Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Benoit.

We'll now go to Mr. Uppal, and I understand you'll be sharing your time with Mrs. McLeod.

Mr. Uppal.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you.

My question is for the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

How does the commission make sure that all stakeholders are consulted, as well as the provinces and territories?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to answer that? Ms. Watts?

[Sharon Watts, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission]

I'll take that, thank you.

Thank you for the question. Actually we have a very interesting governance structure at the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. We have a council of governors, an 18-member, multi-jurisdictional, tripartite group, and those 18 members represent every single province and territory across Canada, as well as stakeholders such as organized labour, chemical suppliers, and employers.

Our ability to engage with stakeholders is significantly enhanced by having this oversight body, and in fact our council is the body that makes the strategic policy recommendations to the Minister of Health, allowing our agency to remain independent.

It's a very interesting construct, and it was birthed from the original system that we were created from, and that is the workplace hazardous materials information system. That is a hazard communications system--federal, provincial, and territorial--that is all about making sure that workers have the information they need to work with hazardous materials in the workplace, making sure they have accurate and complete information.

When we look at how we come into that, we are in fact the trade secret mechanism, so people come to us when they want to be exempted from the requirement to disclose all of their information.

WHMIS is all about tripartite consultation with stakeholders. It was created as one of the only, I think, consensus-based projects, and it's something that I think government got right in terms of creating the system where they have provinces that do their part of the work, in a complementary fashion, the feds do their part of the work in terms of supplier requirements, and then the commission is a cornerstone that does the provincial work, the territorial work, and the federal work in terms of trade secret inspection.

For all those reasons, our level of stakeholder engagement is pretty intense. In fact, we just met with our council a couple of weeks ago and again tried to make sure there's that interactiveness that makes sure we're grounded. The reason we were created was to be an agency that would serve and protect stakeholders. So I find that having this council has been a very interesting experience, but also one that keeps us grounded as to why we are here; it keeps us relevant.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

I'm going to follow up with another question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Uppal, go ahead. You do have time.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Sure. My next question is, what is the commission's role in protecting the health and safety of workers who use products that have a trade secret?

[Sharon Watts]

Thank you for the question.

As I started to say a little bit earlier, we are part of this provincial-federal-territorial hazard communications system. Where a manufacturer does not want to disclose a trade secret ingredient, they're required by law to come to the commission, where we do two important things, one of which will address your answer.

First, we adjudicate whether or not these are legitimate claims for trade secrecy. In other words, is there an economic justification that speaks to why this is confidential and why it can't be disclosed?

The other part of our mandate goes to the health and safety information. It's that part of the mandate that is what we call “in the public good”, where we are looking at the materials safety data sheets. These are sheets of information that are required to accompany a product in a workplace. They list all of the ingredients being used in that product along with the hazard measures, the toxicological properties of those particular ingredients, and of course, most importantly, first aid measures in terms of how to protect yourself if there is an accident.

Our job is to look at all of those materials safety data sheets that accompany products that come to the commission in claims for trade secrecy. When we do that, given that we are a quasi-judicial agency, every MSDS that comes to us is 100% compliant when it leaves, when it goes back to the claimant.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much, Ms. Watts.

We now go to Monsieur Dufour, please, for five minutes.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to return to the discussion on the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada. I believe that the goal of this organization is noble; however, this goal falls within provincial jurisdiction, and this poses a problem, in my opinion. In fact, this issue is currently before the courts.

You seem to already have an idea as to the ruling that will be handed down. I'm going to ask you a question that you will say is hypothetical. If the court does not decide in your favour, how would you justify the $12 million that will be spent?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Wilson, go ahead.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the question, Monsieur Dufour.

We obviously await the decision of the Supreme Court in this area. Once the decision has been made, if the decision is not in favour of the challenge provisions of the act, that's something where the Government of Canada--internally, Health Canada--would obviously meet, discuss, and determine how to go forward from there. If you recall, under the challenge that has been launched, neither the prohibitions in the act nor the establishment of an agency were part of that challenge.

With your permission, sir, I would like to go back and talk about the $12.4 million. The initial budget of $12.4 million involved moneys that were carried forward before the agency was formally established. In our first six weeks of operation we actually spent $134,000. In our first year we spent $5.3 million. So we are not spending our full $12 million. Our expenses will increase as the regulatory program is fully implemented and as we staff up.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Fine.

Approximately one month ago, the agency organized an international conference on reproductive tourism. When will you be able to disclose the cost of this international conference?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you again for the question.

We did host an international meeting. It was not a conference; it was an invitational forum for regulatory agencies, professional bodies, and patient organizations from 16 countries and 10 international organizations. It was focused on an issue that we're all aware of: cross-border reproductive care when patients travel to other countries to have care. The one thing we all share in common as countries is the concern about the quality and safety of care that people receive when travelling to other countries.

You are correct. We did host this meeting. It was planned by an international steering committee. AHRC was the host of the meeting. The final expenses, I think, will be available within the next two months. We obviously have to wait to tally them all up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Monsieur Dufour.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Along the same lines, two contracts were awarded to the company, Maga Policy Consultants Ltd. I'd like to know the details of those two contracts. What was the value of the contract awarded to that company? Why was that company given the contracts?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you, sir, for the question.

Obviously at Assisted Human Reproduction Canada we follow all Treasury Board and other Government of Canada guidelines. These contracts were awarded through a competitive tendering process. If you would like, we would be pleased to supply you with what the contract covered and the exact amounts. I don't have the exact amounts at my fingertips here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much.

Now we'll go to Mrs. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions will be directed to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

First I'd like to compliment you on the many great works, which I have found very valuable over my time. I have used much of your work.

In that light, ongoing continued good work is very important. In Budget 2008, our government created the Vanier scholarship program to support and attract from abroad the best doctoral students. It created the foreign study stipends to support the ability of Canadian scholarship recipients to pursue exceptional research opportunities outside Canada for a defined period before returning to complete their degree in Canada. The goal of these programs is to support excellence in the next generation of researchers. It would be great to know what progress has been made in implementing these commitments from Budget 2008.

[Dr. Pierre Chartrand, Vice-President, Research, Canadian Institutes of Health Research]

Thank you for the question.

We have launched the first competition from the budget awarded in 2008-09. I'm pleased to say that in this first round there were 800 applicants, of which 70 will be chosen. They're in the process of being chosen. Those 70 applicants will be forwarded to the board of the Vanier scholarship program, which will be provided with their rankings.

The Vanier scholarship's board will be responsible for making the final adjudication of 55 for CIHR. There will be 166, because the other two granting councils—NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council—will also be recommending 70 applicants, with 55 adjudicated by the board for each of these two other councils.

Obviously, this is a very important and very prestigious program. It's in its first year, and we've already seen quite an interest from the research community, from the student community, in applying for the program.

As well, we've had applications from foreign students. It's the initial year of the program, and at this point in time we haven't had as many foreign applications as we would have liked—although we did get a significant number of applications. But it's in the first year, and we still have to do more to make the program known outside of Canada.

With regard to the foreign study stipends, here again it's a program that will permit graduate students from Canada who are actually participating in collaborative research with those outside of Canada to have a chance to go abroad and to do part of their training in that environment. This is very important, because it gives invaluable experience to students to go outside of the country to see a different way of doing research, to be trained in that environment, and to bring back to Canada that experience. So this is also ongoing.

Actually, we will be getting the results within the next few weeks. These will be released within two weeks, I guess. In the case of the Vanier program, the results will be released in either late April or the beginning of May.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

If I have time for another quick question—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

You have one minute, actually.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Well, it's not a quick question, but it is complicated. I'll try to make it quick.

Certainly, the ability of research to inform how we deliver health care services, and specifically as it relates to the aboriginal population, is a big topic for 20 seconds. Do you have a 20-second comment on aboriginal health and what we're doing to fill the gaps in our knowledge and promote innovative research for aboriginal people?

[Dr. Pierre Chartrand]

In 30 seconds, I think the most important thing I would say is that one of the institutes constituting the CIHR is the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health. Obviously, we view it as extremely important, as there's an entire institute dedicated to it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chartrand.

We're now going to go to Dr. Bennett and Ms. Murray.

I understand, Ms. Murray, you're going to be sharing your time together. Who would like to start?

Ms. Murray.