Health Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Ellis.

Mrs. Kramp-Neuman, please.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I think that if this were an invigorating, healthy and productive conversation, I wouldn't be so frustrated, but this has been a colossal waste of over an hour, a colossal waste of all of our time, our staff's time and the the time of the Canadians who are listening. I really think we're playing politics with Canadians, and we should step up and know better than this. It's disappointing.

There are a lot of really good motions at hand from all parties, and I don't think the question is whose.... We're arguing who is going to go first, who is the priority, when realistically, let's talk about all the motions we have. These are all important motions or studies, and I just think that we should get all the studies out on the table and then prioritize who is going to go first, but let's get moving. I think this is an embarrassment, and we need to move forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead, Dr. Powlowski.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Somebody spoke to tradition, and the tradition in this committee is that each party gets an equal number of witnesses.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

You guys weren't in the committee last time, so how would you know?

[An hon. member]

That was one study.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

That has been the tradition. Yes, strategically, we like to keep Don happy, but I have to say—and here's a shout-out to you, Don—Don has some of the best witnesses. They're even better than some of the Liberal witnesses, if I may say so. That's why I'm really happy. Luc has good witnesses too.

You guys are absolutely right. A lot of the people who come as witnesses before the committee don't and shouldn't have a political ideology. However, in choosing people, I find Don really does his homework. Those of us who have worked with Don for a while know that. I'm happy to give Don an equal number of witnesses.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I don't know if Mr. Thériault has his hand up. I'm prepared to defer if he was waiting to speak. If not, I will go now, but I see Mr. Thériault's hand up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Davies, the speaking order that I have is you and then Mr. van Koeverden and Mr. Thériault, in that order.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I apologize.

I have just a few points. There are reasons, of course, to support this, my amendment, and reasons not to. As with every motion there are pros and cons, but I do think it's important that however we vote, we vote based on fact.

First, there is nothing in my motion that says that any of the witnesses we are putting forward are representing anybody. The way that all committees work, the way witnesses come before us is that each party submits lists of witnesses. That doesn't mean those witnesses are Liberal, Conservative, NDP or Bloc witnesses. My motion just speaks to how we develop the list of witnesses who will be allowed to testify. I am just saying that each party be entitled to submit an equal number of witnesses so that we hear from an equal number of them. Any suggestion by my Conservative friends that this makes these witnesses compromised in any way is simply wrong.

Second, I take Mr. Lake's comment about the parties somewhat seriously, but I think it was understood that when I said [Technical difficulty—Editor] be entitled to an equal number of witnesses, I mean the parties represented on the committee. I think that would go without saying. What other parties would we be talking about—the Rhinoceros Party? Of course it's the parties on the committee. I think we can all understand that.

Let me read from the motion that my Conservative friends voted in favour of about 23 months ago. This was a motion for the health committee on the COVID-19 study by the committee from February 2020 until the committee was dissolved for the election. That was over 18 months. This is the motion they voted for: “That each party represented on the committee be entitled to select one witness per one-hour witness panel, and two witnesses per two-hour witness panel.”

That's what the Conservatives voted in favour of, the equality of witnesses, so the umbrage that is being taken today to a concept that they wholeheartedly supported last Parliament, for almost the entirety of the last Parliament, at the health committee is a little bit rich for me.

Mr. Thériault might correct me on this, but I believe we also had equality of witnesses when we did the PMPRB study as well. For the entire 43rd Parliament at the health committee, each party submitted an equal number of witness.

Duplication of witnesses can happen at any time. We all put forward our witnesses. We look at them. If there is overlap, that's fine. The clerk then attributes them to one party or the other.

I must correct my colleague Mr. Berthold. I've corrected him on this before. He continues to suggest that last Parliament, the first hour was for equality of witnesses and the second hour was for government officials. That's simply incorrect. That's simply wrong. We had most of our meetings, 90% of our two-hour meetings, where we had just the regular witnesses.

Might I just say that we're talking turkey here. This is all about how we determine what witnesses come before this committee, and I'm proposing that each party be treated the same. I'll also say that my good friend Mr. Thériault also brings excellent witnesses forward that have a unique perspective. Really, what we want to do at this committee is make sure that we have a diversity of opinion from a variety of perspectives to inform the committee's deliberations.

The Conservatives having 40% of the witnesses and the Liberals having 40% of the witnesses doesn't give the same diversity as 25, 25, 25, 25 does.

I want to conclude by thanking my good friend Dr. Powlowski for that.

It is my intention to do my best to bring forth witnesses, as I'm sure all of us should, that will add informed positions before the committee, that hopefully we can [Technical difficulty—Editor] the committee that other parties or members may not be aware of, so that we can enrich the discussion and the evidence before the committee, so that when we do write reports, they are as informed and diverse as possible. That is my sole goal in doing this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Thériault, please.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will not repeat Mr. Davies' comments. I will just add a few comments to reassure my Conservative colleagues.

In the past, we have proposed witnesses who were not strictly affiliated with the Bloc Québécois and who made clerks' work and research work easier. We were simply doing our job by trying to find relevant witnesses. However, Conservative members have often felt that the proposed witnesses were [Technical difficulty—Editor]. However, at the beginning of the meeting, people were not saying that the witness was affiliated with the Bloc Québécois or the NDP. The Conservatives have often actually put questions to the witnesses we proposed, and I was very happy about that, as those witnesses had a unique perspective. It worked out very well.

So this is not a matter of partisanship. It is simply about ensuring that the meeting goes well. Witnesses are quite often invited to testify, but they withdraw, for instance. When we have the responsibility to provide witnesses in equal numbers, we also have the responsibility to try to find others. So we must all help one another to have as many relevant witnesses as possible. That would also avoid—I'm not sure I understood the comment of one of my Conservative colleagues and I no longer remember who it was—but if we have to start a new discussion on the priority of witnesses we want to hear from, I wish us good luck.

Once we establish right away that we all have the responsibility to propose witnesses and that those witnesses will be heard from, that takes care of questions and discussions on the kitchen and the plumbing. It also helps us get to the bottom of the issue as quickly as possible.

Having worked in this way for about two and a half years, I am telling you that it works very well and that everyone is happy with this method. So I invite you to vote for this proposal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We have Mr. Lake, please.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Let's just be clear. There is no way that if this meeting ends at its scheduled time this will come to a vote, because it is a non-starter for me, an absolute non-starter for me, to allow this situation. This is not a long-term tradition as one of the members said.

I find it a little bit confusing not having members' names in front of us here, so maybe, Chair, for future reference, we could get back to some nameplates so we know who our new members are.

The fellow across the way said—a direct quote—that “strategically, we like to keep Don happy.” Well, my mission on the committee is to get our health decisions right for Canadians, not to keep Don happy. I like Don, but that's not my mission on this committee.

There is no way that I can go back to my riding and explain that I allowed 25% of the witnesses for Canada's health committee to be chosen by the Bloc, a party that had 7.6% of the vote and has 9.5% of the seats. Surely everybody on this committee understands that there's no way I could even go back to my riding and explain that I played any part in allowing that to happen. That just will not happen.

I'm here today and I will be putting my hand back up on the list to weigh back in as long as we're having this conversation, because that is a non-starter. To Don's point about equality of witnesses, listen, all of the witnesses who come before the committee are equal. This is not about equality of witnesses. The witnesses who come before the committee are equal. I think Canadians expect our committee to take a principled approach to this and to be able to come to some consensus to make sure we have a wide range of witnesses.

Certainly, Don, I would get the point that with 7.4% of the seats and 17.8% of the vote in the country, that you might have a point to say, hey, we should maybe get 17.8%.... We should have that taken into consideration as we choose our witness lists by consensus. I'm all for that. But this idea of just saying that every party is going to put out an equal number of witnesses and that we're going to choose 25% of our witnesses based on suggestions....

This is no offence to the people who voted for the Bloc. We live in a democracy here right now, and 33% of Canadians voted for our party, and those people who voted for our party are not going to accept my decision to allow in any way 25% of the witnesses in this committee to come from a party that is dedicated to separating from the country. That's just not going to happen, sorry.

I can't even believe that my Liberal colleagues are taking part in this conversation. It's unfathomable to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Next we have Dr. Ellis, please.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I certainly want to echo the comments of my colleague Mr. Lake. This is unconscionable. Oftentimes we look back at the history of Canada and we understand how we got here as the great nation that we are.

I also understand that there are people out there who continuously, as in the Ukraine, want to fight and die for their own democracy, with the Russians at the gate of exactly their border at the current time, with a miserable 400 Canadians moving westward and not protecting them. I think this is a travesty.

You know, I had great hope for this committee—I spoke to my other two doctor colleagues here—and really wanted to do some work in this committee. You know what? I know that Dr. Hanley and Dr. Powlowski feel the exact same way. That's not to disrespect any of the other colleagues, but I've had specific conversations with these two colleagues.

I do believe there's an expectation that Canadians want us to get something done here. I think this continuous back-and-forth bickering and pandering and ridiculousness we're experiencing at the current time are utterly untenable in the goings-on of this committee. How can we ever expect to get anything done when all we want to do is fight over the rules?

We know that we have committee rules. I know that I haven't been here very long, but there are committee rules that have existed—you can look them up in Bosc and Gagnon or wherever you want to look them up—for many, many years. That tradition is the tradition that I speak of. I don't speak of the tradition of the 43rd Parliament. If someone wants to go out there and fiddle and, as I said previously, gerrymander things, that's totally up to them. They can do that. However, when we have four different people here on our side of the House, and this is a decision that we want to make just simply because people were here previously and that's what they used to do.... Does that make it right? No. I think we have an opportunity here to make things right.

I also believe very clearly that if you want to take this to the extreme, you know, we could have had a majority government sitting over here as Conservatives, and certainly talking about any of this foolishness would have been out the window. So trying to say what happened in the 43rd Parliament is not of any benefit to me whatsoever.

Again, I implore this committee to get some work done. Stop talking about the minutiae of foolishness. Understand that we have a long-standing tradition of the Westminster style of government. It's why we're all here celebrating 70 years of the Queen at the throne and continuing on with those great traditions that have made us a great nation.

In order to continue to sit here, I think it's important that we ask for unanimous consent from Mr. Davies to withdraw his motion to think that there can be equal numbers of witnesses, and that we get to the traditions that we're all here to represent, as Mr. Lake quite eloquently pointed out.

Continuing to do this, if we choose to speak on this motion for hours and hours, is perfectly fine by me. I don't have an issue with that, because you know what? I have also chosen to serve this country. I spent nine years of my life in the military, four years of those in active service and four months of those in the Middle East serving our country in Operation Determination. When you look at those things, for those of us who have decided to wear the uniform—which, yes, is a choice—I think to come here and misrepresent those values, which we all want to push forward, is an absolute travesty.

Mr. Chair, allowing this kind of talk to continue is just unfathomable to me. I have to say, as Mr. Lake said, that the choice here to look at the things that have been done previously, and then have to go back and represent them to your riding, is something that is unconscionable to me as well, sir. If that's the debate that we want to continue to have today and not get any work done, I say let's have at 'er, as we might say, coming from eastern Canada.

That being said, I vehemently oppose and I ask my learned colleague Mr. Davies to withdraw his amendment...and we ask for unanimous consent. Let's get some work done.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Ellis.

Dr. Powlowski, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Before getting things done and calling a vote, which would get us one step closer to actually doing something here, I do want to respond to the allegations from the other side and the suggestion that the Conservatives are all about getting the best witnesses here and it's the Liberals who are playing politics on this.

Well, one of the reasons I support Don's motion is that I think the Bloc and the NDP often had pretty good witnesses that they called, but I would say.... I don't blame you all for this, because I know that none of you were on the health committee last term. But I sat through, along with Sonia, a lot of meetings on health committee. I have to say that there were a fair number of witnesses who appeared who were called by or were brought in by the PCs who were very partisan. They were there for a political message rather than trying to get us to a better understanding of the issue.

So if I like this idea, it's in part in response to the PCs' previous choice of witnesses, I hate to say.

With that, I'll call for a vote on the amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We will go to a vote when the list of speakers is exhausted.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Sorry [Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We still have two people on the speakers list.

Next up is Mr. Thériault.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I will be brief.

I am very disappointed to hear that from my Conservative colleagues. If Mr. Lake cannot go back to his riding and say that the Bloc Québécois selected 25% of the witnesses, which is not the case, I just want to remind him that a number of the witnesses the Bloc proposed were also proposed by the four parties.

Some witnesses could not be proposed by Mr. Lake because he is not familiar with them and because there are no Quebeckers. If he cannot go back to his riding saying that he helped the Bloc Québécois propose witnesses in a fair manner, which does not mean we will hear from them, I can go back to my riding and share what he just said. It is highly likely that people will not understand what he means, since the Conservative Party of Canada claims to recognize the Quebec nation.

I will stop here before I get derogatory, but there are a number of problems with what I am hearing right now. I hope we will find some serenity. My comments are always intended to make us move forward and try to be as efficient as possible. So it is not a matter of selecting 25% of the witnesses, as that is not the case, but I have very often proposed 100% of the witnesses because everyone had proposed the same ones. I will stop here.

I am ready to vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We have Mr. Davies, please.