Health Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Dr. John Hamm]

In my experiences in government, I was always dissatisfied with people working in close proximity using texts and e-mails to converse. I made that very clear on many occasions.

The other challenge I have now is that I don't get my messages remotely, so if you send me an e-mail, it may be a couple of days or more before I receive it. I have always encouraged the board, in fact, to contact me by phone with their concerns, with issues that they want on the agenda.

To give you an example, when Dr. Baylis sent her resignation letter to me, to my e-mail, by the time I actually saw it, over two days had passed. Therein lies the challenge for somebody who works out of his home, has no administrative support, and is not a technocrat.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hamm. I understood the principle. I was only expecting a “yes” or “no” answer.

We are told that the minutes are very brief and there is only oral communication. Isn't that rather a way to hide the disagreement within the board of directors?

[Dr. John Hamm]

The challenge we face as a board is that we receive a tremendous amount of privileged information, and it comes in four categories. It's our briefings from Health Canada relative to the development of the regulations, and we receive that on a regular basis, as board members, and have opportunity for input.

As well, we receive information regarding complaints. Because we are operating with a piece of criminal law, there is an exactness that is required in the kinds of things we do, which results in a lot of legal opinions coming forward. As a result, we have a lot of lawyer-client privileged information that comes to the board.

The point of this is that our minutes are filled with information that obviously, because it is privileged, also includes another category that I should mention. We are privileged to give advice to the minister, which, as the honourable member knows, is privileged information. So our minutes, if in fact they go outside of the board, have to be redacted to remove all of this privileged information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Hamm--

[Dr. John Hamm]

I'm very comfortable with that. I mean, I came forward from cabinets and caucuses--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Hamm. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to go to the next question.

[Dr. John Hamm]

--so I understand privilege.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you all for your appearance here today.

Dr. Hamm, is this review by PricewaterhouseCoopers a financial audit or is it an audited financial statement? There's a difference between the two.

Oh, sorry; it's Ms. Wilson.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

It is audited financial statements for that fiscal year, Madam Leslie, and--

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

It was for which fiscal year?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

It was for 2009-10, the year under question. It was also an audit of the contracts and the finances on the cross-border reproductive care meeting.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

Dr. Hamm, there've been a lot of concerns raised here today and before this meeting about where money is being spent. Instead of a financial statement audit, do you think that the board should do a financial audit for all the years, in light of all these concerns that have been raised?

[Dr. John Hamm]

I can only speak for myself as a board member. Like many people in this room, over the years I have been on many boards, and of course boards approve budgets. I currently sit on five boards and chair three. What I can say is that the level of information we receive from the board is comparable to what boards receive. It's very high-level information, but it allows the board to make an analysis in terms of whether that's an appropriate budget for the organization, so I'm not uncomfortable.

However, we certainly were aware that board members were not necessarily of the same view that I just expressed, and as a result, in 2009-10 there was a complete revision of the information that was originally presented to the board. It was presented in a different form. It went from program line items to just line items. This change was at the request of a board member; I did not want board members feeling they had to approve something for which they didn't have information that made them comfortable.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's fair for the future. I would urge the board to consider doing a full financial audit of all the years, because I think there are a lot of questions.

Ms. Wilson, I think this is a question for you. With reference to this performance evaluation done by CloseReach, who decided who would be interviewed?

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

It was CloseReach in discussion with a board subcommittee. Dr. Hamm appointed the subcommittee, chaired by our vice-chair, Dr. Chudley. Suzanne Scorsone and Theresa Kennedy were the other two members. CloseReach met with that committee, talked about an evaluation methodology, and talked about who should be interviewed.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks.

I have a question for you as well that I don't need an answer for right now. I'm hoping you can provide the committee with some written answers at a later date. It's about spending on temporary help and contract help.

In 2007-08 and 2008-09, $950,000 was spent on temporary help, some contracts exceeding $100,000 at a time. I'm hoping you can provide us with written reasons as to why so much money is being spent on temporary help. You'll be able to review the transcripts, so don't worry about taking notes.

Specifically, in the first quarter of 2008-09, altisSPR received over $200,000. Again in the fourth quarter, they received over $120,000. Could we have specifics on those contracts?

In 2008-09, over $800,000 was spent on management consulting. I'd like you to provide us with reasons for that.

Finally, I'm assuming that Wilson Information Technologies is no relation.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

That's correct.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

As well, I would like to ask the board and the president to tell us the board's and the president's response to data provided by Alison Motluk in a magazine article in The Walrus about the buying and selling of egg and sperm. What was the board's response and the president's response to these data?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to take that?

Go ahead, Ms. Wilson.

[Dr. Elinor Wilson]

Perhaps I could start.

Obviously, there was great interest in and concern about the article. As we have discussed before at this committee, we have a very active compliance and enforcement program in place with the agency; any complaints of that type that come to our attention and are registered as complaints are thoroughly assessed, and appropriate action is taken.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

Dr. Hamm, what was the board response to that?

[Dr. John Hamm]

One of the prohibited activities that continue to be a concern--and this is not one of the clauses of the act that is being challenged--is the commodification of gametes. That is not something that fits with Canadian values, and certainly Parliament was very clear on that.

One of the challenges we have in dealing with this is that we need specific information. It's one thing for an allegation to be made that this is happening, but we need more specific information, if in fact we are going to contact people, which normally we do. We have to gather the information, make the assessment, and then, depending on the information we receive, move it to the next step, which may simply be a compliance issue, or it may be referring it to the RCMP.

We have a procedure in place. However, it is limited by the specificity of the information we receive. We have to have specifics in order to know where to go with an investigation.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Were any actions taken as a result of this article? I felt it was pretty specific.

[Dr. John Hamm]

Well, that was handled, obviously, by the agency.