Finance Committee on Sept. 20th, 2006

[Dr. Jeff Poston]

My association is a large publisher of drug information in Canada, and we received a significant grant from the primary health care transition fund to create a new web portal we call e-Therapeutics. It integrates information about drugs and the treatment of diseases. We've just started to make that available to community pharmacists and physicians in Canada. We're in negotiations and discussions with provincial governments and the federal government to make that more widely available.

So I think the quality of information to health care practitioners is improving. But the focus of our submission is that we really need to do a better job of gathering information about real world safety and effectiveness to actually get better information on how patients are responding to drugs and what the effects are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

The next questioner will be Madam Ablonczy.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you very much for excellent presentations. I just wish we had more time with each of you, but your briefs are very complete.

I want to take a minute to thank many of you in the charitable sector for your ad on September 18 showing some appreciation for the measures in the last budget and how they helped you, and pointing out that donations to the charitable sector have increased substantially because of this. It's always nice to know how measures in the budget actually play out in the real world, and it's nice that you let others know too, because we get a lot of criticism, and sometimes approval comes in handy and is encouraging.

I notice some very good recommendations from all of you about further improvements that need to be made. I really appreciate the bar association—they always do great work and complete work—and Imagine Canada, and others. I want you to know we have these under consideration. There are so many competing demands, of course, on government coffers, but we are really actively considering these.

I want to tell you that we're tabling some technical amendments to the Income Tax Act very shortly, and some of the concerns you have might have made it into that bill. I have to confess, I haven't read it line by line yet, but it's pretty thick, so maybe some of your concerns were caught as they flew by.

I want to ask the MS Society—and I think your recommendations are really excellent, particularly the point you make about people with MS, and other conditions too, who can work sometimes, while some days aren't so good, and that really should be taken into consideration. But you mentioned no tax receipts for less than $250. I thought that was rather a high threshold. Can you explain this a little bit?

[Deanna Groetzinger]

Sure. We looked at some other jurisdictions to see how it works there. This is essentially the threshold they have set in the United States. Charitable organizations there are required to provide tax receipts for donations of $250 or above. Essentially, below that the Internal Revenue Service will accept the claim of a charitable donation based on auditable instruments such as credit card receipts, cancelled cheques, and the like.

It struck us as well that in this day, when increasingly people are filing their income tax by e-filing or by telephone, essentially many people don't include those tax receipts. It's a case of our producing the receipts and mailing them out in the first-class mail, when for many people they're not ever looked at again. Is there an opportunity here to save some paperwork, save some money on both ends and move us into the 21st century in this area?

The other point we made is that by law we're required to send out tax receipts by first class mail. That's 51 cents every single time.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

That was good. My sister works for a charity, and it drives her crazy, because for every $25 she has to send out tax receipts, and every time there's a fundraiser she takes days to do it. It is a big consideration, I know.

I want to commend, Mr. Dudding—and I know all of us feel this way around the table in the room—the work your groups do with our kids. This is volunteer time. It's a tremendous commitment, and it makes such a difference in the lives of these young children and young men and women. In my view, and I know it would be yours too, government programs can never make up for personal involvement and mentoring, caring, and sharing. Particularly for single parents, this is a lifeline.

So congratulations for what you do. We're very sympathetic to your needs and appreciate the brief you put forward.

I wonder whether you could pick out one thing that would help you more than anything. If you could just funnel it down to that—not that there could be only one thing on the table—what's your biggest concern?

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

To compound the challenge, Mr. Dudding, it'll have to be a brief one thing.

[Peter Dudding]

That's easy. The brief one thing would be the Canada mental health proposals, the creation of a new Canada mental health commission and the mental health transition fund--a major impact for children and youth across this country, Madam.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Good. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Thank you, Madam Ablonczy.

Judy Wasylycia-Leis, proceed.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go fast. Five minutes runs out quickly.

Mr. Poston, first of all, you had a very good brief, but I think what you're doing is really just trying to--not cover, that's the wrong word--fill in for government negligence. What you've identified is a clear area of government responsibility, which we've known about for many years--never mind the global economy. Back in 2000 Vanessa Young died from an adverse reaction that should have been identified. Nothing has really been done...I mean, all of what you've recommended should have been done by now; it was part of the coroner's inquest.

It also begs the question about how we put in place a system that was there but was really just taken away from Canadians, starting back in 1996 when the Liberal health minister, Allan Rock, dismantled the drug research laboratory, the one capacity we had in this country to test adverse reactions between drugs and drugs, drugs and natural food products, drugs and food, and drugs and so on.

It just blows me away that we are so far behind in this very vital area. How do we get the government to take responsibility for something that's part of its mandate? It shouldn't be left to groups like yours to have to push for.

[Dr. Jeff Poston]

Well, I think you're absolutely right; we would agree with that. I think there's probably too much expectation laid at the door of the pharmaceutical industry in terms of solving these problems. I would agree with you entirely that government really has to step up to the plate.

There's been adequate research done; there are a variety of methodologies being developed in order to do this. New technologies will enable it even further. It does require a substantial piece of work, and that's why the amount of money we're recommending is fairly substantial.

But I would agree with you entirely. Government has to step up to the plate, has to fund these programs and has to give direction. The recognition is that there does need to be an emphasis on post-marketing surveillance. The work on pre-market approval has clearly been shown to be inadequate.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask Professor Derome a question. I appreciated your very excellent brief on climate change. If one accepts the argument that John McCallum keeps presenting to our committee, that the cupboard is bare and it comes down to hard choices, I'm wondering if in order to support your proposals we should be looking at the subsidies that now go to oil and gas industries, and whether or not we should be looking at the amount of government money that's going into investing in the oil sands when research shows that's contributing, and will contribute, to greenhouse gas emissions and instability in terms of water and so on.

I'd like your comments in terms of priorities and hard choices we have to face in this whole area.

[Jacques Derome]

Well, I think global changes will affect all of us in very serious ways. In terms of revenues, it's clear the government is getting a lot of money from the oil industry, essentially, and some of that money could be reinvested or invested in research dealing with the effects of fossil fuel burning.

There's a lot of uncertainty yet to be determined. For example, we don't know precisely where in Canada the effect will be the largest, how soon it will happen. We know that climate change is taking place, but there's a range of possibilities as to the speed of it and the location of it in detail.

So while we have the gross picture, the overall picture of climate change, there are a lot of holes to be filled at the moment. I think some of the people making the most money from fossil fuel burning could be funding some of that research.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

One minute.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

May I just go to Peter Dudding again. You've raised many issues, but I think the fact that you've singled out the issues around mental health and children is something new for us and very important.

I know we've talked in this country for years about a national mental health strategy. What keeps coming in the way of that?

[Peter Dudding]

The fact that we've only talked about it and not done anything about it.

The fact of the matter is that we don't have a semblance of a mental health strategy at the national level in this country, and of course what it means is that we have 13 different systems that could be best described as fragmented. Some are better than others; others are virtually non-existent. It's a problem that is only growing in magnitude by virtue of the fact that 30 years ago we took the decision that we would de-institutionalize, which was a good decision. The fact of the matter is, though, that in terms of then making the investment around good community-based services, we didn't do that.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Mr. Savage, you have three minutes.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo how impressed I am, not only with the presentations but with the specificity of some of the recommendations, which is useful for the work we have to do--and hearing from great organizations, such as the National Children's Alliance, Imagine Canada, which I'm somewhat familiar with, and the CBA, which always comes with good recommendations and until recently was led by a good Dartmouthian, Brian Tabor, as president.

I want to talk about multiple sclerosis for a second. I'd like to just talk a little bit about health research. You talk about CIHR, and you also indicate that recently CIHR had to impose a 21.5% cut in the budgets of funded researchers. Can you explain when that happened?

[Deanna Groetzinger]

As I understand it from some of the researchers connected with CIHR, in the recent granting period they had to cut the research budgets of a number of approved researchers by 21.5%. When we look at that, we say, well, this is 20% less research that people can do; this is 21% less productivity they can do in looking for treatments and cures for diseases like multiple sclerosis. We find this alarming in terms of the lack of overall budgetary support for CIHR.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I agree, and in my involvement with CIHR--in my case, through the Heart and Stroke Foundation--the transformation from the MRC to CIHR has meant so much more in terms of non-profits being able to partner with organizations, bringing their funding together at a national level, pooling it, matching it. I think it's very important and I would hate to see it cut.

The last thing I want to say--because I have probably less than three minutes left now--relates to your recommendation on home care. Home care is really important, obviously, for people with MS, as it is for many people with disabilities. The fiscal imbalance that concerns me is not Ottawa and the provinces, but rich province and poor province. I come from a poor province. Our home care is not good in spite of great home care workers. There just aren't enough of them and not enough money. I wonder if you would agree that when we do implement some kind of national home care, doing it on a per capital basis is going to do nothing to decrease the gap between those provinces that have good home care and those that don't.

[Deanna Groetzinger]

In terms of any kind of home care strategy, what we really need to look at is not in terms of money spent but in money saved. People who could stay at home are people not living in institutions and not living in hospitals. So I think that's a way to approach it, not looking at this as money that's being spent but as money being saved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Brian Pallister]

Go ahead, Mr. St-Cyr.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you all for being here.

I have a few questions for Mr. Derome from the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.

I read your ten-page brief on climate and climatic conditions. I was, to say the least, surprised and somewhat perplexed not to see any reference whatsoever to Kyoto, unless I missed something. That's a bit of a paradox, given that the important ongoing debate in Canada and around the world on climate change centres on the Kyoto Protocol.

Does the presence of senior federal bureaucrats on your foundation's board of directors -- as noted in your submission -- account for the lack of a single mention of Kyoto in a brief on climatic conditions?

[Jacques Derome]

Not really. Basically, the foundation is accountable to the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, which has come out strongly in favour of compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. The Society has clearly made its position known.

More research is needed into climate change and related factors. Obviously we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are many ways to achieve that objective. However, the methods selected must be as effective as the ones advocated in the Kyoto Protocol. These are minimum requirements, because as we well know, Kyoto is a mere drop in the bucket.

Clear, more needs to be done. There are a variety of ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The foundation believes the government must assume its responsibilities in this area and determine how best to meet its commitment. We firmly believe that emission levels must be reduced, even if the cuts are minimal in relation to requirements.