Health Committee on Nov. 25th, 2013

[George Da Pont]

Let me start, and then colleagues may wish to elaborate.

As you've noted, there is now stable, predictable funding, creating a known envelope within which the provinces can do planning. In addition, the government continues to make significant investments in a number of other areas.

As the minister noted in her remarks, there have been investments of more than $2 billion to date in Canada Infoway. The provinces and territories match a chunk of that money for specific projects and are focused very much on getting eHealth and electronic medical records in place. There are also the significant investments of about $1 billion a year from CIHR as well.

The minister has met with her provincial colleagues and is looking for areas of collaboration in which we can continue to support them and the improvements they're trying to make in their actual health care delivery.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you. And thanks for saving a couple of minutes for me. I just have one quick question.

A number of times over the last several years I've had conversations with Dr. Louis Francescutti, who is the head of the Canadian Medical Association. He had some pretty firm opinions that we could save massive amounts of money in the injury prevention area. I'm curious to know whether he has brought any of those ideas to Health Canada, or to whoever is involved, and what we may be doing with those.

[George Da Pont]

Krista will address that.

[Krista Outhwaite]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the important question.

There's absolutely no doubt that the newly elected president of the CMA is firmly focused on injury prevention as one of his areas of interest.

As you would know, this government invested in the Active and Safe injury prevention initiative a couple of years back. It was a program designed to run over two years to raise awareness and build some interest in this particular area and to encourage other partners in the private sector to come to the table to work on such important issues as preventing concussions in sport, safe swimming practices, particularly in first nations communities, helmet protection for ATV use among the Inuit in northern territories, as well as working with parachutes and the Lifesaving Society of Canada, so that they can better reach communities in their areas. We are now exploring with Parachute Canada what more work can be done.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

He was talking a lot about the workplace, and as you know, he's very passionate about it. He was pointing to examples of countries—I can't remember the countries, but a number of countries around the world—that have implemented some of the programs he has been promoting, apparently with very dramatic results.

I'm wondering whether we have encouraged, and if not whether we could encourage, some movement in that direction.

[Krista Outhwaite]

Our colleagues at Labour Canada are very much engaged in that particular area, ensuring that programs are working not only for the federal community but for employees wherever they find themselves.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you, Mr. Hawn.

I would like to thank all of our guests and witnesses here today and all the staff at the back supporting their colleagues here at the table. I'd like to thank our members of Parliament for their detailed questions.

We're going to suspend for a minute or two. I'd ask the officials to leave, if they can, in a timely manner. Then we'll get along to the supplemental estimates and vote on them.

Thank you. We'll suspend the meeting for just a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

We'll resume the meeting. Now we're into the real detail of the meeting, supplementary estimates.

I want to ask the committee their opinion first, and then we'll get into this.

There are ten different line items to vote on. We can do them individually or we can lump them all together in one amount. I can ask for the unanimous consent of the committee to vote on one dollar amount, one line item, and then I'll also ask your permission to report back to the House of Commons.

Are there any thoughts on lumping these ten dollar amounts into one?

The NDP supports that.

Ms. Fry, what is the view of the Liberals on that?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

On the...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

On the estimates. We have ten line items to ask from. We can do ten in a row or we can just do it in a lump sum.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Let's do it in a lump sum.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Okay, thank you very much. That's good. I like how everybody has come to a consensus here.

We have 10 line items. My trusty clerk has them all listed. I'll ask for the committee's unanimous consent.

Shall all the votes under the supplementary estimates (B) carry?

HEALTH

Department

Vote 1b—Operating expenditures..........$235,479,489

Vote 5b—Capital expenditures..........$1

Vote 10b—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions.........$101,958,206

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Vote 11b—Operating expenditures and contributions..........$27,973,639

Vote 13b—Capital expenditures..........$4,924,955

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Vote 15b—Operating expenditures..........$859,268

Vote 20b—The grants listed in the Estimates..........$14,000,000

Public Health Agency of Canada

Vote 45b—Operating expenditures..........$19,719,028

Vote 50b—Capital expenditures..........$1,081,962

Vote 55b—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$1

(Votes 1b, 5b, 10b, 11b, 13b, 15b, 20b, 45b, 50b, and 55b agreed to)

Shall the chair report votes 1b, 5b, 10b, 11b, 13b, 15b, 20b, 45b, 50b, and 55b under Health to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Thank you very much.

That concludes this meeting. Thank you for your attendance and your attention.

The meeting is adjourned.