Health Committee on May 15th, 2014

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Food labelling?

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Yes.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Well, I personally believe that Canadians want more information on their labelling. I launched a consultation, not necessarily with industry, as we've done in the past, but with Canadians, especially parents who do all the shopping. How do they feel about our food label? Do they understand it? Does it make sense to them? Does it mean anything to them?

We had a really great response. We did an online consultation with Canadians, and we also did round tables. Of course, we will also do consultations with stakeholders, such as health groups, about what they think needs to be changed.

So we're working, just putting all that information together, and we'd like to see what we can do to make our nutritional information on packaging more relevant to Canadians.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, yes, because some of those claims on food packaging can be not so truthful. Are you proactively testing whether these claims are accurate when they put those health claims on food packaging?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Yes. CFIA and Health Canada both do that.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

That's fantastic. Thank you very much for the answer.

My next question will be about mental health. We know that workplace mental health problems cost the Canadian economy billions every year. You have expressed support in principle for the national strategy on mental health developed by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Are you aware of whether the government has plans to adopt the Mental Health Commission's national standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

I'm not sure. I will find out. I only hesitate because I know I've spoken to the Minister of Labour about this, but I'm not sure what the status is on the file.

Is there any information that you could share, Krista?

[Krista Outhwaite, Acting Deputy Head and Associate Deputy Minister, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Yes, Minister, I would be happy to.

Very briefly, the workplace standard for mental health is something that the Treasury Board Secretariat is looking very closely at. In fact, it is encouraging a small group of departments and agencies to pilot this program. The Public Health Agency is looking very closely at that, possibly also Health Canada, to see if we can work with the Treasury Board Secretariat to look at the adoption of this on a pilot basis with a view to perhaps a broader adoption.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you very much. I do believe it is a pressing issue, so I would much appreciate it if you could work with your colleagues at the Treasury Board to make sure we can put that into effect as soon as possible. Thank you.

I'll go back to my antibiotic resistance question. If you remember the preamble, basically I'm going to ask the question again. Can the minister or her officials explain what steps would be taken if our antibiotics prove to be insufficient?

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

As you know, it is a very complex issue that requires a multi-sectoral collaboration, which is under way. I can reassure that you we are working with governments, with human and veterinary health, pharmaceutical, agriculture, and the food sectors to address the public health threats from AMR. These include surveillance, research, public awareness, and the development of guidelines and policy instruments.

I can also tell you that at the upcoming World Health Assembly we are co-sponsoring a resolution on the need to take further action on AMR. We're working with our U.K. colleagues, who are obviously seen as leaders in the response to AMR, on important AMR research through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. We're also working with the provinces and territories and other stakeholders, as I mentioned, to strengthen our surveillance of AMR in hospitals, in communities, and in the food chain.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

I do understand that you work closely with all those experts, but the resistance to antibiotics is a growing problem. Even though you're monitoring the situation, if it's getting out of control, what steps right now in Canada have you decided to put in place if our antibiotics prove to be insufficient?

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Libby Davies]

Just a very brief answer, please.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

I'll ask Dr. Taylor to comment quickly.

[Dr. Gregory Taylor, Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada]

I'd be delighted to comment.

As you're aware, antibiotic resistance is something that occurs naturally. When you get a new antibiotic, that happens. We have guidance to physicians. We've been doing that so that it's more targeted and there are more appropriate prescribing practices. We're working with the agricultural sector to assist in terms of the same on the animal side of that.

There are some really innovative new approaches to treatment, some designer vaccines, for example. There are some new technologies where they actually produce antibodies. So that may actually replace that.

It's a big issue, and we're working in a whole variety of areas—

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Libby Davies]

Dr. Taylor, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but the time is up.

We have time for one more question, so we'll go to Dr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister, thank you so much for being with us today.

I just wanted to mention first how much I appreciate the efforts you're making. You spoke briefly to this regarding drug safety and transparency as well as Vanessa's law and the changes that is bringing in, which are actually world-leading. I think there's been tremendous movement on that file.

I wanted to ask you to briefly address innovation, because you've been a champion for innovation from day one in the file, and I've heard you speak to this on numerous occasions. I know there's a long way to go. I appreciate that we're working with the provinces and, I think, there are some examples already. I'm wondering if you can provide us with some examples of how innovation is showing promising avenues of delivering better health care to Canadians.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Sure. I'd be happy to.

Of course a big part of innovation is research, and we're the largest single investor in health research in Canada, obviously, investing close to a billion dollars a year through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. These funding commitments result in about 13,000 innovative health researchers doing great work across this country. But of course related to that are 10,000 different projects. When you look at this kind of research, you see advances in care around dementia, cancer research, HIV/AIDS, and many other things.

Obviously research has a great deal to do with making sure we're going in the right direction when we look at inputting money into particular best practices or standards of care or innovative technologies. So I'm pleased that we're making progress on that front. Of course, outside of CIHR, we've also invested a great deal of money into neuroscience research, and we see quite a bit of work being done there.

I think one of the best examples of innovation happening among the provinces, the federal government, post-secondary institutions, and research institutions is the strategy for patient-oriented research, which is designed to ensure that patients receive the right treatment at the right time. It puts research into the hands of health care providers. It's what health care providers want, and it focuses on health challenges that are identified by the provinces and territories themselves. We then use research to bridge that gap and support them.

These have been excellent projects. At the FPT table in October, there was unanimous support to continue doing this kind of collaborative work, so in the budget we renewed funding for strategic patient-oriented research, which is a very innovative way of approaching work we can do with the provinces. We have to continue to do that. The provinces and territories and I agree that we should keep working on an innovation framework to look at how we can share best practices across the country, identify excellence in different parts of the health care system, and build on those.

There is a lot of good work being done. I'm very optimistic. I know that people have a lot of negative experiences sometimes in the health care system, but I think we can take those and turn them into positives if we can identify where things went wrong. I do sense from the provinces that they are very keen to work on innovation. They're doing this work with us on the strategic patient-oriented research. We'll continue to do that, and we're going to look for other ways we can partner with them and with research institutions to target that level of excellence. We want good research, but we also want really good patient outcomes, which is what this kind of strategy is about.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Great. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Libby Davies]

You have one minute left to use.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

I understand there was a program—I heard you speak at the economic forum—applying a questionnaire on common infections in hospitals. I think was developed with the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement. Just by having the staff ask appropriate questions and follow up, they were actually able to reduce urinary tract infections and other common things that take seniors into hospital, where they get some very serious outcomes. So you're looking for better outcomes.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Yes, better outcomes, and identifying where those best practices are and sharing them. We live in a federation. That's our reality. There are a lot of really good things happening in different provinces that other provinces are not aware of. So we're working really hard to create those networks and we're doing good work there. Sharing best practices is a very practical way in which we can help those on the front lines deliver better care.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Great.

There was another one I was aware of whereby they simply developed questionnaires for the staff to engage people in their life, in what their life was formerly, especially in the case of seniors in institutional care. They kept them off of a lot of medications that would just put them out of communication with the world around them, and the unnecessary use of medications to subdue people was eliminated simply by engaging them in their life and helping the staff to develop best practices in that realm.

Those are simple things, but they're making a big difference in quality of life for patients.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Libby Davies]

Thank you, Dr. Lunney. We'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Minister Ambrose, for coming before the committee today and answering the questions. We certainly look forward to your coming again.

We'll suspend for a minute so that the minister can leave, and then we'll begin our questions with the officials.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Libby Davies]

We'll call the meeting back to order.

Could the members take their seats at the table, please?

Thank you to the officials for staying around for the second hour. We're now going to continue with our questioning.

Our next questioner will be Mr. Gravelle, for five minutes.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'm going to stick with my favourite subject—dementia, Alzheimer's. We heard the minister say that she has met with the provinces on this issue, and some of the provinces don't agree or don't want to take part in a national dementia strategy. Can you tell me what provinces the minister has met with, and what provinces don't agree?