Evidence of meeting #33 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Seven more minutes? Sure.
Okay, let's go back then, and we'll start with Dr. Duncan. We'll have two more, one from this side and one from that.
Dr. Duncan, for three and a half minutes.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm really struggling with some of the comments we've heard: “90% are prepared”, “my impression”, “we assume”, “general appraisal”. Those aren't accurate. I really want to know how many departments have a plan. I want to know how many have rolled it out in the spring and how many have updated it. And how many have done training based on the new information? I want the numbers.
We also struggle with who's in charge. We heard the deputy ministers say “probably me”, and then we heard Minister Van Loan. That's on the Public Safety side. I want to know who's in charge of public safety, and who's in charge of health, and who ultimately is responsible. With whom does the buck stop?
Pandemics are not new, as you so rightfully say. We've been preparing for this. We thought it was H5N1. We need business continuity measures, but it's important to have pandemic-specific measures. When H1N1 came along, we had the summer to do the hard work and to be prepared.
So we need those numbers.
To come back to Dr. Bennett's point regarding ventilators, in the southern hemisphere, in the most heavily impacted cities, 15% of the people who were hospitalized ended up on ventilators; in Canada it was 20%. So I think we want real assurance that people who need ventilators are going to get them.
One question I would like to have answered today is, what is the org chart? Who is responsible for public safety, who does it stop with on health, and who ultimately is responsible, please?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The health portfolio is responsible for health. Public Safety is responsible for coordinating—
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Well, the Minister of Health.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The Minister of Health is clearly the person who is in the lead for the health portion of the pandemic response, yes.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
So it's the Minister of Health and the Minister of Public Safety. We saw this with listeriosis. We weren't sure which was the lead agency. Which is the lead agency here, so that we don't have a repeat of listeriosis?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
If we go back to SARS, Health was responsible for everything.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Who is responsible now? What is the decision? That's the basis of the organizational chart.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
In order to answer your question, I don't want to take 10 minutes, but I have to give you a little bit of history. During SARS, one of the problems was that there was only Health trying to do everything. There was a decision at the time to create the Public Health Agency of Canada and Public Safety Canada. Public safety was given a mandate of coordinating for the government, and the Public Health Agency was given the lead for health. So you cannot have one organization and expect that organization to be able to do everything and be an expert at everything.
Public Health Agency is the health expert; Public Safety Canada is the expert in emergency management.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Hard decisions will have to be made. When you cut to critical infrastructure, who makes that decision? There are two ministers. Who makes that decision, or is it higher?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
The question you are asking is hypothetical. I may not see it the same way you do, because you're not defining that phrase, that there may be hard decisions to make.
Yes, there are hard decisions to make every day, but the system we have allows us to bring the information forward and make sure that the people who will make the decisions have the right information to make those decisions. Sometimes it's the Minister of Transport or the Deputy Minister of Transport who is the best person, and the next time it's the Secretary of the Treasury Board. It depends on what the issue is.
I know it's not the answer you want, but that's the reality.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Dr. Carrie, do you want to ask one question to each of them, quickly? There are only a couple of minutes left.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you for the last minute or so. It's not a long question.
I've been paying attention to what you said and I want to thank you for coming, because I see that since 2006 when the plan was started, you've developed it. I've been on the web, and I think anybody watching on TV or anybody listening can go on the web. The plan is there.
I know you have a plan. It's responsive; it's well funded. You've given us examples of how it's dynamic. It can respond to feedback. You have accountability.
Mr. Lavoie and Madame Meredith, what is your message for Canadians who want to know they have confidence in the government, confidence in the system? What do you want to leave them with at the end of this meeting today?
Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Maybe I can answer that. I'm relatively new in my role, so I have been observing almost as a third party. I have sort of an independent perspective on how this planning is taking place.
There's a lot of planning that's supporting departments across the government, and the deputy heads are personally engaged in it now, as you would want them to be, thinking towards the fall and the possibility that there could be an escalation of the virus. So they are seized with it and their planning is robust.
As somebody pointed out, it's never finished. You're constantly working on the situation as it develops, but it's certainly very mature.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
My take on this is that all levels of government are working together. We've done a lot of planning. We have in place mechanisms that will allow us, should the situation worsen, to do a decent job.
The best advice I can give to Canadians is to listen to what the health authorities are saying, because ultimately they're the ones who know the most about this situation—and we are all in support of our health community—so that we have a response that will be measured.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Does that satisfy the committee, then, for the time? All right.
Thank you so much, once again, for coming.
I'll suspend for three minutes, and then we'll go into committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
