Health Committee on Feb. 5th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Welcome, everybody.

My name is Joy Smith, member of Parliament, and I look forward to knowing all of you on an individual basis. I want to thank all the members on the committee for electing me as the chair. My apologies for not being here last week, but thank you for the confidence you've shown.

Mr. Carrie

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Could I raise a point of order?

We had some discussions when you weren't here about having the minister and officials appear. I just want to clarify that we agreed that the minister and officials would be here on Tuesday next week.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

We said we would like two days. The minister could choose which day to come, and we would have officials on the other day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay, I'll get back to that.

Before I start I want to lay down some expectations we had last year that might be very helpful this year.

I am very strict on time. I try to be extremely fair. I would ask that you raise your hand if you want to speak, because we don't want to go into this dialogue back and forth.

I'm really looking forward to the wonderful things we can do in this committee as a group. It's going to be a fantastic committee; it certainly was last year. When I look around and see the people who are on this committee, I am really buoyed by the fact that we have a lot of expertise around the table.

I understand that the minister has agreed to appear next Tuesday for an hour, as well as departmental and agency officials.

Are there any questions?

Dr. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

An hour is a very short amount of time to spend on all of this money, so if we have a two-hour meeting, would the officials stay for the other hour?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

My understanding is that they would.

Is that right, Mr. Carrie?

Yes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

The agreement on Tuesday was that we would do estimates for two days next week.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

That's right.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

So the officials will come on Thursday for a full two hours. Does that include Dr. Butler-Jones, Elinor Wilson, and the people from the agencies?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Carrie, can you give a response to that?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Yes, thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I apologize if there is any misinterpretation of what we spoke about at the last meeting. I mentioned it, pending the minister's schedule to get her here. I believe there was agreement with the House leaders to get things done before Wednesday. On having the minister and the officials here, I have not confirmed who exactly will be attending, and we haven't confirmed anything for Thursday. My apologies, but I can move forward to see if we can get the officials here by Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Great. Thank you, Mr. Carrie.

Dr. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

It's great that the minister will be here for the first hour and the officials will stay for the second hour.

I guess people like Dr. Butler-Jones and Dr. Wilson will be included in the group that can stay after.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I'll see if I can clarify that.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

It would be very helpful for us to be able to do that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We will get that clarified and make sure all the committee members know.

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

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

It would be great if we could come back to this at the end of the meeting.

When I moved the motion the other day, it was with the hope that we would have at least two full meetings on estimates.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We are going to do that.

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

My understanding is that the House needs unanimous consent to have the estimates go through by Wednesday. I don't know of that unanimous consent being given yet. So I will also try to get an answer from my House leader in the interim.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Carrie, has the House given unanimous consent for the estimates yet?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I don't think so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much. We'll get that sorted out.

With your permission, we'll go through with routine proceedings.

I visited with people in each of the parties—Dr. Bennett, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis—and we had a list of routine motions. I wanted you to be able to look over them prior to this meeting today. We're going to go through them one by one.

I've asked that you have the two versions and that they be distributed. One version is the common routine motions at opening of a session and the other a copy of the motions adopted by the health committee in the last session, so we can compare and contrast what we want to do.

Taking a look at the first routine motion, we have services of analysts from the Library of Parliament. The suggestion is:

That the committee retain, as needed and at the discretion of the chair, the services of one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament to assist it in its work.

That's the same as last year.

Will you move that?

Ms. Davidson moves it.

Is there a seconder?

Yes, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis

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

Just for information, you're moving it the way we used to have it, as opposed to the new version you circulated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

They're both the same.