Helena Konanz

“Mr. Speaker, I want to be kind. The blue seal program the Conservative Party talks about, at the national level, is just not real. I think there are some people within the Conservative Party who understand that. Maybe some do not. I used to be the health care critic for the Province of Manitoba. The issue of doctors and the placement of doctors, and so forth, is the responsibility of provinces. The biggest barrier in terms of recognizing doctors is not a federal initiative. Often a federal government can encourage and promote provinces to get doctors recognized. It saddens me when doctors or potential doctors are leaving the province of Manitoba and going to other jurisdictions, even countries such as Australia, where they become doctors but then come back and are not getting recognized. This is a serious issue. The federal government is doing what it can to promote and encourage things such as mobility across Canada. We need more of that. We need our health care professionals to get better recognition for the skill sets they have. I remember an incident when I went to a furniture store on St. James Street. This happened when I was the health care critic. The province was actually busing pregnant women from Brandon, I believe it was, to the city of Winnipeg because we did not have enough doctors in Brandon to deliver babies. Meanwhile, the guy who was selling me furniture had delivered babies in India for years. He gave me the impression that it was hundreds of babies. He could not get his credentials recognized in Canada. The provinces play a critical role in the numbers of doctors. The stakeholders we are talking about deal with universities, our professional organizations and provincial governments, working more closely at resolving the issues, such as residency positions in hospitals, and, again, educational facilities. From a federal government perspective, we not only have had a Prime Minister who has actually made a commitment to preserving the strength of our health care system from a federal perspective, but we are also doing more. To give a specific example, we have now put aside $5 billion for capital health care expansions. For the first time, we are saying that we are going to give x number of dollars for capital so we can get capital expansion strictly with health care. I, for one, am hoping for things such as some money going toward expanding the number of beds at the Seven Oaks General Hospital. I would like more money invested in research and health care, in particular cancer research out of the Health Sciences Centre. There are incredible people who work there. The federal government is stepping up. The federal government has stepped up in the past to deal with things such as palliative care and mental health. Yes, we have the Canada Health Act. It is important that we look at ways in which we can support our—”