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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1979-03-08, Page 421 PAGE 20A-GODERICH SIGNAL -STAR, THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1979 • McKinley. blasts.. government for hospital cuts Editor's Note: The following is from the February 5 House of Commons debate on Bill C-2, an act to amend the Health Resources Fund Act. The speaker is R.E. McKinley, MP for H.uron- Middlesex. He is talking about the current bed cuts in the province of Ontario 'as well as the proposed deterrent fees for chronic patients, and relating how the government in Ottawa must share some of the blame forthe problems in Ontario. "Mr. Speaker, we have heard a great deal of debate on this bill which is very loosely related to the provisions of the bill itself. In fact we have heard from the gover- nment side a self - congratulating account of how it first came to in- vade the field of health care in the 1960s, forcing reluctant provinces into cost sharing programs on which it has since unilaterally welched. "Speakers on the government side, of course, have taken the strange tack of praising themselves for the good work they did in .setting up these health care programs, when in fact the whole substance of this bill has to do with knocking down the health resources program. "Members on the government side might benefit from reading the bill again. It is only one paragraph long in its essential part. All it says is that the government is backing out of its com- mitment to the provinces two years early. "Three years ago I had occasion to join in debate on another bill in which the government was backing out of anothen. aspect of its commitment to the provinces. In the mid-1960s the govern- ment held out a financial carrot to the provinces to force them into cost sharing medicare programs. "Provincial, health ministers could see then that the carrot was rotten, but since the, federal government had drawn to itself so much control over government • spending and over programs that belong in provincial jurisdiction, the only alternative was to accept this rotten carrot or to be denied funds' that were being offered to other provinces. "The result of joining these cost . sharing• programs was that the provinces became in.:. volved in increasingly costly progra'rhs whose costs have been escalating through the 1970s to dizzying heights. Ontario had already embarked upon a health care program that suited its own needs as a province. The Liberal government in Ottawa put . it in a position of having to opt for the shared program put forward by the federal government, and it has been saddled with that program since. "I do not suggest for a moment that health costs have risen only because the federal government is involved in them. Costs have risen in almost any direction we care to look in the service industries. "On the other hand, the pace at which costs escalate can be con- trolled in certain ways. If the provinces had been left free to find their own solutions to the escalation in health care costs, they might well have been saved from the problems they find themselves faced with when the federal government, finding the heat in the kitchen too much for it, decides to quit and suddenly abandons the programs into which it had forced the provinces. "Medicare costs are not the direct issue in this present bill, but they provide the means of getting at the principle underlying the bill. The government is doing the same thing it did three years ago when it decided unilaterally to throttle the cost shared program commitment it had made with the provinces, "At that time, .finding that it was spending more than it wanted to be in- volved in spending, it simply sat down and said in effect, "We don't like the terms of the agreement any more; we're going to cut back on it." Now, once again', it is doing the same thing with a program it set up with the provinces. "Three years ago when the government decided to renege on its medicare commitments, I said, thinking of my own province of Ontario, "We knew at the outset that the provincial, medical care program was superior to the federal program that we were dealing within this case. There was no way we could be sure that the federal government would honour this agreement. We, like the other provinces, knew that this government's record of keeping its word was hardly con- ducive to placing very much faith in this par- ticular federal -provincial agreement GODERICH RECREATION R COMMUNITY CENTRE BOARD ARENA RENTAL RATES 1979-1980 The following rate changes are EFFECTIVE March 1, 1979. Auditorium: Stags, Dances etc. Others Arena Proper: Tables Local Groups '350.00 •175.00 '100.00 No Tables '25040 Local Commercial/ Entertainment Wrestling Circus '350.00 '500.00 Roller Skating: Admission - '1.00 Skate Rental _ 50° The following rate changes are EFFECTIVE October t 1979 '- �. t Regular Users ie. CHHL. SH Int. Shinny Hock. • Figure Skating Minor Hockey Ice Rentals: Lion's Free Skating $25.00/ hr. '20°00/hr. '20.00/hr. '25.00/hr. Ice Skating: Admission - 50' Skate Sharpening '1.00 NOTE: THE ARENA MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO NEGOTIATE THE RENTAL PRICE OF THE ARENA WITH ANY GAUP AND/OR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. "Well, Mr.,Speaker, sadly but predictably, I say the same thing again today about the program which is being thrown out in the present bill. `I`The principle involved here, Mr. Speaker, is the principle of good faith. A government that bargains in good faith does not commit itself to particular levels of spending for particular periods of time and then, without consultation and agreement, announce a change of heart. "In the previous' bill three years ago, the government pleaded that health costs were rocketing out of control. It couldn't stand the heat. It wanted out. "Well, this time the government cannot use that excuse, Mr. Speaker, because it sponsored the program which is being scuttled in this bill, a program to increase the health care training facilities in Canada and committed to it an amount of $500 million. Now, having decided that the way to save its own neck is to cut back on, spending, it has found this program and has discovered that by chopping it, it can an- nounce a saving of $84 million. "The 'costs of this program- can certainly not be said to have rocketed out of control. The funds were voted for it back in the mid I960s-$500 million to be spent over a 15 -year period. As other speakers have pointed out, those dollars .have 'shrunk mightily by today's, standards. Accordingly, inflation has already taken a great toll on the program's funding. Now, two yea,rs before it had said the program would end, the federal gover- nment wants to end it, dealing yet another blow to the building up of - health care facilities across Canada. "There are two ways of looking at the principle underlying the bill, Mr.. Speaker. There is the way suggested•by the minister 'when "she introduced it. She told us the program had already been 83 per cent spent and had' veer 3.50 expected The annual meeting and provincial con- ference of the Junior Farmers' Association of Ontario will be held at Toronto March 16 to 18. More than 350 Junior Farmers, including guest delegates from -other provinces and the United States are expected to attend, says Janet Horner, public relations officer, Youth Extension, Ontario. Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The event combines the annual meeting with an educational program, Dare To Be Different.,. Speakers include Christine Kar,za, of the March of Dimes Cam- paign; Warren Burger, youth specialist for the Ontario Provincial Police; Dr. George Goth,• minister from London, Ontario and William Stewart, former Ontario agriculture minister.. "These speakers will discuss how they have found the courage to be different in today's society," says Mrs. Horner. At the annual, meeting, delegates will elect anew president to succeed outgoing president Bart Johnston of York Region; and a new executive. One of the highlights of the• conference is the announcement of the travel .opportunity win- ners and travel scholarship winners, says Mrs. Horner. Travel scholarships to the United Kingdom and New Zealand and Australia will be awarded to five outstanding Junior Farmers. therefore accomplished many of its purposes. Accordingly, she regards it as an easy program from which to steal, to make up the budget cuts to which the government is committed. "But there is another way of viewing the principle underlying the bill- It is that the government, seeing itself in disfavour •withthe electorate throughout the country and realizing that its wild spending habits over the past few years have landed the country in enormous trouble, is looking for a way to save its skin. It has. sifted through its programs looking for ways to appear to save money without losing too many votes. Looked at in 'these terms, this bill has very little to do with good government and a lot to do with this government as it tries to save its own skin. . "If the program was goad in its conception, then the government should have the courage to maintain its level of funding, especially considering how much more cheaply the government comes by this amount of money these days. Even if it were a flawed program, unilateral decisions to cut off bilateral agreements are far from civilized. They are so close to the law of the jungle that no government which cares to keep good faith with its electorate would ever be guilty of them. "When the Trudeau government suddenly cut the funding of its shared - cost medical aid program three years ago, we in Ontario were faced with the threat of hospital closings in many com- munities. Now, , once again in Ontario we are faced with the possibility that a new fee may be levied on chronic care patients who stay in hospital more than 60 days. There are no easy solutions to the problems of cost in such social programs as these, Mr. Speaker. "For that reason, governments must work all the harder to make sure their programs are intelligently conceived and responsibly parried out. .How can the provinces plan long term programs if they are bound to the federal government in a shotgun marriage which always threatens a ' sudden divorce "How can Ontario ---to refer again to my own province -maintain the level of health care it had planned for its citizens if the federal government keeps twisting in the wind? Why did the Liberal government railroad the provinces into these shared -cost programs "at all if it has the gall later to leave them hanging? "One fact is obvious. When the federal government leaves a provincial government in the lurch these days, it is never a Liberal gover- nment which is affected. The voters have 'Seen to that. "And perhaps that is why . the Trudeau government has the gall to practice cost-cutting in this way. It forces the provincial governments to cut back on services and the provincial governments, except for the, one in Prince Edward Island. which will probably not be there long, are not Liberal. Perhaps the Trudeau government hopes, in this way, to stir the anger of the electorate against other parties. But people have lived with this government long enough not to be fooled. "When a user fee becomes necessary for long term hospital patients in Ontatip,, the voters of that province will know that it is a Trudeau 'fee they are being asked to pay. It ik a fee for having a Prime Minister in Ottawa who rene,g.es on com- rnitments. 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