. We have given them the money to make these improvements, and Canadian taxpayers expect to see these improvements.
This is very different from when I was a provincial health minister and I had to deal with billions of dollars in cuts under the Chrιtien-Martin government.
So here's where we stand: over the summer, I had discussions with Health Ministers from every province and territory to obtain their views on the opportunities and challenges they see in reducing Patient Wait Times.
Across the country, there are striking examples of progress. Here's what's happening:
- Quebec is showing leadership by proposing a guarantee in a measured way for hip, knee and cataract surgeries.
- Moreover, Quebec and Manitoba have publicly declared de facto guarantees for select cardiac and cancer services.
- Over the last three years, Ontario has decreased wait times for angioplasty by 25 days and for MRI scans by 29 days.
- In the last year cataract surgery Wait Times in Ontario decreased by 61 days.
- Manitoba's wait time for cancer radiation therapy is down to under one week, down from over 6 weeks in 1999.
- Alberta's Hip and Knee Replacement Pilot has shown success in reducing wait times from 47 weeks to 4.7 weeks.
- In British Columbia, the median wait time for cataract surgery fell from 9.7 weeks in 2005 to 7.4 weeks in 2006.
These examples, and there are many more, clearly show that when we work with focus and determination, when we have a common goal, and when governments work together, we can deliver to Canadians the kind of health care they deserve.
Some people say Wait Times Guarantees are impossible to deliver. I say, we can do it and we must do it. As other nations move forward with their own Patient Wait Times Guarantees, Canada must learn from their experiences. We cannot afford to fall further behind.
What are we doing to help achieve our goals?
We are moving forward with efforts to enhance research, technology and health human resources through federal/provincial/territorial cooperation.
Research plays a critical role in wait-time reduction, prevention and treatment. Working with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and provinces and territories, we are using federal research dollars to accelerate the gathering of evidence to set more wait time benchmarks.
Canada's new government is also working with provinces and territories on the technology front, leveraging our Canada Health Infoway dollars to reduce wait times through the implementation of electronic health records, centralized data bases, and tele-health services.
Our government is also investing in health human resources to improve collaboration among health professions, and to contribute to the recruitment and retention of health professionals.
This government is also investing to help increase the number of internationally educated health professionals who are able to work in Canada. Federal investments in that area will mean 1,000 more doctors, 800 more nurses and 500 other health professionals in the system within five years.
This fall, I am proposing that federal, provincial and territorial health ministers host a "Sharing Success" Conference, where they will have the opportunity to showcase provincial success and innovations in improving timely access and reducing Wait Times.
We will work very hard to measurably improve performance. But, what we will not do is simply throw money at the system without achieving measurable improvement.
Achieving meaningful "guarantees" requires hard work. It requires discipline in how money is managed; and it requires the delivery of real policy change to Canadians.
You know that, I know that, and Canadians know that.
Conclusion
As I conclude my remarks this afternoon, I would like to leave you with a few thoughts.
Establishing a guarantee isn't just about getting in step with the rest of the world. It's about getting in step with what Canadians want, what they expect, and what they deserve.
Within one year's time, I believe provinces and territories should be in a position to state their intention to establish a guarantee in critical areas such as cardiac care where progress has already been made.
And, then, let's continue to make progress the following year, too. By Spring of 2008, legislation requires the federal Parliament to review progress in implementing the 2004 Health Accord.
I believe that by that date, all jurisdictions should be making progress towards establishing Wait Times guarantees for other essential health care services.
Some people say, "I will believe it when I see it." I say, we have to believe it in order to see it.
I see a healthcare system that delivers certainty, timely access and recourse. I see a healthcare system that puts the patient first. I see a healthcare system that is a world-leader in effectiveness and achieving measurable results. I see a nation that is confident in its ability to protect the health of its citizens.
We can accept no less. You must accept no less. So long as we accept the status quo the status quo will remain. Canadians have the right to expect better, and receive better, for the money we spend on healthcare, and today I pledge to you that I will not rest until we do. Thank you.
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