Evidence of meeting #148 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was senate.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Thank you.
There's another item, regarding the harm reduction fund, which I believe is $30 million over five years. I'd be the first to say that I know harm reduction is not the be-all and end-all. It's the beginning of treatment and protection and they need much more.
However, in regard to the harm reduction fund, is that money being allocated, and do we have agreements with all the provinces for the allocation of those funds?
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
The work is still going on as to how that money is to be allocated. We want to make sure that we maximize the benefits of those funds. One of the ways in which Health Canada is helping to support the government in its dealing with the opioid crisis is that there are a range of treatment options available and innovative approaches to treatment. Frankly, not all of them have been used in the past in Canada.
In addition to the new money for harm reduction, there are also regulatory steps that have been taken to enable access to some of these innovative treatments which in the past had only been available in other jurisdictions. Our work on this particular facet of tackling the opioid crisis is a little multi-faceted. It's not just a matter of the money, but it's also a matter of working with treatment providers to bring into the Canadian market some of these more innovative approaches. That's going to take a bit of effort, but the hope is that it will have a very important and useful demonstration effect.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Kennedy, Health Canada has been leading an initiative called the organ donation and transplantation collaborative, in close collaboration with a wide range of experts, including clinicians, government officials, Canadian Blood Services, research organizations, organ donation organizations, transplant programs, patient and family groups, and other key stakeholders.
The collaborative's goal is to develop concrete and actionable options to improve organ donation and transplantation performance that meets Canadians' needs and improves patient outcomes.
The national transplant research network, which is part of the collaborative, has been funded by Dr. Strong's Canadian Institutes of Health Research. You've been funding them for five years, during which it provided new knowledge that is helping inform important policy decisions. Your Canadian Institutes of Health Research has recently provided a short-term extension of $1 million per year for three years for infrastructure support.
The national transplant research network is bringing $57.3 million in committed partnerships to the table to continue their work. To secure these commitments they have requested $30 million from the federal government for their five-year proposal that will build on the government's previous investment to place Canada as a global leader in research and innovation in donation and transplantation. This will be entirely complementary to Health Canada's ongoing work to fix the system by providing the new knowledge needed to move forward. This program has proven to be a high-profile international success and its continuation will assist the minister in meeting her mandate towards saving the lives of Canadians needing transplants.
As you know, our committee sees research as the key to driving the innovation we need to improve donation rates and outcomes. Therefore, I wonder if you can share what next steps are being planned by your departments specifically to support the world-leading research that is being led by the Canadian donation and transplantation research program network.
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Maybe I can start, and Dr. Strong could speak as well.
We've had very good conversations with the network, a number of them, as we've been working on the issue of organ donation and transplantation.
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
We would agree that they do really good work, so there's certainly no quarrel there whatsoever.
There was funding that the government set aside in the budget to further the work on organ and tissue donation and transplantation, and certainly we want to be talking to them and other stakeholders to figure out the best way to deploy those resources and move ahead.
At this point, we just want to underline that we value the work they do and certainly we want to keep both the link to them and be talking to them as we move forward.
I don't know if Dr. Strong wants to talk a bit about the network and the work that CIHR is doing.
Dr. Michael Strong President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
I'd be happy to respond to that.
Over the last five years, the CIHR has invested approximately $105 million in transplantation research. It is a key area of research for us as we move forward and the relationship with the donor transplant research program. It's $3.3 million going forward over the next three years to continue working with it.
We're very excited about the direction they've taken, and also particularly that they've managed to develop the partnerships that have been in place, since that's such a crucial part of what we're doing. It is an area that continues to be a major focus for us now and in the foreseeable future.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
That's good to hear. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chair, I'll pass it on to Ms. Gladu now. Thank you.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I have a quick question.
I'm disappointed that the health minister is not with us so I could ask my standard thalidomide question, but I did get an update that the requirements have been extended to acknowledge those folks who weren't previously able to claim, and they are being processed as we speak. I'm happy about that.
I also got an update on palliative care. I always want to know how much money we spend on palliative care.
In terms of my question today, Diabetes Canada was here and the health committee wrote a report recommending that we implement the diabetes 360° plan. Why did the government give zero dollars in the 2019 budget when they asked for $150 million to fund that program?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
First of all, I want to acknowledge the work of this committee. There are quite a number of recommendations. I think the government will provide its formal response to those recommendations, and that might address some of the questions you're asking.
Regarding some of the examples of initiatives, we need to examine them, but we think a holistic, integrated approach that includes prevention, but also supportive social and physical environments, is really vital to diabetes as we address it going forward.
We will definitely look at the recommendations and provide a formal response.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Chair. I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Ayoub.
Thank you all for being here today.
Two years ago, my private member's bill, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, became federal law. For my province especially, which has been and continues to be devastated by the opioid crisis, I'm proud that this law is making a difference and saving lives.
I'm most gratified to see that awareness of the protections offered by this act are being promoted in a national advertising campaign. Thank you for that. That's very good news.
Also, I know that as part of our ongoing efforts to address this crisis, the Government of Canada announced a series of new funding in budget 2019 to improve access to treatment and for innovative projects.
Mr. Kennedy, I believe you touched on that with Dr. Eyolfson. Could you provide us with details on how these investments will help address this public health crisis?
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
I'm so glad the member asked this question, because it gives an opportunity for me to do a bit of correction of my earlier response.
I think the confusion is, at least for me—there's no confusion on your part—that Health Canada received just over $30 million in the budget to advance a number of measures that certainly could fall under the rubric of harm reduction. There is, however, a harm reduction fund of an almost equivalent amount that the Public Health Agency also stewards.
Maybe when we get back to the committee with a bit more detail, we can elaborate on what has been done in both areas. I just wanted to correct that, because I think I misunderstood the question previously.
For the funding in the budget that the honourable member mentioned, there are a couple of major purposes. The first is that we want to expand the availability of naloxone. There is going to be a significant effort to make naloxone more widely available than it is now.
This is a life-saving, overdose-reversing drug. It is available in many parts of the country without payment. Health Canada took it off prescription status a number of years ago because of our desire to make it more widely available. The evidence suggests, however, that there are regions, certainly some rural areas, in parts of the country where it may not be as available as it could be. Some of the money in the budget is to actually expand and make more widely available the use of naloxone and to make training available for people to administer it. That's the first thing.
The second investment is, as I mentioned in the response to the previous question, that there are innovative treatments that are not widely used in Canada in response to substance use disorder, and the idea is to launch some pilots to see whether we can successfully deploy those in Canada.
For example, for substitution therapies for people who have a very severe opioid use disorder, there is good evidence internationally that one way to help stabilize those individuals and get them into a long-term treatment situation in which they can recover might be to give them a much safer version of a substance, rather than see them turning to the street.
There are opioid substitutes such as hydromorphone and other kinds of therapies available. They have not traditionally been used in Canada. Part of the budget money would be to pilot some of those approaches. They will be matched with regulatory action to allow for the import and the use of those products in Canada, because historically they haven't been approved for those indications in Canada.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
To obtain a permit to grow marijuana for medical purposes, you need a prescription from a doctor. The permit is then granted by Health Canada.
Can you explain to me how we can prevent this prescription from getting into the hands of people who want to grow illegal crops? I was told that, in some places, several people were obtaining this type of prescription, and therefore a permit. We are talking about 250 plants grown per person. Subsequently, the police said they could not intervene because these people had allegedly legal permits.
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
When a person needs cannabis, they must first have a prescription from a doctor. It is an authorization and not necessarily a prescription. So we're talking, to use the exact terms, about a doctor's authorization. There is a process in place to verify whether this is a duly issued prescription. If the quantity of plants is high, if certain things do not seem quite legitimate, we follow a procedure that allows us to check the legitimacy of the prescription.
If we give our approval to a person whose prescription is legitimate, we then grant him a permit to grow plants at home. We have to ensure that the number of plants, in particular, corresponds to the prescription. A person cannot grow 200 plants if his prescription says 100, in which case it is absolutely clear that it is illegal. The police can then intervene, since this person goes beyond the scope of his or her permit.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Several people, in the same place, had several permits—
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
To close the subject, I would just like to add, as the minister explained, that the new Cannabis Act now gives us a power that we did not have before to intervene when we see problems. We intend to use this power in such situations.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This week at the 72nd session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva, many observers publicly expressed their profound disappointment with the Government of Canada's attempts to either oppose or dilute a resolution aimed at reducing drug prices globally through increased transparency for drug companies. If the resolution were passed as originally drafted, many global observers believe it would be a major step towards improving access to affordable medicines as well. Presently, a lack of transparency on drug pricing agreements and research and development costs allow drug companies to charge high, arbitrary and certainly not very transparent prices.
Do you have any information to tell the committee why Canada is taking a position at the World Health Assembly that hampers global efforts to reduce the price of pharmaceutical drugs and access to medicine globally?
