Health Committee on May 28th, 2019

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's understood.

Also, the minister mentioned that odour was under Health Canada's purview, but if you go to Health Canada's website, it says it's the municipality's responsibility.

In my riding we have two of these grow ops. One is in Clinton and has more than 2,000 plants in a warehouse. It is not a licensed producer. It is operated by a person. There is another one in Vanastra with an equal number, and again it's operated by a person.

The odour is terrible, as you can imagine. I've contacted the 1-800 number for Health Canada. They say it's the municipality's responsibility. I contacted the municipality, and they have no idea how to determine whether it stinks too badly or not badly enough.

What are these poor little municipalities supposed to do when Health Canada says it's their responsibility?

[Simon Kennedy]

As the minister said, we have new authorities with the Cannabis Act to take action in these kinds of circumstances whenever it is warranted. I cannot say that this will mean, with regard to every individual growing at home, that we would be able to exercise new authorities, but certainly—

[A voice]

Is this in a warehouse?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

This is in a warehouse. Four people have purchased the warehouse, and there are more than 2,000 plants in this one warehouse. It's for a personal prescription. It's a personal licence. The odour is horrendous. I've called the 1-800 number, and they said it's not Health Canada's responsibility—that's what they say—that it's the municipality's responsibility.

What are these little municipalities supposed to do to know whether it is supposed to stink too badly or not in somebody's backyard? This warehouse backs onto residential property, so what are they do do?

[Simon Kennedy]

Well, one thing we try to do is work with municipalities, for example, with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to try to provide advice and guidance on how they should approach these matters.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay. How are they to measure the stink? You can imagine that one plant is not so bad, but 2,000 plants wreck people's property. How are you to monitor this? What are you telling FCM to do?

[Simon Kennedy]

I think what I would have to do, Mr. Chair, is I'd be more than happy to get back to the member with a bit more detail on this issue. I will be the first to say that I don't have a granular answer to what standards might exist with regard to odour.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay, thank you.

[Simon Kennedy]

I can assure you, though, that we have a strong interest in making sure that people are following the rules. It's a reputational issue, obviously, for the department whenever there are community concerns, and we act within the constraints of the law. We share the interest of trying to address them.

I'm happy to get back and try to provide as much as I can.

To be frank, if there are examples in your constituency or others in which people feel there are serious concerns, I'm happy to hear about them, and we will certainly try to follow up.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you.

If I have time, this question is with regard to a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. There are at least two individuals in my riding who have had nerve damage from taking these antibiotics, and in 2017.... I'm reading an article here that talks about Health Canada being aware of this side effect of the antibiotics. I'm wondering why we are allowing this class of antibiotics to be available when we have numerous cases of people suffering different types of damage, such as aorta tears, and now this nerve damage.

What are we doing to help these people out?

[Simon Kennedy]

I can speak generally to how we regulate, whether in the case of antibiotics or other kinds of therapeutic products. I can't speak, without consulting my colleagues back in the department, to the specifics of this particular compound you're talking about. As a general rule, for many of the products we regulate there is a risk profile. Even products that are well known and widely used will present some risks, and there are some individuals who can have an adverse reaction or a bad outcome.

When we regulate and we look at the clinical trial data and gather up all the evidence needed to make a decision, there is frequently a calculus of whether the benefits of the product outweigh the risks.

In the case of a product such as the one you're discussing, which has received a Health Canada approval, there is a judgment about whether the product actually confers a benefit even though there may be risks associated with it. Ideally, you want to make sure that the risks are well understood and well characterized and that they're on the product monograph, so that when physicians are prescribing and patients are using it, they have a really good understanding of the risks.

As you would know, presumably, when taking medication you sometimes look at the monograph, and it will lay out the various risks.

What I will say is that when new risks come to our attention after a product is on the market, or when risks that we once thought were perhaps less serious turn out to be more serious, post-market surveillance is done. We do follow up, and when there might be evidence that the risks are serious or some new risk has been identified, we will often take a second look. We'll have an expert panel that might—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Would it be possible for somebody in your department to send us an update, perhaps through the chair?

[Simon Kennedy]

Absolutely; that would be fine.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

Now we go to Dr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, all, for coming.

I am not sure whether this is directed towards the Department of Health or the Public Health Agency, but it's probably the Department of Health.

This is regarding the commitment in budget 2018 about the emergency treatment fund to help enhance territorial and provincial drug treatment programs.

Can you outline how that has gone forward so far, and in general terms how we've gone forward with allocating the funds for these programs?

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes, Mr. Chair, this is a question for my response.

I can say that there was the $150 million allocated for the emergency treatment fund. The hope is to get it into the hands of jurisdictions relatively quickly. The design of the fund is such that we wanted to use it to help them build their capacity to develop substance use treatment.

We have reached agreement with every jurisdiction in the country to flow those dollars. All of the agreements were signed and in place before the start of the fiscal year. I can thus report, just as an update, that we have now deals with all jurisdictions and that the money is flowing.

I don't, off the top of my head, remember over what time frame the money can be spent, but it doesn't all have to be spent in one year. There is a flow. It can be spent over a couple of years.

All of those agreements have been or will ultimately be made public on our website, and people can see the action plans developed by each jurisdiction as to how the money will be spent. There is a measure of transparency, then, depending upon what province or territory you live in, as to what the money will go towards.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Great. Thank you.

In my home province of Manitoba there were some delays with the health accord. The Manitoba provincial government didn't sign the health accord until fairly recently.

Did that delay in signing the health accord lead to delays in any of that money going to Manitoba, or was the treatment fund independent of the health accord?

[Simon Kennedy]

It probably wouldn't be appropriate to get into some of the details of the cut and thrust of the conversation. What I can say is that we had very cordial and very productive discussions with Manitoba. Some jurisdictions signed earlier and some signed later. There was obviously some media coverage around the situation in Manitoba, but ultimately we had a signed agreement before the start of the fiscal year and were able to flow the money and so on.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay. When was that?

[Simon Kennedy]

I apologize; I believe it was some time in March.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay.

[Simon Kennedy]

I can get you the exact date, but it was certainly before March 31. It was before the start of the current fiscal year.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay, but was it after Manitoba signed the health accord?

[Simon Kennedy]

Both the health accord agreement with Manitoba and the emergency treatment fund agreement were signed before the start of the fiscal year.

What I can say is that our objective as a ministry was that before the commencement of the fiscal year, we wanted to be in a position such that those agreements were signed with all jurisdictions, because as soon as you're in a new fiscal year, you have to worry about re-profiling money and all that. From a financial point of view we achieved our objective. All jurisdictions signed both agreements before the start of the fiscal year, Manitoba included.

I'm sorry; I don't remember off the top of my head which came first, but I'd be happy to get you the dates and the details, if you wish.