Finance Committee on June 3rd, 2024

[Sandra DeLaronde]

I'm sorry. I didn't understand that the question was for me.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

It is for you, madam. Thank you.

[Sandra DeLaronde]

Okay. Thank you.

Economic reconciliation, I believe, is key for women and their families to find footing in this country. We know successive governments have not addressed the issue of economic reconciliation with respect to indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQIA relatives. I think that having an indigenous loan guarantee with the input of women, families and survivors is critical.

I know governments like to talk about a distinctions-based approach. That has its place in urban environments, where 80% of the first nations, Métis and Inuit population lives. However, it goes beyond being distinctions-based. They have to look at the requirements of those within the community. I really hope those will be considered when defining the parameters of this indigenous loan guarantee.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Thank you, Sandra, for that commentary. Economic reconciliation is also very important to the government in terms of moving hand in hand and on a nation-to-nation basis.

I'd like to make a general comment with regard to the vaping issue that has been raised.

For many decades, governments of all stripes have worked diligently to reduce the level of smoking and cigarette use in this country. It is with—I'm going to use strong language here—complete ignorance that we are even having a conversation around the matter of vaping, etc. It is another form of cigarette usage. It is being targeted at teens and young people. Anyone out there, of any political stripe, should be very ashamed of themselves if they are defending against any sort of measure that aims to decrease the amount of vaping going on.

I say that with complete conviction and as the father of three young children. I see what's happening out there with flavoured vapes and so forth. It's just another marketing technique. It adds to the cost of our health care system, and it's not the way we want to go with our health care system or our country. That's not what I would call responsible leadership.

Thank you.

Do I have time left, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have 15 seconds, but I think that was a good way to close it.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

That's good. We'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I don't usually weigh in, but I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said.

Now we are going to MP Ste-Marie for six minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ladies and gentlemen witnesses, thank you for being here.

Ms. DeLaronde, I enjoyed your presentation, and I can say the same of those of Mr. Arango and Mr. Buckley.

Mr. Buckley, I agree with your analysis of the situation.

We're here to consider the budget implementation bill. Tomorrow morning, we will begin clause-by-clause consideration of this bill, which concerns a host of very complex issues, one example of which we have here before us.

As an economist and my party's finance critic, I have to decide how to vote on each clause and amendment based on evidence that's brought before us here. However, there appears to be a debate or a lack of consensus among our witnesses.

Since I'll have to take a position tomorrow based on various arguments that are raised here, I would ask you, Mr. Buckley, to react to the arguments advanced first by Mr. Arango and then by Mr. Sorbara.

Then I'd also like to hear Mr. Arango's comments or those of his colleague.

Go ahead, Mr. Buckley.

[Shawn Buckley]

Are you referring to the comment that we need to protect youth from nicotine products?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

You can give me your general impressions.

What would you suggest, for example, with regard to the separate study of division 31 of Bill C-69?

Do you have any responses to the arguments advanced? On what arguments are the suggestions you're making to the committee based?

[Shawn Buckley]

My biggest concern is that if you accept.... I'm not here to debate whether or not we have a nicotine patch problem for kids, although we are using emotional language and referring to kids and we're saying “vulnerable”, which makes it really hard to resist. Why doesn't the government, the minister, under paragraph 30(1)(a), pass a regulation saying that any vaping product is adulterated if it's flavoured? The power is there. Why isn't the minister prescribing standards of purity under paragraph 30(1)(c) of the Food and Drugs Act? The powers are already there, and section 9 prevents fraud.

The Minister of Health takes the position that this includes promoting off-label use, and the minister can make an order under section 27.3. The power's already there, and the powers in section 31 don't give the powers that the minister says the minister needs to address nicotine patches.

Off-label use is purely provincial jurisdiction. When a doctor sits down with a patient, understands the patient's medical history and decides to prescribe off label—and that's what we're talking about, ministers getting power to take steps to prevent off-label use—off-label use is by medical professionals making individual health decisions for patients. The federal government doesn't have jurisdiction there.

The Food and Drugs Act is a criminal law act and a little bit of trade and commerce. It's not a health act at all, and there's nothing in the Food and Drugs Act or regulations that charge the minister of Health to get good health outcomes. Why does the Minister of Health want to step in?

Let's say I'm right, and when you look at it all as a package, the real purpose of this is basically to address liability issues and prevent the promotion of other products during the next pandemic. Well, let's at least have that discussion open and honestly and not in the finance committee. This truly is an issue for the Standing Committee on Health.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you for raising those points. That's very helpful.

Mr. Arango, do you agree with the reading here that the department already has all the powers and that the flavours issue falls within provincial jurisdiction? What are your comments on that matter, more broadly speaking?

[Manuel Arango]

First of all, I would like to state that my organization is agnostic with respect to increasing access to natural health products in general. We're not against increased access to natural health products.

With respect to nicotine pouches, that's definitely a different situation. I should clarify, too, that we are expecting vape flavour restrictions to come into final regulations and hopefully be in place by the end of June, so that's one issue.

Vape flavours are not addressed in the budget; it's nicotine pouches that are being addressed, and potentially other nicotine products. We know that tobacco and vaping companies have been promoting nicotine pouches. There are going to be nicotine toothpicks next, or nicotine gum. It's never going to end, and we're never going to stop this cycle of addiction in Canada. The reality is, as I mentioned earlier, that waiting three to four years for regulation or legislation is not going to work, because we're going to end up with another vaping epidemic in Canada, and parents have had enough of this.

The reality is that these budgetary measures are going to give the government a good opportunity to control nicotine pouches. I don't think anyone here in this committee is going to want increased access to nicotine pouches and nicotine, which is highly damaging to the brain and increases risk of cardiovascular disease to youth and children in Canada. If there are other potential unintended consequences, perhaps that issue could be resolved in another way, but as a first measure, this is critical, because otherwise we are going to end up with another vaping epidemic in Canada. That's why it's key to address this now and here.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Arango.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

We'll go to MP Davies, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. DeLaronde, I'd like to start with you, if I could, please.

It was in May of last year that the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion introduced by my caucus colleague Leah Gazan, which called on the federal government to declare the continued loss of indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people a Canada-wide emergency and also to provide immediate and substantial investments, including to establish a red dress alert system. I want to credit my colleague for her drive in getting that into this budget.

What impact do you expect the red dress alert system will have on the safety of indigenous women, girls, two-spirit and gender-diverse people, and how rapidly should this pilot program be expanded across the country, in your view?

[Sandra DeLaronde]

It should have been yesterday. I can tell you that this morning, as we are sitting here, I'm working with a family whose daughter has gone missing. I think if we had had the red dress alert in place today, that would make a difference in how quickly she could be found.

However, we're having to do things, like make posters, finding people who can go out and search, and contacting agencies. All of this is done one thing at a time, rather than having an alert system where all these measures can go out at one time and ensure that the loved ones can be found. That's how critical the implementation of a red dress alert is.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Arango, after the budget, Heart and Stroke published a statement in response, and it said:

...the federal government announced the first step toward national pharmacare. The budget backed up that pledge with $1.5 billion over five years for the program. The program will cover prescription drugs for diabetes and contraception. Heart & Stroke is asking the federal government to work quickly to expand the program in a fiscally prudent way by adding key essential medicines, including prescription drugs for heart conditions and stroke.

You may know, Mr. Arango, that the NDP has been pushing for a comprehensive formulary that would include all drugs. We even offered to start with an essential medications list and specifically proposed medications for heart and stroke—cardiac medications—as well as other essential ones like antibiotics and anticholesterol drugs.

Can you give us your view on what the economic impact might be of ensuring that every Canadian gets access to the heart and stroke medication they need in a timely manner via our public delivery model?

[Manuel Arango]

Just before I respond, if I may, I just would like to give a brief shout-out to MP Morantz, who had introduced a private member's bill that would promote a capital gains exemption for real estate and stock contributions to health charities. Just to let you know, for many years that's been—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm sorry, Mr. Arango. I must insist. I have limited time. If Mr. Morantz asks you that question, you can answer, but please keep your answers short now.

[Manuel Arango]

Yes. It's no problem.

Heart disease and stroke cost billions of dollars annually. We know through a variety of studies that improving access to those drugs has significant economic impacts for Canadians. We are very keen to see an increase in the expansion of these drugs in pharmacare in the future.

We know that it can't happen overnight, and we do appreciate this initial investment as a first step. However, the reality is that covering all essential drugs in Canada would actually only cost $3.5 billion a year.

That's achievable, I think, one day. Having a comprehensive formulary would be a bit more expensive, but I think it's one step at a time. We're taking the right steps in the right direction with this initial investment. Then eventually, hopefully one day we can have a formulary that covers all essential medicines. As I said, $3.5 billion a year is affordable.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have one more question for you, Mr. Arango, before I turn to Mr. Buckley. I totally agree with the need to regulate, frankly, all nicotine and tobacco products, especially the marketing that is targeting youth. We've been calling for that for years.

However, if that's the case, Mr. Arango, shouldn't we draft legislation specifically targeted to that purpose? We have a federal Tobacco and Vaping Products Act. If the true purpose of this legislation is to target the marketing of nicotine pouches to youth, then why don't we have legislation that specifically says that and is drafted in a surgical manner?

[Manuel Arango]

If that were to happen in tandem with these measures, we would not be opposed to that. However, if we were to say, don't address nicotine pouches in the budget by giving the minister these expanded powers, we're going to have a calamity here, because we're going to have vaping number two out there with nicotine pouches, then nicotine toothpicks and nicotine gum.

Because of the urgency of this situation, this is an important, at the very least, temporary measure. We just can't wait three to four years. If it happens later in tandem with this, okay, that's another way, and if you want to improve the approach, that's fine. However, this is necessary as a temporary measure, because of the urgency of the situation.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I might argue, though, that there is the issue of political will. I mean, the NDP has been calling for a ban on flavoured vaping products for years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Davies, I apologize. We have gone well over the time of six minutes.

Now, as we just did in our last round, we're providing each party with two and a half minutes for this last round of questions.

We're going to start with MP Calkins for two and a half minutes, please.