The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):

Order, please. Is it agreed that the House call it one o'clock?

Agreed.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):

It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.

At one o'clock the House took recess.

Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):

Madam Speaker, from the very beginning our hospital and medical insurance plans envisaged that standards of quality would be required. Long before the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act was passed, the federal government began to contribute to the costs of building or improving hospitals in Canada so that they might reach an acceptable standard in terms of numbers and facilities.

The Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act of 1957 contains federal standards related to such things as accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and universality. In addition, it required the provinces "to make such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that adequate standards are maintained in hospitals, including the supervision, licensing and inspection thereof". The provincial medical care acts provide for mechanisms to review

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the quality of the medical care being given and for reference of the results of such reviews to the provincial licensing authorities. The effects of these acts has been not only to improve the standard of hospital and medical care throughout Canada but also to reduce the discrepancies between the quality and availability in the different provinces in Canada. This will be referred to again later.

What has been achieved? Many statistics document the improvement in the health of Canadians. In 1961, the expectation of life, at birth, of Canadian males was 60 years; by 1971 it was 69.3 years. The corresponding figures for females were 62.1 years in 1961 and 76.4 years in 1971. Internationally, Canada stands sixth in terms of average life expectancy at birth. Furthermore, we are only three years behind the leading country in the case of males and only 1.3 years behind in the case of females, so it is only a matter of time until women have the upper hand!

There has been a steady fall in the rate of infant mortality. This stood at 22 per 1,000 live births in 1967 and has now fallen to 15.5, a decrease of nearly 30 per cent. This is an achievement in itself. While it is not claimed that these improvements in statistics are related to health services alone, they are related to health in the widest sense. We are well aware that improvement in nutrition, housing and general economic status results in improvement in health, and no doubt all of these factors have contributed to the increasing health of Canadians.

However, some of the credit must also go to the organization of health services and the introduction of medicare and the hospital insurance plans. For example, on the eve of the introduction of hospital insurance in 1958, the Canadian infant mortality rate was 11 per cent higher than that of the United States, 30 per cent higher than that of England and Wales and 40 per cent higher than that of Australia. Ten years later, when medicare was just being introduced, Canada had caught up to a considerable extent, for our infant mortality rate was then 5 per cent below that of the United States, only 14 per cent higher than the rate in England and Wales, and 17 per cent higher than the Australian rate.

By the end of 1971, at the conclusion of the first full year of medicare in all the provinces, The Canadian infant mortality rate was 8 per cent below that of the United States and was virtually identical to that of Australia, England and Wales, although their rates had also been dropping steadily. We were making vast improvements in this field.

By 1973, the third year of operation of the medical insurance program for the whole of Canada, infant mortality was 15.5 per 1,000 live births. This rate was 14 per cent below that of the United States, which was itself at an all-time low, and it was substantially below that of Australia, England and Wales, New Zealand and France. Sweden has the world's lowest infant mortality, with a rate of about 11 per 1,000 live births, but the rate there has been stable for some years while in Canada it is still declining. I could go on giving more statistics, but I will omit them.

The availability of hospital beds and of physicians' services, the number of people working in the hospitals, the amounts spent on hospitals and doctors, all of these are more uniform from province to province now than they

were before the introduction of federal cost-sharing programs. Even within individual provinces the distribution of physicians has improved since doctors can now make a living even in economically deprived areas and the Government of Canada can share in incentive programs to attract them there.

I would now like to mention other achievements in raising the standards of health and health care. Despite occasional lapses, we can be proud of the general quality of the food and drugs which are available to Canadians, and of the quality of our environment. The health protection branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare sets and maintains vigorous standards and carries out a surveillance program which is limited only by the amount of funds voted for this activity. The radiation protection branch sets standards for radiation emitting devices, used both domestically and in health care institutions, which are among the highest in the world.

The medical devices bureau is developing a program which will regulate the quality and safety of medical devices sold both to the health profession and to the public. The modern technology of medicine is such that physicians and other health workers depend a great deal on instruments and equipment, and the medical devices bureau is acting to ensure that they can rely on them with confidence and that patients will not be harmed by them. The Department of National Health and Welfare is also encouraging the development of voluntary standards in the field of health care technology through the Canadian Standards Association and the Canadian Government Specifications Board.

The health protection branch, through the laboratory centre for disease control, has developed a clinical chemistry standardization program. Highly accurate reference methods in clinical chemistry are being developed and these will be the basis for quality control in our hospital and clinic laboratories. In a similar manner, our virology program provides diagnostic reference services and uses very specialized techniques to maintain the standards of diagnosis in this field.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):

Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has now expired. The hon. member for Grey-Simcoe (Mr. Mitges).

Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate and add my remarks to those of my colleague, the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Yewchuk), and all other hon. members who have made or will be making a contribution this afternoon.

In recent years we have had bootleggers who have manufactured their own version of the gut-rot whisky and bathtub gin which was quite prevalent in prohibition years in the United States in the 1920s and the first two years of the 1930s. Much of this homebrew was adulterated and some was described as being poisonous to people who had the misfortune to drink it. This mattered very little to those unscrupulous people who engaged in this practice solely for the purpose of lining their pockets with ill-gotten gains without even a backward glance at the untold misery they caused.

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Similarly, we now have people who traffic in drugs. I cannot think of anything or anybody lower on the face of this earth than those despicable people, who pass themselves off as human beings, who traffic in death and human destruction solely for monetary gain. No mercy should be shown to them. In my opinion, they should be executed. Such punishment is now being carried out in Iran and it is having positive results in ultimately ridding that country of these leeches.

More recently we have had unscrupulous people selling tainted meat unfit for human consumption. They are lining their pockets with perhaps millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. The unlawful selling of tainted meat for human consumption, from cattle that had died as the result of disease or debility, has caused quite a furore in the province of Quebec. This meat was processed largely for weiners, salami, sausages, minced meat and other processed varieties effectively disguised with flour, filler and spices.

This fraud was further compounded in some cases when some carcasses bore the stamp "Quebec Approved", which indicated that some provincial meat inspectors were also involved in perpetrating this outright fraud. It is relatively easy to distinguish between meat from carcasses of animals which had died some time before being dressed, and meat from cattle killed just prior to dressing. In the latter case, the cattle bleed-out freely and the colour of the meat is a fairly light red, while in the other case there is very little, if any, bleeding-out, resulting in the meat being quite dark red in colour. If a diseased animal dies as the result of septicemia, bacteriemia or some other form of blood poisoning, or dies as the result of a chemical poisoning such as arsenic or lead, one can readily perceive the danger to unsuspecting people consuming that meat.

The most puzzling thing to me, as a former veterinary meat inspector with the Department of Agriculture, is that there is no provincial compulsory meat inspection in Quebec by the Quebec department of health-only when an operator requests such inspection. The only compulsory inspection carried on is in the 45 plants under the supervision of the federal Department of Agriculture. Federal inspection is mandatory only when meat is exported out of the country or shipped from one province to another. Animals slaughtered and processed for consumption within the province do not necessarily come under federal inspection. In view of the startling fact that there are approximately 380 slaughterhouses in Quebec which have not had meat inspection of any kind, and that more than a million animals are slaughtered yearly for human consumption, the people of Quebec have a right to be angry with their government for not providing mandatory inspection.

In my opinion, the only way that Canadians from coast to coast can be sure that the meat they are buying comes from healthy animals is to have all meat inspection in Canada fall under the jurisdiction of the health of animals branch of the Department of Agriculture. I have reiterated the point to the Minister of Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde), the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). I have been assured by the Prime Minister, and again today by the Minister of

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Agriculture, that it will certainly be taken under advisement. It is my hope that such a law will be instituted as soon as possible so that the confidence of consumers regarding disease-free meat will be restored.

What are some of the diseases and infections that these unscrupulous people who are knowingly selling tainted and diseased meat are passing on to an unsuspecting populace, for the sole purpose of lining their pockets with ill-gotten gains, having no conscience or remorse for the ills and, yes, I would suspect even some deaths caused as the result of unknowingly eating infected and putrified meat? Let me list a few for the record. One of the things we used to see when I was inspecting was bacteriemia, which means harmful bacteria in the bloodstream, septicemia, a form of blood poisoning, and pyemia, a form of pus-producing bacteria in animals. We saw tuberculosis, which has almost been eradicated. There are not as many cases today, thanks to the vigilant work of the veterinarians in the health of animals branch of the Department of Agriculture. However, I did read the other day that a few cases have emerged.

We then have gastroenteritis, which is an inflamation of the gastrointestinal system, tetanus, which is lockjaw, brucellosis, a contagious abortion in cattle and swine, and leukosis, which is caused by a virus found in poultry; it causes a form of leukemia or cancer of the blood. I can recall condemning as much as 50 per cent of the poultry I was called upon to inspect, not only for looks but for other reasons as well. You can imagine what would have happened if this meat had found its way into our soups, chicken croquettes or chicken patties: it could have caused a lot of sickness to people eating it.

I can remember, in my home town of Owen Sound, passing a butcher's store. This was prior to all meat in Ontario having to be inspected. I saw a beef heart in the window. Staring me in the face was a tapeworm cyst. The name of the cyst is cysticercus bovis. If consumed by an unsuspecting person, it could cause the development of a tapeworm 30 feet long. I approached the butcher and took him aside to tell him what I had seen. He was unaware of what it was. He thanked me profusely. It was perhaps not as a direct outcome of that, but shortly afterwards Owen Sound became the first municipality in the province of Ontario to institute compulsory meat inspection of all meat coming into Owen Sound and any meat slaughtered within its boundaries. I am happy to say that shortly after that the province of Ontario instituted compulsory meat inspection.

As far as provincial inspection is concerned, this is carried on primarily by inspectors who have been given an extensive course in meat inspection. They learn to recognize the more prominent things that can be found on post-mortem. If there are some things they do not recognize, they have at their disposal a list of veterinarians in their vicinity who have been approved by the government. They may call on the veterinarian, who will be there within a few minutes to determine if there is any pathology that was not immediately available to the inspector and consequently will determine whether an animal will be allowed pass through or will be condemned. As far as provincial inspection goes, I think it is good if the rules

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and regulations are followed to the letter. Unless that is done, I cannot condone it at all.

Federal inspection, as I have stated, is instituted when the meat is transported across the boundaries of provinces or for export purposes. As of December 9, 1974, we had 199 federal meat inspecting plants in Canada. Six of these are abattoirs where horses are slaughtered for human consumption. Most of this meat is exported to Europe. However, there is no restriction on selling horsemeat here. If a butcher wishes to sell horsemeat, he can sell that but nothing else. He cannot sell beef, pork or lamb-just horsemeat.

In the health of animals branch of the Department of Agriculture there is a total of 562 veterinarians of whom 286 are engaged in meat inspection. In addition, there are 985 primary products inspectors under the direct supervision of the veterinarians. At the present time there are 179 vacancies of veterinarian positions in the health of animals branch. The main reason for this is not the fact that there is a shortage of veterinarians in the country, but the low salary range offered to veterinarians by Treasury Board.

The Department of Agriculture, as the main employer of veterinarians, must ensure that this career is attractive and a worthy outlet for highly trained, modern veterinarians. One of its obvious steps is to ensure that the salary scale for this kind of employment compares favourably with that in other segments of the profession. The veterinarians in the government service ought to be one of the highest paid groups. In effect, they are faced with the anomaly that this is the poorest paid group. Medical doctors and dentists in the federal service, whose educational qualifications are the same as veterinarians, have a salary range of at least $8,000 more than veterinarians.

The Minister of Agriculture, in his speech to the graduating class of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon on March 8, said: "I want to see vets in the government service paid as well as those in private practice." I am glad to note that the minister has confirmed what everybody else has been saying for a long time, namely, that veterinarians in the government service are underpaid. The average income of a veterinarian in the private sector, as of 1973, was $24,000. This is a far cry from the $14,000 the Department of Agriculture pays its starting veterinarians. I hope the minister will be able to convince his colleague, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien), to take the appropriate action to rectify this state of affairs as soon as possible.

Up to now, veterinarians in the service of the health of animals branch are frustrated and disappointed with the attitude of the Treasury Board, one which shows complete ignorance of the problems and total disrespect for the services performed by government veterinarians in that branch.

I should like to call attention to some of the important services performed by veterinarians in the public service in supporting the economy of Canada. The value of meat, meat products and livestock exported last year to 117 countries was $796,753,000. Veterinary inspection and supervision in 199 federally-inspected establishments pro-

duced meat and meat products having a base value of $2 billion. At the same time, the health of the Canadian public and of Canadian livestock was protected and the spread of disease was controlled.

I should like to see justice done to the veterinarians in the public service and I hope the President of Treasury Board will give the matter the favourable consideration it deserves. If something is not done soon, we may find ourselves in serious trouble because of a shortage of veterinarians in the health of animals branch to supervise our exports of meat and meat products. At the present time in the health of animals branch there is a ratio of 4.7 non-veterinary inspectors to each veterinarian in the meat inspection section. The World Health Organization has recommended that the rate of three non-veterinarians to one veterinarian should not be exceeded. If this rate is exceeded, importing countries could refuse our meat products on the ground that veterinary supervision of animals before and after slaughter was inadequate.

I should like to put on record some statistics regarding the number of animals slaughtered. and inspected under the supervision of the health of animals branch in the past year. The number of cattle slaughtered was 3,291,922; calves, 820,000; swine, 9.5 million; sheep and lambs, 243,000; chickens and turkeys, 236 million.

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian federal meat inspection service has been recognized as one of the best in the world and as one which has obtained the confidence of every country.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Mitges:

Let us maintain this high quality of service by giving its officers the recognition which has been so long overdue.

I should like to say a few words about cancer-producing chemicals which have been used in the processing of food products. I refer particularly to potassium and sodium nitrites. As a former food inspector with the department, it gave me particular satisfaction to learn that at long last steps had been taken to halt the use of chemicals linked with cancer in food intended for human consumption. Chemical preservatives are used to prevent the formation of micro-organisms which produce a highly dangerous disease called botulism.

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):

Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.

Mr. Claude-Andre Lachance (Lafontaine-Rosemount):

Madam Speaker, health is a general state of physical, mental and social well-being and does not merely consist in an absence of illness or disability. This definition which is found in the constitution of the World Health Organization is a basic axiom and premise for any person trying to understand the development of health policies and the work done in the department of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde), work which resulted about a year ago in the publication of a working paper entitled "A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians" whose main theme is prevention.

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The document puts more emphasis on the general definition rather than on the conventional concept of health as a strategy for disease control.

The present health care system in Canada, as conceptualized by Aesculapius, is comparatively satisfactory in the sense that care availability has been generalized in the past few years. I would even go as far as to say that a new attitude has developed among the Canadian people, that is they see a doctor when they are ill instead of waiting until they are better.

Indeed, this attitude has developed to the extent that now when one suffers from a throbbing and painful headache day after day, instead of seeking its causes, medical advice is sought and aspirin tablets are asked, when one should have thought of the heavy drinking of the night before. This relates to another point of the development of health care in Canada. The availibility of health care for the Canadian people, especially underprivileged, has not led to the development of adequate preventive measures designed specifically to reduce the demand for health care.

This development came to a stop and although some people go readily to the emergency for such headaches, I feel it would sometimes be better to look for the causes of the illness. Because this whole development was stopped half way, there is an excessive increase in the number of hospital patients and an escalation of administrative costs for hospital care. Faced with this alarming situation, there are three alternatives. First of all, we could reduce the quality of medical care by admitting fewer people to hospitals. This can be done by reducing the number of beds, or more generally, by keeping the budget at its present level regardless of the greater number of people requesting hospital care. Or else, hospitals and research services could draw up a strict budget and try to manage with this budget, perhaps by providing penalties for those who ask for emergency care unnecessarily. Finally, a comprehensive restructuring of health services in Canada might be considered.

I feel that the last of these three alternatives is the only one acceptable to the Canadian people, namely a restructuring of health services, so as to make these services more adequate and more in line with the funds which may be granted, and with our resources in this area.

This approach seems to me the most logical, but it implies a factor of utmost importance, I mean the co-operation of the three levels of government. As a matter of fact, government members have received an enthusiastic support from their provincial counterparts at every level during the debate on the working paper in question, and we are now in the process of defining priorities.

It is becoming more and more evident that in our relations with the provinces, we overlook the jurisdictional aspect in order to seek logical solutions to contentious issues. The discussions between the federal and provincial health ministers have been extremely successful and resulted in an agreement of mutual support. The meetings of deputy ministers had similar results, and is was agreed that the main health problems cannot be solved without mutual support in a spirit of co-operation and determination.

Food and Drug Safety

This aspect of the undertaking is complex. It requires great lengths of time, since the reform of a system such as the health care system cannot be carried out immediately without prior assessment of the benefits involved. On the other hand, the success of such a reform depends on the motivation and the actual interests of Canadians considered individually, and on the support of voluntary organizations. This phase therefore cannot be carried out overnight. It goes without saying that governments cannot expect to achieve it all by themselves, and I can say that at this very moment federal committees are busy in this field assessing and studying each and everyone of the report's recommendations, as well as the countless number of proposals submitted after the publication of the green paper, as it is generally known. Thus, priorities and measures to be taken can be decided upon.

At the same time, many federal-provincial committees are also busy setting priorities and deciding upon implementation methods.

In order to obtain data and thus be in a position to assess any progress made, a study on health in Canada has been launched with the co-operation and support of the provinces. We must then emphasize once more the interest, the support and the outstanding contribution of the provincial governments in that field.

The Health Ministers' Council which has delegated this responsibility to the provinces is pleased with the improvement achieved up to now and firmly believes that within a few weeks or a few months new and dynamic formulas will be developed. Indeed, we may already see in many provinces the results of these efforts while concrete steps are being taken by the provincial government and prevention is once again becoming a matter for consideration.

We may expect a more direct intervention in the future and, in this connection, I am referring to the new system which exists in Quebec, involving local centres of community services which will try to regionalize these services or rather to fan out health services in such a way as to permit people living in a given sector to get nursing or minor hospital care close at hand. These centres, to some extent, are the equivalent of dispensaries in France where people may get treatment without having to report to emergency wards where services prove to be the most costly in the administration of hospitals.

In view of this accumulation of steps taken jointly or individually by the federal and provincial governments, I fail to see why this government is accused of inaction in the field of health. In fact, the very existence of the Green Paper on health proves the concern of the department with regard to the new and much broader concept of health that more closely resembles that of the World Health Organization, that is, that health encompasses far more than merely physical well-being. The Green Paper has had considerable effects and is even considered, in Canada as well as abroad, as a first in that field.

Indeed, we must see in that study a working paper, which is meant as a topic for discussion, its success exceeded by far all expectations. I should like to summarize briefly the importance and effects of that paper in the field of health, not only in Canada but also throughout the world. Last year, the department distributed over 80,000

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copies of the report to Canadians, experts, universities, community groups and others. In return, it received countless letters filled with favourable observations on the matters and proposals discussed in the paper. The briefs contained very interesting recommendations, which proves how concerned and aware the Canadian people are with regard to matters of health and well-being.

Indeed, the ideas and suggestions submitted by Canadians on the means of improving their health are truly extraordinary. That explosion of pertinent and useful ideas in turn gave rise to considerable work and interest in the department. Numerous letters were also received expressing interest the document stirred in health circles abroad. For instance, the World Health Organization received it very favourably and after studying it, distributed it in more than 20 European countries.

In the United States, in the United Kingdom, in France, in Australia, to name only a few countries, the government health organizations expressed some interest and sometimes enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, the authorities in this area and some government officials came to Ottawa to get first hand information on the development and progress brought about by the document. In Canada, it has been praised by official and voluntary organizations which feel it as a very important step in the area of health, a document aimed at a better rationalization of the health system in Canada. For example, the Chamber of Commerce of Canada fully supports the views expressed in this document, in particular concerning the personal responsibility of Canadians in the promotion and the maintenance, for themselves and for their families, of sound health habits whose beneficial effects will spread to every community, and finally to the whole country. The Canadian Medical Association regards this document as one of the most revealing forecasts ever made on the future health of Canadians. These important groups of specialists wish to work in a close cooperation with the department. The Canadian Nurses' Association organized programs to make people aware of the ideas set forth in this document. The Canadian Public Health Association used the new perspectives of the document as a basis for discussion during its recent annual meeting. Other organizations did the same thing, but there is no need to list them all.

The hon. members will recall that the main theme of "New Perspective on the Health of Canadians" is prevention. Prevention is a very important word, because, in the past, we may not have insisted enough on the notion of prevention in the field of care and physical and mental health. There is no doubt that if our only concern is to continue to dispense health care, costs will keep on rising without much benefit for the health of Canadians, and there is no way of checking this trend.

After admitting this fact, it does not mean that the government abandons a sector as vital as health care or that it disregards the importance of a on-going and useful biological research. In that respect, my colleague for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Dionne) has made a brilliant statement on the situation, and I share his views. We must clearly put also more emphasis on environmental health. I think of the risks over which the individual has unfortunately little or no control, and I mean not only air and water pollution, but also the quality of food, drugs,

cosmetics, the presence of radiations and so many others pointed out by previous speakers.

Finally, the importance of life habits as health factors must be emphasized, that is the personal decisions which have both positive and negative implications on the health of every individual. To achieve that goal, and given the relatively limited resources we have in the long and the short run, the Green Paper has established the need to set out definite objectives. In this regard, a number of strategies have been defined in that Green Paper, the most important of which is, in my opinion, the promotion, by all means available, of the concept of health, but as I explained in the beginning of my remarks, health in the sense of "global physical well-being", and not the mere absence of illness.

To that end three proposals have been brought forward. Firstly, to increase the individual's awareness of the factors which affect his well-being in general and to promote simultaneously the means to evade the potential dangers he has to face. Secondly, to encourage the individual to acquire healthy living habits which can only improve his physical condition and well-being. Thirdly, to urge industries, unions, educational institutions, etc., to implement concrete health programs to protect the workers' wellbeing, and more positively, to offer physical training courses in a generalized way precisely to make it possible for those workers to maintain a general well-being in their work.

Some will say that the government must not take so aggressive a step in the area of advertising. The word propaganda could even be used to encourage Canadians to follow healthy living habits. I answer in the affirmative. The government has the responsibility to take the necessary steps through advertising or otherwise to make Canadians aware of the fact that they are themselves in large part responsible for their physical well-being. They practically alone will have to take the means to maintain their body and mind healthy. In that respect again I think that we have a great deal of responsibility as a government that we have not sufficiently explored the avenues with the provinces in that area through education, although education is a provincial matter, as well as through consultation with the provinces, with the distributions of pamphlets in schools, through direct action with students and young people. I think that is the best way to expect the people of this country, particularly the young, to have much healthier patterns of life than is the case now. I am only 21 and I confess I already have bad habits because I was not taught the good ones at school. In this way the good living habits of the young will indeed affect their elders and the growing increase in the use of hospital institutions will be controlled as well as the resulting costs to the Canadian taxpayers.

Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):

Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to speak my mind on the subject of health in general in this opposition day. The motion refers to the downgrading of the health research budget as well as the failure of the government to fully assume its responsibility in the area of food and drugs consumption.

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I know my remarks will come as a shock to some and will upset deep-rooted habits and beliefs. Having had an opportunity on many occasions and even daily to see what is happening in the medical field I cannot but make the following remarks.

Logically, Madam Speaker, the government should act as a good family man, a good leader of the nation. The government has extensive powers and also large responsibilities to assume. One of the first responsibilities is to give people not only material well-being but also the means to live for a long time while enjoying good health. Well, what do we see? Hospitals are filled to capacity, people live longer than they used to, I agree, but they do not live a full and active life. As a matter of fact, they do not live. They exist a bit like mushrooms, on pills and needles.

Official medicine acknowledges its helplessness with regard to countless diseases. A 20-year old must have his leg cut because the alleged miracle drug, penicillin, proves ineffective. Because medicine cannot repair a defective heart, it resorts to heart transplants with the poor results we know. It is fine plumbing work but not preventive medicine. Doctors admit they do not know the cause of the common cold, let alone arthritis.

Now, it is up to the health departments of the various governments to protect the people from the mediate and immediate causes of diseases. To this end, as has always been the case, health departments rely almost exclusively on the efficiency of the Physicians' College and its members. Nothing is being done as far as preventive medicine is concerned. To stain people's blood with vaccines, that is not preventive medicine but contamination. To authorize the manufacture of thousands of tons of drugs, the char-latanical virtues of which are publicized on television and radio, that is not preventive medicine. All those drugs from aspirin to thalidomide, are to a certain degree poisonous and mutagenic.

Official medicine, as we know it by its deeds, is ignorant of the laws of human physiology and therefore does not deserve the high reputation it has acquired in all departments and all governments.

It would be advisable for the medieval philosophy of our disciples of Aesculapius to refresh itself by coming in contact with modern biologists and physicians who have really understood the laws of human physiology, laws that unquestionably condition all members of the human species.

Contrary to the representatives of official medicine, those physicians and physiologists have learned that to be in good health, man must have a hundred quadrillion healthy cells; if all his cells are healthy, they will work adequately and man will be healthy and able to perform all his appropriate functions. In order to do their work, cells need synthetic energy and materials, but the cell creates no energy and no matter and only food can bring it the needed energy and matter. According to a thorough study of biochemistry and dietetics, the average man, to be in good health and to grow normally from childhood to adulthood and to perform light work, needs at least 2.5 litres every day of water, in fluid form or in his food, 80 grams of proteins, 50 grams of lipids, 400 grams of glucids, vitamins and mineral salts. It is not what man puts into

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his mouth that nourishes him, but what is assimilated by the small intestine. So that food that goes right through is unnecessary and even harmful.

My hon. friend from Gaspe (Mr. Cyr) thinks that I know nothing about this. I should say that I experienced a problem in my family when physicians wanted to cut off the leg of one of my children and I sent him to Texas. I wish to pay tribute here to physicians more modern than the ones we have here, and today this child is in very good health. Why? Because formal medicine has been forsaken and preventive medicine has taken over.

As I was saying, Madam Speaker, good quality foods are those that are easy to digest and assimilate, that is to say all ripe, raw and fresh fruits, all vegetables, raw as far as possible, nuts, nitrogenous fruits, good cheese, eggs from healthy hens. Such foods contain vitamins in sufficient quantities, essential mineral salts and even the pure and fresh water we need. Digestion, that is the preparation of food for assimilation, will be made easier at meal time by the absence of all psychic or somatic stress, by good mastication and by respect for food combinations like those described by Dr. Shelton in his book on Food Combinations. Anger, anxiety and great happiness inhibit the secretion of gastric juices and digestion will be incomplete. Drinking while eating, even water, dilutes gastric juices and again, digestion will be incomplete.

Coffee, tea, chocolate, vinegar, alcohol "in any form", medicine, drugs, and garlic bring about narcosis of the intestinal cells which can no longer perform their function of selective permeability (or sorting of nutriments) and let surplus nutriments and even waste products get into the blood stream.

Nicotine, marihuana and all other drugs inhibit in some way the control centres of the rachidian bulb and the hypothalamus-

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):

Order please. I have been listening to the hon. member for some time and I wonder if he relates what he has just said to the motion before us today, that is to say:

That this House regrets the Government's failure to give adequate priority to matters which directly affect the health of Canadians, and in particular for its relative downgrading of the health research budget, and its failure to assume proper responsibility in the area of food and drug safety.

Then, the hon. member might stick to the motion.

Mr. Rondeau:

Madam Speaker, I think I am speaking directly to the motion, since it deals with food and drugs. In my opinion, food and drugs are closely related to nutrition and health in general.

The cells of the human body live in interstitial tissues, from which they draw the nutriments and oxygen they need and into which they excrete 0O2 and other wastes.

Therefore, healthy interstitial tissues are needed to maintain the cells in good condition and only a good blood and lymph circulation can provide interstitial tissues with enough nutriments and oxygen and clear them of any waste. A good circulation requires regular physical activity or daily rational exercises.

June 13, 1975

Food and Drug Safety

He who obeys these very simple laws will avoid diseases, the experts say, provided his genetic equipment is good. He is what we call a "hygienist". Medical doctors today should insist on hygiene and prevention to upgrade our medical activity.

Sanitarianism is a philosophy, a science and a way of life. It was developped by medical doctors of outstanding skill such as Drs. John Tilden, H. Lindlahr, Trail, Alcott, Dunsmore, Page, Oswald, Kuhne, Jennings, Paul Carton. The work done by these doctors has been tremendous and Dr. Herbert Shelton of San Antonio, Texas has summed it up in a masterly manner.

If today's doctors would accept to learn something of this health philosophy and to dialogue with the increasing number of hygienics specialists, in a very short while, hospitals would be admitting only victims of accidents, pharmacists would become dealers in fruits and vegetables and the hospitals thus liberated would become nursing homes where patients would regain their health without any traumatic operation or drug intoxication.

People should not say that this is utopic, Madam Speaker. Such nursing homes exist throughout the world. There are some in Germany, some in Scotland, some in Paris which are run by Dr. Mossery, some in Florida and some in Texas which are run by Dr. Shelton, and there will soon be such a nursing home near Montreal.

Those who run such facilities have made an in-depth study of human psychology, and they attended the same medical schools as our physicians, our biologists and biochemists, but their scientific connections are different and their applications of scientific knowledge are also different. Thus, they have now come to understand the characteristics, properties and potentialities of human beings. They have now come to understand that toxaemia, which is the poisoning of the body by our own metabolic toxins, causes 99 per cent of all our diseases. They have understood that proper behavior, that is compliance with the laws of human physiology, can enable man to avoid toxaemia. They have also come to understand through their studies and findings that man is essentially capable of regaining his lost health.

This defence mechanisms are numerous and effective. They are well known but underestimated by established medicine, in the same way as the latter's own means of treatment. Under absolute physiological rest, man can achieve autolytic destruction of all infection strongholds causing acute and chronic illnesses. Blood circulating in our 100,000 kilometres of capillary vessels reaches through the most remote parts in our organs and tissues. Surrounding cells disintegrate unhealthy tissues and structure new tissues, thanks to the thousands of enzymes that are manufactured locally when needed. Thus, our cells synthe-tize, inhibit and neutralize viruses, and our white corpuscles destroy pathogenous bacteria and their toxic products. But this requires total rest in an adequate place, under the supervision of a medical and diet counsellor. That counsellor may be a physician or a physiologist from the new hygiene school.

In this way, people condemned by established medicine recovered. Patients earmarked for amputation of one or both legs came back healthy on both their legs. For this reason, established medicine, wishing to be honest and

improve the lives of men, should co-operate with these specialists of true health, which would cause people to live healthier and longer. At any rate, the time has come to bring medicine back to its true role. Abortion on demand, hysterectomies and vasectomies, prescribing tons or carloads or shiploads of the pill, this among others debases the medical profession, because it is killing life instead of promoting it. As I see it, the physician is a man of life rather than death. He is a man of prevention rather than of automatic dispensation of drugs.

Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):

Madam Speaker, before launching into the words I wish to say this afternoon I should like to compliment my colleague, the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Yewchuk), for bringing this motion before the House. I think the motion is so well worded that it bears restating. It reads as follows:

That this House regrets the government's failure to give adequate priority to matters which directly affect the health of Canadians, and in particular for its relative downgrading of the health research budget, and its failure to assume proper responsibility in the area of food and drug safety.

The hon. member who introduced this motion discussed it in great detail. I was really worried about the minister as I sat here and noted his concern about the points being made by the hon. member for Athabasca. I saw in him certain signs which worried me; I was apprehensive about the signs of reactive depression I saw in him. Then when he arrived late for the sitting this afternoon I became even more disturbed. But all of us must have some build-up or be paid a compliment once in awhile and I wish to compliment the minister in all sincerity. Three days ago I had the pleasure of listening to him in Montreal when he very admirably represented our country before representatives of 87 other countries of the world. He was a member of a panel discussing the subject entitled "International Understanding-What can one man do". I say quite sincerely that he acquitted himself in very fine fashion.

For the information of the House, I might say that some 20 years ago the minister was a Rotary International Fellow and indeed a fine ambassador for Canada. I think he was talking in this broad field three days ago in Montreal when he discussed international understanding. I believe we have in him a budding new secretary of state for external affairs of this country.

There are three parts to this motion. The last part deals with some specifics in respect of the food and drug safety problem. I wish to allude to four of these which have entered our discussion. They are listed in a small book entitled "Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties". The first drug referred to is called Afagon "C", known as a type of tonic to build up people. Among the ingredients are amino acids, arsenic, strychnine and ascorbic acid. The precautions to be taken are the following:

Keep out of the reach of children. Contains strychnine. Do not exceed recommended dosage. Indiscriminate use may be dangerous, especially in the case of elderly persons.

The second drug is one of a similar type, called Hemosomaton. In this case, also, precautions are indicated. It contains iron, arsenic and glycerophosphates. The warning is as follows:

Contains strychnine. Do not exceed stated dosage. Indiscriminate use

June 13, 1975

may be dangerous, especially in the case of elderly persons. Oral iron preparations may aggravate existing peptic ulcer, regional enteritis and ulcerative colitis.

One of the implications in respect of the safety of the drugs listed in this compendium which are available is that they are dangerous particularly in the hands of children. I hope the minister and the officials of his department will look into this matter in some detail.

Two other drugs bear mentioning at this time, because I think the people of Canada are being subjected to drug advertisements that not only delude them and encourage them to spend money but that encourage them to buy drugs which are potentially dangerous.

I refer first to a commonly used facial cream known as Noxzema facial cream. Some years ago one of the leading dermatologists in southwestern Ontario told me there is not one single company that makes more business for him than the Noxzema company. He was referring, of course, to the dangers of contact dermatitis which arises from the use of this particular compound.

The second drug is even more popular. It is known as Vicks. Perhaps you remember having had it used on you when you were children. The father of pediatrics in Canada, the man who built the first children's hospital in Toronto, and the second one also, used to teach us students who put Vicks on children's backs, that one might as well put a postage stamp on their backs. Yet we are allowing and encouraging citizens to spend millions of dollars a year on drugs of this type.

This is some of the information that the department should be studying. But there are more important areas than this, and I am referring to some areas that are of broad concern across the country, matters which cannot be handled by a province and cannot be handled by Canadian citizens as individuals. I speak here of three different areas that I want to discuss this afternoon briefly. The first one is in regard to medical manpower; the second one is in regard to the quality and provision of health care; and the third one is in regard to personal responsibility in the provision of health care.

For a number of years we have been hearing that the federal government is spending funds on trying to determine the status of medical manpower across the country. We are still awaiting a meaningful report on this, and we are worried about the rumours that are spreading that this report will be most inadequate. For instance, in deciding the present ratio of family physicians, as opposed to specialists, to the population, apparently the group studying this matter are going about it in a very simplistic manner. They are identifying the number of specialists across the country, which is very easy to do, and subtracting the number from the gross total number of physicians. They arrive at a figure which they say represents the number of general practitioners or family physicians in Canada. This is a meaningless figure and could not be further from the truth.

I took the opportunity in committee not too many weeks ago of bringing this matter to the attention of the Minister. I told him that, for example, in British Columbia there is an error of some 40 per cent in the figure which they

Food and Drug Safety

present. At that time I did not have the figures with me and I was not able to give specifics, but since that time I have acquired them and I find that it is even worse than I intimated to the minister at that time.

If one looks at the federal manpower inventory for 1973 which was published in 1974, and if one considers the province of British Columbia, one finds that they list a total of 1,946 general practitioners, which gives you a ratio of one GP to 1,217 people in the province. From information obtained from British Columbia we learn that at the University of British Columbia the Health Manpower Research Unit under the direction of Dr. Anderson took a much more realistic view in approaching this whole problem.

It is obvious that physicians who are not specialists are not all GPs. Many of them are doing administrative medicine, many are interns, and you cannot count them as part of the medical work force of the country.

If you take a realistic approach and try to establish how many are practising, functioning GPs, you do this as they did in British Columbia, by referring to the provincial medical scheme figures. They chose the figure of $20,000 gross earnings as the figure they would use as being the average earnings of a person practising family medicine. They said that a person earning less than that was obviously not doing much general practice. They got the figure of 1,270, which represents the number of true general practitioners or family physicians in B.C. So the margin of error there is not 40 per cent but closer to 53 per cent.

I think we must ask ourselves whether or not the government is looking ahead. We heard the hon. member for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Dionne) this morning give us a long list of the accomplishments of governments in the past. I assume he included past Conservative governments in his list. We must start to look ahead. We cannot be satisfied with the situation as it has been in the past. We must also look ahead in trying to predict the manpower situation for the provision of health care in the future.

We must decide first of all how we want health care provided in this country, whether totally by specialists, or basically by family physicians augmented by specialists where necessary. The government has failed to give any leadership on that in terms of trying to delineate what the people of Canada want. It appears to me, and to many people who are looking ahead, that what the country needs is health care provided by general practioners and, where necessary, we need specialists. We must try to determine how many of each brand of physicians we will try to train. Apparently the present government is not interested in doing this.

The manpower study being undertaken should look to the future, not backwards. I hope that when figures come out in the future we will see something with a prospective approach to it rather than a purely retrospective approach. As my colleague says, we should not adopt a purely urban oriented approach. That is a good point.

I want to talk now on the second matter, that is, the quality of health care. The hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) stressed the need for practising preventive medicine, prophylactic medicine. I

June 13, 1975

Food and Drug Safety

think there is some truth in this, but we are spending in this country more money per person than most other countries in the world, and more money in relation to our gross national product, and yet the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands thinks we should be spending more money still. What we need to do is to take a look at the money we are spending now and try to decide whether it should not be spent more effectively. In other words, what we need to do is try to get quality out of our health care, and not provide more and more to people and encourage less responsibility on the part of the citizens of this country.

As the hon. member for Athabasca has said, we need to spend more money on research. Relatively speaking, we have been spending scads of dollars on epidemiological research, clinical research, and basic science research. But what we have been neglecting are two other areas of research, namely, educational research and operational research in the areas of health care delivery. I think those latter two areas are the ones on which we should be spending more funds.

I heard a very distressing comment recently on this matter of quality control of health care. It may be a rumour and perhaps the minister will confirm or deny it, that an American named Dr. Lawrence Weed, who is famous for developing a program of problem orientated medical records, is being offered a job by our government which will cost us to the tune of $5 million, to develop a quality care research program here in Canada. I have heard this both confirmed and denied. It alarms me to think that we have to go to the U.S.A. to find adequate medical personnel to assess the quality needs of the people of this country. I know many physicians and researchers in this country who would be more than delighted to have a small share of that $5 million to study the problems of quality care in medical research in Canada.

I think the Ontario Medical Association not many years ago on their own initiative launched a program to assess quality health care. They bogged down completely because of lack of funds. Now we have the rumour that the federal government is offering $5 million to an American to tell us what quality health care is. I think it is a shame.

Shame!

Mr. Halliday:

The third and final matter I wish to speak about is personal responsibility in health care. When the minister was in Montreal earlier this week, unfortunately he arrived one day too late. If he had been there one day earlier he would have had the privilege of listening to Sir Edwin Leather, K.C.M.G., Governor and Commander in Chief of Bermuda, a parliamentarian in Britain for 15 years, who gave one of the most excellent speeches I have ever heard.

Mr. Fairweather:

He was a Hamiltonian.

Mr. Halliday:

He was a Hamiltonian, and he made one of the finest speeches I have ever heard. He pointed out the dangers we are getting into as a society, and that we are taking away all the responsibility from the individual. We are giving individuals all across the country this, that,

[Mr. Halliday.)

and the other, and the hon. member for Northumberland-Miramichi has the gall to say that this is a right of the people. Of course it is a right. That is a motherhood statement, but people have responsibilities, and I have not heard anyone here today suggest that there are responsibilities which the people of this country have to assume if they want to have the right to good quality health care.

Hear, hear!