Evidence of meeting #3 for Health in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was report.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
We need an answer from the mover. Are you okay with making that a friendly amendment or not?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
I think that would solve it. We're all saying the same thing; it's just how we're saying it. I think we're fine with that.
I am going to call the question, because I think we have consensus on a motion.
Could you read the motion again?
Committee Researcher
It states: “That the Standing Committee on Health ask the Minister of Health not to make a decision regarding the sale and licensing of silicone gel breast implants in Canada....”
It continues.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
Mr. Chairman, the motion is against the Food and Drugs Act, and it's the role of parliamentarians to obey the law.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
All in favour?
(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Now we have the second motion.
Madam Demers, would you introduce your second motion, please?
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Yes. My second motion is as follows:
The Standing Committee on Health learned from Vivian Ellis of the Canada Public Health Agency, at the meeting of October 27, 2005...
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Just a second. This is asking for the report. We have that report now.
Bloc
Conservative
Nancy Miller Chenier Committee Researcher
We have an article in English only. We do not have a report by the public health official who worked on that data.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
My motion is as follows:
The Standing Committee on Health learned from Vivian Ellis of the Canada Public Health Agency, at the meeting of October 27, 2005, that the epidemiological study begun in 1996 on silicone breast implants had been completed and that it was to be published in a medical journal in November. The Committee requested this study on November 21, 2005, and has not received anything in five months. It is proposed that the Standing Committee on Health once again request a copy of this study and of the medical journal in which the study was to be published, within 15 days.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Let's have a quick discussion on this before we start debate, just to get the mover's intent right.
We have a report. You're not satisfied with that report. Do you want a fuller report?
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
We do not have any report, Mr. Chairman. When we asked Health Canada for the report, the officials from the department and from the Canada Public Health Agency each said that the other group was responsible. In the beginning, it was Health Canada that had the report, then it was the Public Health Agency that carried out the study, and then Ms. Ellis told us that the report was finally done and that they had to wait before giving it to us until it was published in a medical journal. Now, it has been published. So they should be able to give it to us.
Conservative
Committee Researcher
This is a difficult one to clarify. There is a report in the journal called the International Journal of Cancer. It is a report on the Ontario-Quebec study. It's in English only. One of the co-authors was formerly from Health Canada and is now with the Public Health Agency of Canada.
I think you can say that you have a “copy of the published medical journal article”. What you haven't had from the Public Health Agency of Canada is a report on their role in putting this study together, a report on the findings of the study, and what they mean in terms of a future decision.
What I'm saying is that the last part of the motion, part 3, has probably been satisfied, but with parts 1 and 2, I thought you were asking for something different. I thought you were asking for a public report by the scientists who were involved and a public report on the process of getting to the findings--because it has been 10 years of process. I thought that's what you were asking for.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
What we have isn't what you're asking for. That's what you're saying.
It's the last part you could take off. Fair enough. Are we clear with the motion?
(Motion agreed to)
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
That is not bad, Mr. Chairman.
Since my two other motions, motions 3 and 4, call for witnesses to be invited, I could perhaps present them together, given a friendly amendment, in order to speed things up.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Okay. We can do that.
Actually, what you're really asking for is that both of these individuals come and testify before the committee.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
I will read you the motions.
That the Standing Committee on Health call upon Health Canada and the chairman of the scientific advisory panel, Dr. George Wells, to appear before the Standing Committee on Health, to provide an update on silicone breast implants.
And the following would be added:
That, following the publication of a new study entitled “Decisions in the Dark” by the National Research Center for Women and Families, and further to the criminal investigation of Mentor; the Standing Committee on Health call Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, to appear before the Committee to provide members with the latest information on the events in the United States involving Mentor and Inamed.