Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say thank you to the mover and the seconder, Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Blake, for bringing this forward. They bring up a very important topic. This is a topic that has been brought forward not only by us but the Auditor General of Canada has said, time and time again, get your ducks in order and figure this out. So I’m glad we are talking about it today.
This is a very complex animal, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pretty expensive part of our budget. As the motion we have before you, the spirit and intent is very noble and I do admire where we’re going with this, but I want to talk about some of the precedent setting this could create here for our government. I think we are on a little bit of a slippery slope should we continue in this vein. Let me explain for a second.
As it is right now, we know there are reasonable expenses, out-of-pocket expenses that are covered already within the plan. Could they be more robust? Absolutely. I think we can look at enhancing some of the current out-of-pocket expenses and make them a little bit more valid and value-added. As we heard from Mr. Bouchard, hardship, as it’s mentioned in one of the whereases, needs to be addressed and I think that is important. But I think we need to look at more patient-assisted travel scenarios, so that would come under that term of reference. If that’s the case, I would suggest that this would have to be almost income tested to make sure that that hardship is quantifiable here.
We have to look at some other areas, too, in order to address some of the issues within this motion. We would have to talk about those areas where it says in some communities where they have a hard time finding escorts, we have to actually make our programs themselves a bit more robust, especially in places at destination points such as in Edmonton. You know, by having better bonded medical placements there that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As it is right now, we do have some dedicated nurses that are on government payroll to assist patients when they
arrive; however, as I found out through unfortunate circumstances, some of these paid employees only work Monday to Friday. We know very well that when people land, it’s not only a Monday to Friday landing. You can be landing at night; you can be landing on the weekend. The Minister knows that. I know we’re trying to make great strides to make that work better, but I think it’s important that we address that.
The other thing, too, a lot of jurisdictions look at, is they look at these one-on-one they call it patient sky nurse. These are nurses that could be in the communities that can actually be escorted down with the patient; they stay with the patient until they’re through security, and then they return back to the community. This would also address those communities that are looking for nurses. Here’s an opportunity – and I hope the Minister is listening – where we could have these nurses, these sky nurses that are actually on call in communities, living and providing a duality of services.
So, really what this motion is asking is to compensate escorts for their time, which I translate, let’s compensate them for their wages. I believe this is hitting a precedent that I’m very, very… I’m a bit nervous. I’ll be totally honest; I’m a bit nervous with this motion.
Again, I agree with the spirit and intent. It identifies a need; it identifies something that we have to do. But given the way it’s formulated, the way we’re basically giving a direction to this government to take more away from a department, which we know clearly well does not have the funds and resources to do this at a large scale, we can barely keep the doors open. To ask this government to now top up wages and provide wages, I don’t know, Mr. Speaker. It’s precedent setting, to which I would have a hard time probably agreeing to this motion. Thank you.