Health Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

As was mentioned earlier, when we receive complaints we investigate them. Because of the issues of privacy in these areas, I am unable to speak about individual cases or individual complaints. But if we had received a complaint of that nature, rest assured, it would have been investigated.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

My last question is for Ms. Wilson--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I'm sorry, Ms. Leslie, your time is up.

We now have Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to our witnesses for being here for this portion of our meeting.

You probably were all in the room as we sat through the prior portion of the meeting, so you're aware of the things that were stated. Some of my questions will refer to some of those items.

First of all, Dr. Hamm, I want to ask if you could outline the board structure for the committee: the number of board members, how many vacancies you have, how many you expect to have in the next short while, what a quorum consists of, and so on. How will you plan to operate if vacancies aren't filled?

[Dr. John Hamm]

The legislation provides for 13 members, but at no time have we had 13 board members. When the board was first appointed, we had 11 board members. One board member, who was vice-chair, had to resign. He received an appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada and he obviously could not continue as a board member. With the resignation of the three board members, we now have seven, including Dr. Wilson, who by legislation is a voting member of the board.

Despite the loss of the very considerable expertise that the three retired board members represent, we do have significant resources on the board. We have a nurse. We have three physicians. We have three board members who have university teaching appointments. We have an ethicist, and we have a private sector participant who brings that practicality to the board. As well, we have a board member who was one of the original commissioners with the royal commission on the new technologies and who has been a part of the discussion since 1989. While the board is small and it has lost considerable expertise, we have considerable retained expertise.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I had no role in appointing the original members. It is the prerogative of the Minister of Health to fill the vacancies on the board.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

And what is the quorum on your board?

[Dr. John Hamm]

It's the normal quorum.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Well, what constitutes the quorum? Is it based on 50% plus one of the 13 members?

[Dr. John Hamm]

No, it's based on a quorum of the existing board.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay.

[Dr. John Hamm]

Since that is seven, quorum is four.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay.

Dr. Wilson, I think you heard in the earlier testimony words like “intimidation” and “negative body language”. Could you speak to those comments from your perspective? Do you feel they are justified? Or do you have any recollection of anyone--a board member--discussing those types of issues with you?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

I think most people I know would not describe me as being intimidating. However, I think most people would describe me as being extremely expressive. I do wave my hands when I talk. I need to sit on them at times. But I have the utmost respect for all of the board members. If at any time my body language was inappropriate, it was definitely not something that I was aware of, and I think that the one instance that was being referred to was at the very end of two days of very intense meetings, and the chair had called for adjournment. I think that was the situation being described.

At the end, I did ask my staff—many of whom were present—whether they saw anything really out of the ordinary or inappropriate, and they felt there hadn't been. But again, it's perception. It's my perception and it's other people's perception, and I can only speak for myself when I say that in no way have I ever intended to be disrespectful to any of my board members. I've spent my life in the not-for-profit sector, in the service of boards, and to me volunteers are amazing, and I have never disrespected my board members.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

Dr. Wilson, there's been quite a bit of reference to the cross-border meeting that took place. Could you give me your perspective on how beneficial—if in fact it was beneficial—the process was, what the cost of it was, and whether or not there was any analysis done of the value for dollars spent?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

The cross-border reproductive care conference was discussed at this committee in June when I did table the costs as I was requested to by your colleagues of the Bloc. We hosted this cross-border reproductive care forum because this is a huge and growing issue worldwide. In Europe alone, in 50 centres in a very small study that was just completed, 1,200 people a month went back and forth between various countries to seek care.

As was mentioned earlier, in the research that's been done, one of the reasons for that is that there are some people in Europe or elsewhere who perhaps do not like what is available in their own country. But there are many other reasons for people to go across borders. For example, people from the United Kingdom, which is moving towards a single-embryo transfer, go to Europe where they can get more than one embryo, which is not necessarily the healthiest choice.

We know for a fact that countries will never be able to synchronize their legislation in this area, because legislation in an area like this is so fraught with a whole country's belief and value system and so on that we felt that the ethics of this were too big to take on. So we focused on health and safety, because no matter what country you come from, when a patient leaves your country they eventually come back into your country. So of course you want to make sure they have had the best treatment when they have gone elsewhere, because you have to face the consequences when they come back. If you recall, we had a situation like that in Canada in February.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Wilson.

I'm sorry, but your time is up.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We now go to our second round of five minutes. We are losing committee members, so instead of going to 2 o'clock, with the will of the committee, we'll go to 1:45 if that's okay.

Is that all right with the committee? All right.

We'll go to Dr. Dhalla.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you very much for coming.

I want to bring this back to the patients, because I think, ultimately, they were the purpose of the agency. We have over 300,000 couples in Canada who are unable to conceive. I know that Dr. Hamm and Dr. Wilson, and everyone else, I'm sure, come with a tremendous amount of experience, and hopefully everyone's heart is in the right place. But I can tell you that the challenges the board has had have impacted the work it could be doing, from the perspective of those couples wanting to have children.

I know, Dr. Hamm, you specified that going to back to 2007, you weren't in charge of putting together the board members.

When I was involved with this file in 2007, initially, when the board was appointed, there was no patient representative. Three years later is there a patient representative on this board who knows of the struggles and challenges these parents and individuals are facing in trying to have children?

[Dr. John Hamm]

With the resignation of Ms. Ryll, there is no patient representative.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Now, have you made any efforts, either contacting the minister or the PMO or the powers that be, to try to have these individuals replaced?

Before you respond, we've had three resignations, two in March and one in May, and you've had four senior staff people resign, but going back to the board, in the last seven months, has there any initiative undertaken?

[Dr. John Hamm]

The discussions around this suggested very strongly that we would like our mandate to be confirmed. We are in a state of limbo right now.

You made reference to the fact there's been turnover of staff. In many cases, that's directly in response to the uncertainty surrounding the agency now. Nobody is going to base their career on a position in an agency that is not certain of having a future. I would say the same thing.

What I can say to the honourable member is that if the minister were to ask for my advice on membership of the board, I would be more than pleased to make my suggestions known, and--

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

With due respect, I don't want to cut you off, but we're short of time. Has the minister contacted you, then, to ask you for advice?

[Dr. John Hamm]

No, not on that matter.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Has any member of the Prime Minister's Office, or any member of the government, for that fact, called to ask you for your advice or for your suggestions, since you've have three board members resign in the last seven months who have written pretty detailed letters about what the problems and challenges are?