Evidence of meeting #96 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contracts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all I want to clear up some of the misinformation and disinformation I've heard so far. The public accounts committee is not looking at this issue. It is seized with other issues. As I understand it, the industry committee is busy looking at the sustainable green fund scandal, the problems with Bill C-27—the privacy bill—and the Stellantis contract scandal, so it is also not looking at this.
I'm extremely concerned with the pattern of behaviour I see with medical contracts. We have this Medicago one, where clearly there were two contracts and there's been a $150-million payment to Mitsubishi that isn't mentioned anywhere in anything that we've seen, so that's questionable. This is on top of things like the Frank Baylis “let's spend $172 million to buy ventilators but never use them”. Then, where do we get the money back or sell those ventilators to do something...? These kinds of things are happening all the time.
When the ministers come we always hear that they didn't read their emails and they weren't aware of the details of the contract. There are electronic bank records that go with every one of these transfers, so I don't accept that we can't get to the bottom of where this is.
I would also call.... When the Liberals say they want to have transparency, but then they bring an amendment like what they've brought, which is to say, “Okay, you can come and look at it, but you can't take pictures of it and you can't record it.” That puts us in the situation where, yes, we see it, and as Mr. Davies has correctly said, we can talk about it. However, as soon as we say, “Well, the contract said this, and this is a problem”, then the NDP will line up, as they always do, with their Liberal partners and say, “No, it doesn't say that.” Again, the public has no way of knowing what the truth is because there's no transparency at all.
I propose a subamendment to the amendment that's been made. The subamendment would take out some of the wording within the amendment. It would be “that, when these documents are received by the clerk, they be available to committee members no later than 30 days following the receipt of the contracts.” That would be it.
I will mail that to the clerk so that he has it in both official languages.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I understand. You're suggesting that we add, after the word “only”, where in the second line it has “viewing by committee members only”, the phrase “not later than 30 days”. Is that right?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
The subamendment would delete the phrase “at the clerk's office for viewing by”. That would go away. Also, after “committee members only”, we would delete “for one week to be designated by the committee”. That would be deleted. It would keep in “no later than 30 days following the receipt of the contracts”. Then the part that reads “under the supervision of the clerk and that no personal mobile, electronic or recording devices of any kind be permitted in the room that week; and that no notes be taken out of the room” will be deleted.
Basically, it ends up being, “that, when these documents are received by the clerk, they be available to committee members no later than 30 days following the receipt of the contracts.”
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you. That amendment is in order.
Do we need some time to see that, or are we ready to continue? Does anyone require a suspension to have a look at the wording?
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Chair, I'd like a suspension for five minutes. I like the process of sending it to us in writing so that we have it all in front of us in writing.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Davies.
We're suspended for five minutes.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I call the meeting back to order.
Mrs. Vignola, you have the floor on the subamendment.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The Bloc Québécois signed the letter requesting a meeting pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), but we weren't aware of the notice of motion introduced pursuant to Standing Order 108(1).
The $150 million that was given to Medicago is under quite a mysterious heading in the Public Accounts of Canada. When I myself asked a question about this at a previous meeting, I was told that it was considered an accident. My questions are somewhat similar to those of all my colleagues, because we need to get answers. Is the Standing Committee on Health the best place to get those answers? That's a good question.
I will digress for a moment to talk about women's health. There are 700 diseases affecting women that are misdiagnosed because there have been no or few studies on women's morphology and women's health. I have family members right now who are fighting breast cancer. I think it would be worthwhile to know the source of this cancer and how to better prevent it. You have to have a doctor first, and I don't have one. I'm not the only one in society who has that problem.
Let's go back to Medicago. There are questions about the circumstances, the guarantees and the process that was followed. Why was that process used? If Mitsubishi had not abandoned Medicago, would we be talking about it now, or would we simply accept the fact that investments were made to increase Canada's vaccine procurement capacity? I don't have the answer to that. Did Canada take a risk that it shouldn't have taken? I don't have the answer to that. Did the fact that Canada is sometimes asked to show more flexibility with a private company lead us to want to conduct this study? I don't have the answer to that.
What was the $150 million used for? Research and development costs a fortune. Was that money used for that? Was the $150 million used, for example, to try to speed up the construction of the production plant that was planned in Quebec City? I don't have the answer to that. It's the least we can do to get answers about what was done with the money that taxpayers entrusted to the government.
As far as the amendment and the subamendment are concerned, it always bothers me to hear that we can consult documents, but not talk about them. It's all well and good to have the truth, but if we can't reveal it, we can't reassure taxpayers, which is always of great concern to me. Whether the truth is good or bad, whether everyone likes it or not, is another debate. It's important to me that taxpayers know what is being done with their money, these taxes that we also pay.
So a lot of questions need to be answered. Is the Standing Committee on Health the best committee to do that? Since we've been talking from the outset about revelations in the Public Accounts of Canada, should the motion be referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts? Do we need to think about our own procedures as well? I'm throwing all these questions out and thinking out loud, without any filters.
Mr. Chair, if the amendment were to pass, would it necessarily mean that members would not be allowed to discuss what they read in public?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Shuv Majumdar Conservative Calgary Heritage, AB
Thank you.
You know, I was listening to our NDP and Liberal colleagues talk about being inconvenienced by being brought before this committee to explain how $150 million of lost money through pure government incompetence is not, somehow, a priority for my constituents. They're telling me this is important. They're drowning under a cost-of-living tsunami and a mortgage meltdown coming their way at the speed of a freight train, and this government, this coalition, is not interested in revealing the transparent facts around their incompetence of over $150 million.
The carbon tax has been making life absolutely intolerable. I'm in Calgary. You have all seen the weather we have to deal with here, so don't tell me and lecture me about why this is not a priority for my constituents.
I wanted to respond very clearly to some of the pablum I was hearing from some of our colleagues around the table.
I think it's important to proceed to a vote. I defer my time to Dr. Ellis.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
That's fortunate because the next person on the speakers list is, in fact, Dr. Ellis.
You have the floor, sir.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thanks very much, Chair.
Can you just refresh the committee's mind here on whether there more speakers after me, sir?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
I have Mr. Perkins, who's followed by Mr. Davies, and that is the complete speakers list at this time.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Great. Thank you very much.
You know, it's interesting.... We have a country that's falling apart. We have a health care system that is crumbling before our eyes. As mentioned, there are 22 people dying every day from opioids. Therefore, bringing a motion forward with respect to $150 million at the health committee, which directly assesses the veracity of testimony given by the Minister of Health and the president of Medicago to the health committee, makes perfect sense. What better time to do it than when Dr. Powlowski didn't want his vacation or his time with his constituents interrupted, nor did Mr. Davies? That really makes no sense to me.
We're here to work on behalf of Canadians, and as Mr. Majumdar correctly pointed out, so many Canadians are reaching out to us. Listen, I'm sure they're reaching out to you guys and gals as well, whether you want to admit it or not, saying that they are being crushed by the fiscal irresponsibility of this government.
I find it laughable that Mr. Davies said that we didn't ask them to sign the 106(4), when he wouldn't sign a Standing Order 106(4) that was directly related to a loss of $2 billion more because a company lied and Health Canada knew about it but accepted it as being true and moved forward anyway. Why would I ask him to sign the letter when he won't even sign one for $2 billion? He won't sign one for $150 million. That results, of course, in the way he votes to gut this incredible motion for transparency that was before committee here today, which Dr. Hanley correctly said in his opening remarks.... He talked very clearly about transparency and then introduced an amendment to gut the transparency. Wow—talk about hypocrisy.
Anyway, do you know what? That being said, we know there are an innumerable number of scandals. There aren't enough committees to handle all the scandals this Liberal-NDP coalition government is creating. Of course, there are not enough committees to attempt to address the fiscal incompetence that continues.
Therefore, I'm quite happy to get to a vote so that we can ask everyone here where their cards are going to be laid and what side of history they are going to choose to be on: Will it be that of competence and good fiscal management, or are they going to continue to be the costly cover-up coalition? That's the question that will be answered here today.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I'll be unusually brief.
It's a simple question. I believe the Minister of Health and the president of Medicago lied to this committee about the $150-million payment and about a clause they claim existed but doesn't exist. This committee has the responsibility to call them back and call them out on their misrepresentation to Parliament.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
In the spirit of trying to get to the vote—I can sense we want to move forward, and I think that's a good thing—I have a couple of brief comments.
One of the problems with the subamendment by Ms. Gladu is that there would be no controls whatsoever on confidentiality, and I'm a bit concerned by that. I haven't read the whole contract, but again, when you have a commercial vendor that is tendering with the government, I think there needs to be at least some examination or possibility of ensuring that the contract isn't just floated out in public without any controls on it. I don't see those controls in the subamendment.
The issue is, as well.... I'm going to repeat again that, in my reading of this motion—and I think Madame Vignola asked this question without an answer—we can speak about it. We can share it. We just can't reproduce it. I think that's a measured step.
I would also say to my colleagues that this isn't the end of the matter. Once we read the contract, it's open, for any member of the committee who has concerns about what they see in the unredacted version, to put forth another motion if they want. Maybe the time will come when a deeper dive will have to happen. I'm just not necessarily convinced that's happened yet.
To the notion of whether this is a priority or urgent, nobody's saying that this issue isn't important or it's not even a priority. The question, I think—and I agree with Dr. Powlowski—is whether or not this was urgent. I don't think anybody can make a credible case that here, on Friday, January 19, this issue is urgent to deal with, given the context. We can debate how much of a priority it is, but I will still stand with the 20 people dying each day and the opioid overdose crisis being a bigger priority than the nuances of this contract, as important as they may be.
Finally, I want to say that my issue with Dr. Ellis.... I didn't know clairvoyance was part of his medical skills, such as to anticipate what I would or wouldn't agree to. Interestingly, when he asked me to consider a 106(4) on the other issue of $2 billion—which, by the way, has not been established yet—my only issue was that I didn't think it was urgent. I didn't think it warranted our meeting today to discuss that. I may support it in the future or not. I don't know about his mind-reading skills, but interestingly, if his argument is that he wouldn't have the courtesy to show me this motion in advance because I didn't vote or didn't support one much larger, one might ask the question, why didn't he introduce the motion that he said he would on the much larger issue? If there's a $2-billion scandal, why didn't he introduce a 106(4) on the $2-billion scandal, not the $150-million scandal? The logic there is as distorted as can be.
Anyway, I'm happy to just go to a vote on this. I think this is an important issue. I think it warrants further investigation. I'm happy to support transparency. I'm happy to support all committee members to see the unredacted version of this contract, and I'm happy to see where it goes from there. I think the attempt by the Conservatives to frame this as, if you don't support their motion with all of the issues involved—like the six meetings and involving the industry minister in all this—somehow you don't support transparency and accountability, is simply wrong. I think this is a measured step towards more transparency, and I'm prepared to support it.
