Health Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Dr. John Hamm]

No.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

When these three board members approached you, and had written letters in regard to their resignations, specifying, I think, some very specific incidents of what happened...as the chair, or, Dr. Wilson, in your capacity as president, they requested exit interviews.

There are obviously human resources challenges with every organization and with every individual, but one of the things that anyone can benefit from is having an exit interview to identify how you can best improve your organization. They requested that. Was any initiative ever undertaken by you or the president to facilitate that?

[Dr. John Hamm]

When I learned of the resignations, I had conversations with the board members. In the first instance, because it was over two days before I received the resignation letter, the time for a conversation on reconsidering the resignation had passed.

I did have those conversations with Barbara Slater. I did have those conversations about a reconsideration with Irene Ryll. Obviously, I was unsuccessful. To me, they were valuable board members. They were well prepared, I think, to take us to the next step. So personally, I was disappointed that they left the board.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

I don't have a lot of time; I understand you have the utmost respect for them, and it's great to ask them to reconsider their decisions and to come back to the board, but were interviews ever done or initiatives undertaken in your conversations to identify how best to address these problems? I ask because they seem to be writing in their letters that they're willing to put forward suggestions and ideas.

Have those conversations ever taken place in your capacity as chair?

[Dr. John Hamm]

Not in this context, other than the fact that all board members took very seriously the issues around the resignations. In two of the instances, the information was there. In the instance of Dr. Baylis, she did not indicate to me verbally or in her resignation letter why she resigned.

The board is always looking for ways to improve itself. The board is always looking for ways it can effectively grow a new organization. So the board has considerable challenges and, I presume, like all organizations, we learn from our experiences.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Hamm.

Now we'll go to Ms. McLeod.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think it's important...and we have two witnesses here whom we actually haven't had an opportunity to hear from.

You were both present, I understand, to hear the testimony of the previous witnesses, who spoke in terms of a number of concerns as board members. Importantly, they had concerns regarding intimidation, concerns regarding access to minutes of meetings, and concerns regarding financial details.

I wonder if I could have each of you talk about your experience, as board members, both in those areas and in any other areas you'd like to comment on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Suzanne Scorsone, Board Member, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada]

Thank you.

My experience being on this board has been an exceedingly positive one. As Dr. Hamm mentioned, I've been on this file one way or another for many, many years, having been one of the original royal commissioners on the commission that suggested the formation of this agency in the first place. I heard from Canadians of so many diverse perspectives as to what they wanted and didn't want.

It's remarkable that the act ultimately came about out of such diversity, finding, if I can put it this way, a viable socially and nationally agreed-upon framework to deal with an area that is so fundamental to our humanity that it is under federal oversight--it's in cooperation, of course, with the provinces, but nonetheless is a federal thing--because it is different from other things.

My experience with this board has been positive, because I've been seeing things moving forward. We look forward with enormous anticipation--I know I do--to the emergence of the Supreme Court opinion, because until that happens, Health Canada won't go forward with the regulations, because there's that uncertainty. Without the regulations, the board and the agency can't move forward on all aspects of these areas that have such vast social, ethical, legal, and medical implications.

The gathering of information will give evidence-based research and information to couples and to practitioners. A lot of that happens already. The agency website already does as much of that as possible, but there's more that could be done. We need to do so much more, and so we wait for.... It's not exactly an unshackling, but it's kind of like that.

The cooperativeness, the willingness to give any information that anybody wanted, and the forward-looking approach of the agency and the chair and the president has been very positive, in my experience. I have never felt anything but affirmed.

As a professional--I'm a social anthropologist and a director of research--and as someone who is concerned about this area, I've never felt anything but affirmed as someone who is giving time to this terribly important national, international, human area of care.

[Theresa Kennedy]

I'll add to that by saying that I concur; I think all board members, both past and present, are fully committed to moving forward on our obligations under the act. We did not anticipate at this point in time that we would be not licensing. That's, I guess, a given.

I've been on a number of boards as well, and I will point out that I certainly I have received information in a timely manner. If I have questions about materials, the president has been more than generous with her time, either prior to board meetings or at board meetings.

About the financial statements that were in question, I also had questions. I requested an income statement. I requested a number of documents, as did Ms. Slater, as you heard previously.

In fact, the president did work with Ms. Slater. She did change the structure of the documents. She went as far as to give Ms. Slater a preview of the documents to approve them before they went out to the board of directors. I don't know if she made any changes with Dr. Wilson, but she did have that ability to be actionable, and then the documents were given to the board members.

So I've viewed an open air, both from the agency as well as from the chair and from my other board members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Kennedy.

We'll now go to Monsieur Dufour.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Hamm, you need four people to have a quorum, right?

For a while, you've been repeating that there is the challenge to the Supreme Court, that you are not able to send requests to replace the people who left and that this makes your life difficult. You are not able to go look for staff. But that did not stop you from spending almost $3.2 million in wages and benefits or from sending Ms. Wilson nine times to the office in Vancouver on statutory holidays. Don't you think there is a contradiction there?

[Dr. John Hamm]

First of all, we have two offices, and Dr. Wilson has responsibilities in both. One is in Vancouver and one is in Ottawa. So one should not be surprised that she travels back and forth from Vancouver to Halifax.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am still surprised that she went to the office in Vancouver on statutory holidays, nine times out of 20.

[Dr. John Hamm]

Dr. Wilson works out of both offices. What I am concerned about is that the work that she is required to do in both offices is being done, and I feel that is the case.

It would be nice to be able to eliminate the travel. On the other hand, an order in council has declared that we have to run the two offices. That means that Dr. Wilson has to travel back and forth between the two offices, and she does that on a regular basis.

I must say, in deference to Dr. Wilson, that while working in both offices, her work week is not limited to Monday to Friday.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I have nothing against trips, but I see a problem with the dates of the trips.

As to Ms. Wilson's agenda, you told us earlier that some information could not be included in the minutes because it was confidential and had to be kept secret to avoid disclosing information that could affect personal lives.

But I have a hard time accepting one thing. On a number of occasions, I asked Ms. Wilson to send us the budgets that were allocated to the cross-border reproductive forum. It was quite difficult to get them.

Based on what the witnesses said earlier, I understand that we might not have the accurate data. We asked for Ms. Wilson's agenda from April 10, 2007 to May 27, 2010, which adds up to 1,132 days. We only received 140 days of her agenda. Don't you think there is an inconsistency in all that?

[Dr. John Hamm]

I presume you're talking about an ATI, an access to information.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

No, not at all. The committee made the request.

[Dr. John Hamm]

Perhaps Dr. Wilson can answer that better, because the board does not deal with those logistical issues in terms of providing information. That is the agency's responsibility.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Ms. Wilson seems to be able to answer.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, the committee did request the agendas, the minutes, and the budgets, which we prepared and produced. Our understanding, through our feedback from the clerk, was that the request was for what I did when I was in Vancouver, so we gave you the schedules for Vancouver. If you would like my schedules for every other day I work—because I am a full-time government employee, I'm a salaried employee so I work a minimum of five days a week—we can certainly provide you with those schedules, as we have provided other people under ATI requests.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Ms. Wilson, you said you were hired by the government. The agency is funded by the government, meaning by taxpayers' money. Yet we have great difficulty obtaining the budgets.

The members of the board of directors had a hard time getting the budgets, and one of the members told us earlier that each meeting was almost $60,000. Don't you think that's a little excessive, especially when we are talking about taxpayers' money?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

I believe we provided the budget material to HESA at their last request. You have that in your binders. I believe the direction now is to provide any other material we have on the budget, which we will provide.

As Dr. Hamm explained earlier, when we presented our first budget to the board it was what is called a programmatic budget, because the Government of Canada agencies operate under a program activity architecture where they spell out the two large areas that you spend your money--

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'm sorry, just a simple question...

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you so much.

We'll now go to--