Health Committee on June 8th, 2016

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

It's 1-16. I guess you don't have it there. It's under the horizontal items. It's $25.559 million. You have already—

[Jamie Tibbetts]

Yes, I know what it is.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Exactly what is it?

[Jamie Tibbetts]

In the supplementary estimates detail, it's called “Funding for short-term investments in public transit, green infrastructure and existing programs”. That's the broad, horizontal label for many departments that are getting approval to do infrastructure-type things. Our water money is under that category, so the full $25 million is for first nations water and waste water. It is a renewal of the exact same level of funding we had last year, so it's carrying through the same programming we've been doing to support Indigenous and Northern Affairs in ensuring safety of the water on reserves.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to all the presenters for your great information.

Health Canada has asked for a total of $165 million in horizontal funding for a variety of projects such as affordable housing, social infrastructure projects, and improving community health care facilities on reserves. Can you describe how these funds will be used to improve community health care facilities on reserves?

[Jamie Tibbetts]

I'll let my colleague answer.

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

As Mr. Tibbetts said, we have the social infrastructure fund. We have various facilities across the country right now in various degrees of condition. Some are newer. Some are older. Some are very old. We have a long-term capital plan that we developed with our first nations partners. This plan is a prioritized plan. We have identified priority areas, mostly things that are risks to health and safety. It could be as small as a door that doesn't function. We have a range of those sorts of things, from new builds, to replacements, designs, or renovations. There's a variety of those, and we have a number of projects in play that will benefit from this fund.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Which communities are expected to receive funding from this initiative?

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

I have a very long list here. If there's an area in particular you're interested in, as Mr. Tibbetts also alluded to, we have the aboriginal head start facilities that are being retrofitted to service the program, but we have them essentially in every region and it depends on the region. There are a number of them across the country.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

My next question is to PHAC, the Public Health Agency of Canada. When this committee was first briefed on Zika virus, we were told it was not a threat to Canadians. Shortly thereafter there was a case in Ontario that caused some concern. Do you feel the funds allocated to PHAC are sufficient to continue to contain any such cases and continue to monitor effectively?

[Elaine Chatigny, Branch Head, Health Security Infrastructure Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada]

We are currently working with our colleagues throughout the Americas, through the Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organization, to monitor the evolution of the spread of the virus in the Americas. Currently internally we do a lot of work, as we heard earlier, around climate change and adaptation on other vector-borne diseases, whether Lyme disease or West Nile virus. These are all founded on the concept of doing research on vector-borne diseases, to determine how mosquitoes, for example, or how ticks, in the case of Lyme disease, adapt to the environment and what kind of risk they pose to the population.

We do modelling. We do a range of work. We work in partnership with academia. Our lab in Winnipeg is currently doing a lot of confirmatory testing on Zika samples that are sent to it. There's a lot of work already being done, because it's part of what we do at the Public Health Agency in terms of trying to prevent, detect, and respond to vector-borne diseases like Zika. Certainly, we are looking at where there may be opportunities to enhance our programming. For example, could there be opportunities to do more research and development with key partners? Those are all the things we're looking at currently.

But certainly, we are actively involved in the Zika response and we have been from the very beginning.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

My next question is for CFIA.

How do you feel inspections are going overall? I have met with a few animal protection advocates in my riding, who are particularly concerned about horses and other animals. Can you describe how you are currently doing in terms of enforcement of the Meat Inspection Act and the Health of Animals Act?

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you very much. Our oversight with respect to the Meat Inspection Act is our highest area of intensity, as I described earlier, because we have continuous presence in meat-slaughtering establishments in order for those establishments to be able to operate. That is a very significant proportion of the agency's activities.

As it relates to the Health of Animals Act and in particular, issues such as animal welfare, this is an area of tremendous interest, both for Canadians and for Canadian businesses. The federal responsibility with respect to animal welfare relates to the transportation of animals and to the humane slaughter of animals in federally registered establishments.

The humane slaughter of animals in federally registered establishments is addressed by that intense inspection oversight that I mentioned. As it relates to the transportation of animals, we have a very active program of oversight with respect to animal welfare in transportation. However, there is equally a recognition that the current regulatory framework for animal transportation would benefit from modernization in terms of developments in the science. We're committed to doing that, and indeed, there is the intent to bring forward a new regulatory proposal later this year with respect to the transportation of animals, to achieve that modernization.

In both areas of federal responsibility in that regard, we have a very serious focus and commitment on the part of the agency.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

That's it, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

You're done.

Ms. Harder, go ahead, please.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

For my first question, I'm just going to come in where we're talking about diseases linked to climate change. I'm just wondering if you can tell me a little about the criteria that are used by Health Canada to determine whether or not a disease is in fact linked to climate change.

[Jamie Tibbetts]

The money we're receiving under climate change is highly for scientific research and advice. It is to fund scientific programming at the same level that was there before. The $25 million in these supplementary estimates is a continuation of ongoing programming.

The actual detailed criteria, I do not have. I know it is part of the air quality management system that we are part of. We conduct various socio-economic and health benefit analyses on pollution, greenhouse gases, and whatnot, to inform decision makers.

There's health risk assessments for specific air pollutants and air pollution emission sources. There are communication outreach programs that are funded through that, so the Canadian public also gets to see it.

The actual detailed scientific criteria are beyond me. I can have something provided to the committee, should you wish.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. Yes, I would be interested to know that. With that comes the question of where we are finding the scientific link between the health concerns that are noted and the climate change that's taking place.

I know the Zika virus was referenced over here. That's an interesting one to me, because from what we know it's passed down through mosquitoes. Mosquitoes have been with us since the beginning of time, unfortunately. Perhaps that's due to climate change; perhaps it's due to other factors. I'd be interested in knowing what science is behind that decision-making process, and the allocation of this funding for further study, research, and whatever implications go along with that.

[Jamie Tibbetts]

There are several outputs or outcomes that are associated with the funding to support that analysis and that reporting.

For example, there's radon analysis and how it affects people outside. It's not air pollution, but it's a similar type of scientific research that informs that. It's the safety and health risk assessment process that's under way. It's lab work, at times. It is quite detailed.

I don't think I can answer much more than that without wasting your time and spinning here, so I think we could probably get you a bit more that's at this level of science.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Sure. Thank you.

The other question that I would have would be with regard to potable water, which has been brought up. There's a fair bit of money in the budget toward that. I would agree with my colleagues around this table that it's certainly something that is very necessary and should be contended for.

My concern is this. It's understanding that initiatives in this direction have been taken in the past. I'm curious to know whether or not there are accountability measures in place to make sure that this funding is indeed used for this, so that this problem is in fact solved, so that these individuals do have the water they need to live the healthy lives that they deserve.

[Mary-Luisa Kapelus]

One of the things that I'd like to add to earlier parts of the discussion on this is the fact that we are working much more closely with our first nation partners in this and building capacity with them to monitor and test themselves.

An example I can give you is that in Quebec when I was working there, and it's still a best practice, we were doing a training, sort of a community training program, that is building that capacity at the community level so they can monitor it themselves, day to day. We found that when we're talking about accountability and that ongoing monitoring, when the communities themselves are empowered to do this work there's much more ownership and control over it.

As Mr. Tibbetts alluded to, this is a balancing act with our colleagues over at Indigenous and Northern Affairs. We work with them as well, because they have the infrastructure part of it. But it's empowering the first nations themselves that we see as the real way to make progress on this. We've been monitoring that very closely. We continue to have indicators to demonstrate.

I think one of the ones I can share with you is that even just the perceptions of first nation residents themselves have improved dramatically from 2011, where we've seen an increase to 71% as viewing their tap water as safe, as compared with 2007 when there was 62%. We believe it's due in large part to this empowerment initiative that we're trying to work with them on.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's excellent.

What is our time frame for making sure that this funding is given out to the reserves and to see potable water realized?

[Jamie Tibbetts]

The funding we receive now is for two years, this year and next. It was an extension of programs that have gone back several years. The progress that my colleague has mentioned has been steady in that period of time. On fixing it permanently, there will always be potential issues of tests uncovering things, but getting it up to where it's comparative to similar communities in similar places in Canada is the objective.

Indigenous Affairs are the ones that should be answering, because they run the water treatment plants, not us. We just test. If we or the first nations find something, then you have a boil water advisory. As I understand it, though, these facilities will be up and running at that expected level in the short to medium term. First nations having capacity and health risks associated with water are decreased.

We put very specific indicators in the RPPs or the DPRs that we report on to show this progress—how many boil water advisories we've issued, what percentage of communities have access to training, all these things—and the trends, are quite positive.