Health Committee on Nov. 1st, 2023

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Have you done any work? Has any work been done on single-payer...?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Many, by many different.... The Hoskins report was done. There are many different projections of how much the cost would be.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

What would that cost be?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Again, I wouldn't hazard.... There are many different numbers I've heard. As I said, we have not done any work to verify those numbers.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Okay. As you stand right now, there's no work that's been done other than.... There's no single-payer user pharmacare coming in the coming months.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

I haven't made a comment on it in one direction or the other. You asked me what the costs would be.

If we were to be in a situation where we were talking about something we're bringing forward—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Minister, in the 2021 election, your government was elected on the promise of a mental health transfer. What happened to that?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Minister Saks would be the best place.... She'll be here in about four minutes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

As the Minister of Health, you can't comment on that?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

I think she's better placed to respond, and she's coming in four minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Now we'll go over to the Liberals for two minutes with Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to you, Minister, and to your team for being with us.

Minister, you were interrupted when you wanted to talk about misinformation when it comes to the baseless attack on Dr. Sharma. Combatting misinformation is relevant to the work you are doing for your mandate. I would like to allow you to finish your thoughts on that or on Dr. Sharma.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you.

Look, I was in opposition. I get it. You attack government. You cross swords. It's an important challenge function. I signed up to be a political actor. Tough questions of me are fair, but people.... I mean, Dr. Sharma has been at Health Canada for 20 years. When you attack Canada's medical officer of health and try to claim that the things she's saying aren't true, it's a deeply dangerous thing to do.

Frankly, the attack—

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

The minister was not even here. I guess the point would be that commenting on things of which he has no knowledge is well beyond the purview of his ability to make comments to this committee. Certainly, we're talking about misinformation, and I think those of us who were here heard significant misinformation from Dr. Sharma.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

It's an interesting point of debate but not a point of order.

Finish your answer, Minister.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Look, the point is that we can't afford to cross swords on health information. It is critically important that Canadians trust the health information they're given and that we don't play games or cross swords on it.

It is totally fair game to attack me in any which way works for you on Reddit or whatever Twitter source—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

—you're trying to work, but to attack officials is something that I had not seen in my time in opposition—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please, Mr. Minister, we have a point of order from Mr. Doherty.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

—and it's something that I don't think is at all appropriate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We have Mr. Doherty on a point of order.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, at no time was there an attack.

Mr. Chair, all that was asked was for Dr. Sharma to clarify or qualify her testimony, because there was proof that her comments were wrong. I asked repeatedly for Dr. Sharma to qualify that answer—

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Doherty, wanting the floor to contradict something that was said does not amount to a point of a order. Everyone here knows that.

Go ahead, Minister.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Misinformation during the pandemic cost I don't know how many lives. It caused all kinds of people to be hesitant to get a vaccine that could have protected them.

I'm just asking for us to be very careful. If we're going to make decisions to try to attack each other, that's a choice that can be made, but the people who have worked under successive governments—Liberal and Conservative—to do their best to protect the health of Canadians and to accurately reflect, on a basis of science and data, information is something that I would just ask that folks treat very carefully.