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.
NDP
Penny Priddy NDP Surrey North, BC
Right, I understand that. It's the tracking of trends that you're concerned about.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Excuse me, Ms. Priddy, your time is gone.
Mr. Fletcher, five minutes.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister Clement, Dr. Jones, and Ms. Allain for coming today.
I guess I have a comment. First of all, I think it's quite appropriate that we have Minister Clement as the Minister of Health, as he was a leader during the SARS outbreak. In fact , many would argue that during his time as minister in the Ontario government, the current federal health minister essentially handled the Canadian response because we didn't have a coordinated effort on the federal front. I think that's why this has been such a priority for this government. As Ms. Fry has mentioned, we brought forward this legislation within the first 100 days of our government. Unfortunately, the previous government took much longer to take action.
My question to the minister is quite simple. Why do we have to pass this bill so quickly?
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Thank you for the question.
Indeed, the sense of urgency is not because of any specific threat. I want to tell Canadians through you, Mr. Chair, that we're monitoring the entire world, and in fact it's our monitoring of the world that the rest of the world relies on, because we're so involved in that kind of technology.
What I can tell you is that if we don't have statutory authority and a statutory basis, I think we could in a sense not be as prepared as we should be. I'm not trying to over-dramatize that, but it is unusual to exist for years through orders in council when clearly this is a matter that the Chief Public Health Officer and others would require, for accountability reasons if nothing else, to have some sort of statutory authority
Once those authorities and tools are in place, we know we have the ability to effectively respond to whatever public health emergency or threat--be it a pandemic or some other infectious disease--we face. We know we'll have the clear legal authorities to collect, use, and disclose information. We know that the CPHO will have the authority to communicate with the Canadian public.
I think it underlines our commitment to public health and to promoting the health and lives of Canadians. That's why we want this legislation passed as soon as possible.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
Okay. One more quick question.
You're in a unique position because you've been on the provincial side and now you're on the federal side. I wonder how having a Chief Public Health Officer would help the provinces and the federal government coordinate their efforts.
Conservative
Tony Clement Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
I'll defer to Dr. Butler-Jones a little bit on this, but certainly during SARS this post didn't exist. It was very difficult at the time to get a coordinated national response. We learned from SARS that it just occurred, as it turned out, in Ontario, but there were lots of cases where there were individuals who were persons that we were afraid were infected with SARS who were travelling to family and friends in other provinces. I remember a distinct conversation I had with Monsieur Legault, who was in the middle of a provincial election as Quebec health minister. He had to stop his campaigning because we were afraid that a particular person who might have been infected with SARS visited family in Montreal. That's the worst phone call a provincial health minister can get from a federal health minister: “By the way, you might have a SARS case in your own province.”
I think we learned a lot from that experience, both on the provincial side and on the federal side. Having this statutory authority will allow us to do the jobs that these individuals can do for us with the right authority to do so.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Thank you.
I want to thank the minister for coming in and spending the time to launch us into this very important piece of legislation. It's particularly timely as we do everything we possibly can in order to prepare for what hopefully will never happen, which is a pandemic.
Thank you for coming in and sharing your time with us.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Yes, I understand that Dr. Butler-Jones will stay. We do have some more questions.
Perhaps we'll excuse the minister at this time.
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. Will someone be replacing him to answer questions?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Dr. David Butler-Jones will be here, and Ms. Allain will be here as well.
Madam Fry.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
I have a question for the chair. Is the minister going to be returning? We didn't have sufficient time to question him on what is an extremely important act. I'm hoping he will be able to come back and be accountable to us on this issue.
I know that Dr. Butler-Jones and Jane Allain can answer, but we really need to know that there is clear accountability on behalf of the minister to answer some of our questions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
You weren't able to make it to the last meeting, but we discussed this. We knew that we had 45 minutes and that was all.
We're hoping we can get all of the questions answered, or anything you might have, through Dr. David Butler-Jones and the department. I don't believe the minister has another opportunity to come back on this piece of legislation. He will come back in early June, not on this issue--hopefully this will be gone, moved on--but on the many other issues that the committee is keen to ask him about.
Mr. Fletcher.
Conservative
Steven Fletcher Conservative Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB
I was just going to make that very point.
Conservative
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
I have a quick comment on this as well, Mr. Chair.
I certainly welcome the minister's appearance before the committee, as it sends the right message on the accountability aspect. At the same time, it sends the wrong message when we have only 45 minutes of his time on a bill like this one, a bill that is very important to Canadians.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
We talked about this on Tuesday. Actually, we got the bill handed to us on Tuesday morning, because you only voted on it on Monday evening. It was really quite amazing to have the minister be able to come this soon. We're very thankful that he could come for at least 45 minutes, and that we can follow it up with Dr. David Butler-Jones, who will be here for the next hour.
So I'm hoping that all those questions will be answered. If there are any further questions that you may not be able to get answered, maybe we can get those questions answered for you in due process.
I think all of the committee was aware of that; we discussed this at the last meeting.
Mr. Batters.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. My question probably isn't going to take that long, so I'll be sharing my time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
Sure, go ahead. We don't have anybody on the list.
If anybody else would like to be on the list....
Madam Demers? Okay, fair enough.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
First of all, I'd like to say thanks to Dr. David Butler-Jones. It's a pleasure to meet you and to have you here at our committee. Certainly it was great that the minister was able to be here as well, even if it wasn't for as long as some would have liked.
I think this is an extremely important bill, and I'm certainly glad it was put forward in such a timely fashion. We do know that none of us can operate as an island. We all need help and we need coordination. This bill provides that, from the smallest municipality that can be concerned about issues right up to the largest municipality and province and so on. I think this is a wonderful move that is really going to help Canadians. We do have to work together. In today's world, pandemics are certainly a very probable possibility.
The one question I have for you, Dr. Butler-Jones, is that since this separates the agency from Health Canada, how will the agency and you, as Chief Public Health Officer, work with Health Canada and the other federal departments? What's the fit?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Probably one way to speak to that is to say we'll work together the way we're working now. While we're a separate entity currently--separate authorities, my accountabilities, budget authorities, etc.--we work very closely. We're part of the same health portfolio. Both the deputy minister of health and I report to the same minister. We meet regularly. We have a number of files and issues that we share between Health Canada and the agency, and some also with CIHR, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. At all levels of the organization there are regular discussions and meetings and examination of what our piece is versus Health Canada's. As well, for example, on the pandemic issue there is a deputy minister's committee of some 30 departments now that I co-chair with the deputy at public safety. There are a number of levels at which we interact, not only at the deputy level but also throughout the organization. Public health issues largely are not even simply whole-of-government issues, but often whole-of-society issues, so it's very important that even while we.... I mean, we certainly welcome the additional capacity that we're slowly developing in response to these issues. Clearly, the real work takes place outside of the agency. So to the extent that we can facilitate that, it is a good thing, but we have to engage in partnership in order to do it.
Conservative
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Doctor Butler-Jones, Ms. Alain, welcome. I listened to the minister's remarks very carefully. The last time you met with us, Mr. Butler-Jones, you spoke to us about the avian flu pandemic preparedness plan. You said then that there were approximately 30 million doses of drugs available for Canadians over the entire country.
You know that we have a public health institute in Quebec. We already have 9 million doses of the drug stockpiled in the event of an avian flu pandemic.
Do you intend to compensate Quebec for these measures? You could keep the doses you have for other Canadians. If Quebec decides to have its own program, will the Public Health Agency of Canada's program take precedence nonetheless because of the agency's moral authority?
