Speech (House debate)

{
    "time": "2024-05-29 20:55:00",
    "attribution": {
        "en": "Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)",
        "fr": "M. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston et les \u00celes, Lib.)"
    },
    "content": {
        "en": "<p data-HoCid=\"8429465\" data-originallang=\"en\">Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to be participating in this particular debate. I believe that the government has made significant progress, of course with the support of the NDP, to provide more and more services to Canadians. Things like pharmacare and dental care, which I will speak about in a few moments, are long-overdue programs. In my opinion, they are things that I have always thought we should bring into our country and work on with provinces to develop.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429466\" data-originallang=\"en\">I will start by talking about the recent slogan Conservatives have been using. The recycled slogan they are using is \u201ccommon-sense Conservatives\u201d; they are saying that the common-sense Conservatives will do this or the common-sense Conservatives will do that. They are clapping now. </p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429467\" data-originallang=\"en\">I am from Ontario. I remember the common-sense revolution of the 1990s. That was Mike Harris's common-sense revolution, and those were dark days for health care in Ontario. Mike Harris slashed health care funding. Mike Harris closed hospitals in Ontario. Mike Harris tried for several years to close the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Kingston. The community fought for years against Mike Harris to reverse that. We were lucky because, unlike the vast majority of hospitals that he attempted to close, that one we were able to save. The forward-thinking, progressive politicians of the day, one of whom shares the same last name with me, were successful in doing that. However, the reality is that it was not the case throughout the province.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429468\" data-originallang=\"en\">The common-sense revolution was about cuts. It was about neo-liberalism. It was about removing social programs. The minister responsible for what was then called \u201cwelfare\u201d actually came up with a welfare diet to tell people what they should eat if they were on welfare, because it is what they would be able to afford with their welfare payments. That is what the common-sense revolution was about, but perhaps the most damning part of Premier Harris's common-sense revolution is what happened in the later days of his premiership. Of course, I am referring to what happened in Walkerton.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429469\" data-originallang=\"en\">Seven people died in Walkerton. As a result, it was widely noted that Mr. Harris's cuts and privatization of water testing, privatization of a lot of the things that rightfully belong within a health ministry and environment ministry that should not be left to the public, led to decreased testing. In Walkerton, Ontario, on one day when there was a very heavy downfall of rain, E. coli ended up in the water supply. That led to the deaths of seven people.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429470\" data-originallang=\"en\"> Conservatives applaud me when I say \u201ccommon-sense Conservatives\u201d, but if people in Ontario were paying attention to politics in the 1990s, they knew what the common-sense revolution of Mike Harris was really all about. It was about removing government from absolutely everything possible and leaning on the private sector to provide the agencies responsible to ensure that we had the right protections. Obviously they failed.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429471\" data-originallang=\"en\">Despite the fact that my Conservative colleagues will clap when I cite their new slogan \u201ccommon-sense Conservatives\u201d, we in Ontario remember what the common-sense revolution of Conservatives was really all about. It was about cuts, about austerity and about privatization of services that should never have been in the hands of private companies, which led to seven deaths in Walkerton, Ontario.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429472\" data-originallang=\"en\"> Therefore I am very concerned when I hear Conservatives go on about common sense, including the has-been doctor who is heckling me at the back of the room over there, including\u2014</p>",
        "fr": "<p data-HoCid=\"8429465\" data-originallang=\"en\">Monsieur le Pr\u00e9sident, je suis extr\u00eamement heureux de participer \u00e0 ce d\u00e9bat. Je crois que le gouvernement a fait des progr\u00e8s importants, avec l'appui du NPD, bien s\u00fbr, pour offrir de plus en plus de services aux Canadiens. Des programmes comme l'assurance-m\u00e9dicaments et le r\u00e9gime soins dentaires, dont je parlerai dans quelques instants, se font attendre depuis longtemps. \u00c0 mon avis, ce sont des mesures que j'ai toujours cru n\u00e9cessaire d'instaurer dans notre pays, en collaboration avec les provinces.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429466\" data-originallang=\"en\">Tout d'abord, je vais parler de la formule que les conservateurs utilisent depuis quelque temps. La formule recycl\u00e9e qu'ils emploient est \u00ab les conservateurs de gros bon sens \u00bb. Ils disent que les conservateurs de gros bon sens feront ceci ou cela. Ils sont en train d'applaudir.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429467\" data-originallang=\"en\">Je viens de l'Ontario. Je me souviens de la r\u00e9volution du bon sens des ann\u00e9es 1990. Il s'agissait de la r\u00e9volution du bon sens de Mike Harris. Ce fut une p\u00e9riode sombre pour les soins de sant\u00e9 en Ontario. Mike Harris a sabr\u00e9 le financement des soins de sant\u00e9. Mike Harris a ferm\u00e9 des h\u00f4pitaux en Ontario. Mike Harris a tent\u00e9 pendant des ann\u00e9es de fermer l'H\u00f4pital Hotel-Dieu de Kingston. La collectivit\u00e9 s'est oppos\u00e9e pendant des ann\u00e9es \u00e0 Mike Harris pour faire changer cette d\u00e9cision. Nous avons eu de la chance, car, contrairement \u00e0 la grande majorit\u00e9 des h\u00f4pitaux qu'il a voulu fermer, celui-l\u00e0 a \u00e9t\u00e9 sauv\u00e9. Les politiciens visionnaires et progressistes de l'\u00e9poque, dont l'un porte le m\u00eame nom de famille que moi, ont r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 le faire. Toutefois, le fait est que la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 a \u00e9t\u00e9 bien diff\u00e9rente dans le reste de la province.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429468\" data-originallang=\"en\">La r\u00e9volution du bon sens \u00e9tait ax\u00e9e sur les compressions budg\u00e9taires et ancr\u00e9e dans le n\u00e9olib\u00e9ralisme. Elle visait \u00e0 supprimer des programmes sociaux. Le ministre responsable de ce qu'on appelait alors le \u00ab bien-\u00eatre social \u00bb a m\u00eame dress\u00e9 la liste de ce que les gens vivant de l'aide sociale devraient manger, \u00e9tant donn\u00e9 ce qu'ils pourraient se permettre avec leurs prestations. Voil\u00e0 en quoi consistait la r\u00e9volution du bon sens, mais la partie la plus accablante de cette \u00ab r\u00e9volution \u00bb du premier ministre Harris, c'est peut-\u00eatre ce qui a eu lieu \u00e0 la fin de son mandat. Je parle \u00e9videmment de ce qui s'est pass\u00e9 \u00e0 Walkerton.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429469\" data-originallang=\"en\">Sept personnes sont mortes \u00e0 Walkerton. \u00c0 la suite de cette catastrophe, beaucoup de gens ont not\u00e9 qu'il y avait eu une r\u00e9duction des tests, r\u00e9sultat des compressions budg\u00e9taires de M. Harris, de la privatisation des analyses d'eau, et de la privatisation de beaucoup de choses qui devraient relever \u00e0 juste titre des minist\u00e8res de la Sant\u00e9 et de l'Environnement et ne pas \u00eatre confi\u00e9es au public. Par une journ\u00e9e de pluie tr\u00e8s abondante \u00e0 Walkerton, en Ontario, l'approvisionnement en eau potable a \u00e9t\u00e9 contamin\u00e9 par la bact\u00e9rie <em>E. coli</em>. Sept personnes en sont mortes.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429470\" data-originallang=\"en\">Les conservateurs applaudissent lorsque je prononce les mots \u00ab conservateurs pleins de bon sens \u00bb, mais les Ontariens qui pr\u00eataient attention \u00e0 la politique dans les ann\u00e9es 1990 comprenaient le but r\u00e9el de la r\u00e9volution du bon sens de Mike Harris. Il s'agissait d'\u00e9liminer la pr\u00e9sence du gouvernement dans tous les domaines possibles et de laisser le priv\u00e9 g\u00e9rer les organismes responsables de veiller \u00e0 ce que nous ayons les protections appropri\u00e9es. De toute \u00e9vidence, l'entreprise a \u00e9chou\u00e9.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429471\" data-originallang=\"en\">M\u00eame si mes coll\u00e8gues conservateurs applaudissent lorsque je cite leur nouveau slogan, \u00ab les conservateurs pleins de bon sens \u00bb, les Ontariens comme moi se souviennent de la vraie nature de la r\u00e9volution du bon sens des conservateurs. Il s'agissait de compressions, d'aust\u00e9rit\u00e9 et de privatisation de services qui n'auraient jamais d\u00fb \u00eatre confi\u00e9s \u00e0 des entreprises priv\u00e9es, ce qui a entra\u00een\u00e9 la mort de sept personnes \u00e0 Walkerton, en Ontario.</p>\n<p data-HoCid=\"8429472\" data-originallang=\"en\">Je suis donc tr\u00e8s inquiet lorsque j'entends les conservateurs parler de bon sens, y compris le m\u00e9decin d\u00e9pass\u00e9 qui me chahute au fond de la salle, y compris...</p>"
    },
    "url": "/debates/2024/5/29/mark-gerretsen-4/",
    "politician_url": "/politicians/mark-gerretsen/",
    "politician_membership_url": "/politicians/memberships/4311/",
    "procedural": false,
    "source_id": "12772860",
    "h1": {
        "en": "Government Orders",
        "fr": "Ordres \u00e9manant du gouvernement"
    },
    "h2": {
        "en": "Business of Supply",
        "fr": "Travaux des subsides"
    },
    "h3": {
        "en": "Department of Health\u2014Main Estimates, 2024-25",
        "fr": "Minist\u00e8re de la Sant\u00e9 \u2014 Le Budget principal des d\u00e9penses 2024\u20112025"
    },
    "document_url": "/debates/2024/5/29/",
    "related": {
        "document_speeches_url": "/speeches/?document=%2Fdebates%2F2024%2F5%2F29%2F"
    }
}