Health Committee on Nov. 20th, 2014

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I just wanted to follow up on some questions that I didn't think the minister was able to answer because of time limits, but before I get there I would like to ask the minister to table three particular things. One is the consultation on the marijuana advertising. Could the minister list who was there, and to table it with the committee? The second one is the consultation with regard to the visa denial. Who did the minister consult with? Could she table that, please? I just wanted to put that on the record. The final one is the decision to change the chief public health officer's position. Who did the minister consult with, and could she list those people for me, please?

Now I want to go to the question with regard to the chief public health officer. Again, I have the greatest respect for both Dr. Taylor and Ms. Outhwaite. Sometimes things work when the people and the stars are aligned and get along well, and they're willing to look at the problem. My concern here is that we have had the Public Health Agency of Canada, and I have heard from many chief public health officers from provinces and territories that they are not happy with this decision. The problem is that if there is a mistake, there may be delays in making decisions that are required of a chief public health officer who is waiting on red tape. We were in government during SARS, and we saw that actually did inhibit our ability to have quick responses to the problem and to have scientific evidence guiding us on what should happen. There is a huge concern by everyone involved.

Now I know that this is done, and I don't usually see this government going back on anything it does. However, if evidence shows—hopefully without harming Canadians if it does happen—that the chief public health officer is not able to do the work that he needs to do in a quick and scientific manner due to the requirements of what his responses must be, would the government consider rescinding this decision, which I consider to be potentially risky? That's my first question.

Finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about marijuana ads. My concern isn't that marijuana doesn't have an impact on the brains of youths. We all know that. We heard it from everyone. There was no contradiction on this particular issue. My concern is whether long-term effects do carry through from childhood smoking into adulthood. What I consider to be a panicky ad that is out there makes parents believe that their children are harmed irreversibly and are going to lose all their ability to perform at school, etc. It's a panicky ad. It's not based on good evidence, since there is still a question of whether this is so.

My question is, again, for the CIHR. Would you, and could you, do those clinical trials without someone coming and asking you to? Could you do it? Do you not believe...? Well, you shouldn't have to answer that question, since it puts you in a difficult position, but do you not believe that the government should have done that work before it brought out what I consider to be panicky ads based on what most physicians believe is flawed evidence? It's over the top in terms of what it's saying. Everyone thinks we should stop young people from getting access. Right now they are getting access and we are not even considering how to stop that access. We're just going around scaring everybody to death with this panicky ad.

Would, or should, CIHR and the government do those kinds of studies and perhaps tone down the ads until they're done?

[Dr. Alain Beaudet]

The short answer is yes. Any proposal for a clinical trial that is scientifically sound and has clear objectives could be funded by CIHR. I can only repeat what the minister has said about the importance of getting more scientific evidence on both the negative and the therapeutic effects of marijuana, because as the member said, there are very few clinical trials out there. You know that they are very difficult to do for a number of reasons, such as the mode of administration of the drug, the variety of strains out there, and the variety of products, with the result that there are huge discrepancies in the results of these clinical trials, even though there are therapeutic benefits.

I suggest that you look at all the Cochrane systematic reviews of all the trials for all the indications on the therapeutic use of marijuana. None of them comes out with a significant result.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I think, though, there's actual medication based on cannabis that is out there as a drug, an actual drug in a pill form. So I don't think that those two arguments, and I still would really like to hear about the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fry. We're over time.

The NDP have one quick question in here just to be fair.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

We have one question that we're going to try to split.

Ms. Outhwaite, I just want to very quickly ask if you'll table with the committee the job description, responsibilities, lines of reporting, and any communication protocols for the chief public health officer position, the new position that's being created, and the new president of the agency, so we can look at both and see what the differences are. Could that be tabled with the committee, please?

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

Yes.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Kellway.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Davies. I was concerned about the non-response by the minister to my question about the Mental Health Commission and then the response to Ms. Davies' question. There has been a lot of dancing, if I can call it that.

There are emerging issues in mental health and they're set out by the commission. They are serious issues in many different ways including economically. If not the Mental Health Commission, then can you tell us what plans the department has, because 2017 is just around the corner, to tackle these emerging issues? I'll say editorially, I look at the estimates and this is a department that is dropping FTEs. So what are you going to do about mental health issues in Canada?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Very briefly....

[George Da Pont]

On that, as I said, and as the minister said, the Mental Health Commission has done very good work. Their mandate runs for a little bit of time yet. They put in a proposal for an early renewal and funding. We are working with them and we are looking at the proposal. I think it just wouldn't be appropriate to speculate much further, but I think there is a broad sense that the Mental Health Commission has been very effective and has done very good work.

It's not the only avenue of investment. Dr. Beaudet may want to talk about it a bit more, but through CIHR there is a considerable amount of money being invested in research around mental health. There are other expenditures even in Health Canada. For example, significant components of our first nations programs try to address mental health and addiction issues.

There is a very concerted effort around things like the Indian residential school program to help people who went through the residential schools. There is a very concerted effort on mental health on a wide variety of fronts including the Mental Health Commission.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all the officials who have appeared today. We do need to make sure that we have heard all the evidence and heard all the numbers. Now we actually have to put it in motion and do a few votes here. Without further ado, we are looking at the supplementary estimates (B) for 2014-15 and there are five questions I need to ask.

Shall votes 1b and 5b under Canadian Food Inspection Agency carry?

CANADIAN FOOD INSPECTION AGENCYVote 1b—Canadian Food Inspection Agency—Operating expenditures and contributions..........$21,605,828Vote 5b—Canadian Food Inspection Agency—Capital expenditures..........$630,703

(Votes 1b and 5b agreed to on division)

Shall vote 5b under Canadian Institutes of Health Research carry?

CANADIAN INSTITUTES OF HEALTH RESEARCHVote 5b—Canadian Institutes of Health Research—The grants listed in the Estimates..........$11,143,000

(Vote 5b agreed to on division)

Shall votes 1b, 5b and 10b under Health carry?

HEALTHVote 1b Health—Operating expenditures..........$23,956,508Vote 5b—Capital expenditures..........$1Vote 10b—Health—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........34,987,989

(Votes 1b, 5b and 10b agreed to on division)

Shall votes 1b, 5b and 10b under Public Health Agency of Canada carry?

PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADAVote 1b—Public Health Agency of Canada—Operating expenditures..........$1,624,812Vote 5b—Health Agency of Canada—Capital expenditures..........$1Vote 10b—Public Health Agency of Canada—The grants listed in the Estimates..........$1

(Votes 1b, 5b and 10b agreed to on division)

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Shall the chair report the same to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Mr. Wilks.

[David Wilks, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Chair, I move that we go to committee business.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you very much. I think we'll do that. What we'll do is suspend for a minute to let our officials leave and then we'll return back in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]