Health Committee on Sept. 20th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I call the meeting to order and welcome everybody back.

We have a little bit of carry-over business. To our witnesses, we're going to be a little delayed in getting to you.

Mr. Webber had a motion on the table as we wound up in the last session, and we had to leave because the bells were ringing. Since then, things have changed on the motion.

Mr. Webber, why don't you take the floor and tell us what you'd like to do?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Chair, as most of us remember here, the motion that I put on the table last meeting read:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Committee undertake an immediate study of the current restrictions imposed on men who have sex with men (MSM) when it comes to the donation of blood to determine if the current five year ban is scientifically supported, or to determine if this restriction can either be reduced or eliminated while maintaining a safe blood supply system.

I've spoken to a number of you since then, and I hope that I have that support. There is an amendment that has to be made to this. However, because of some changes that the government has done since then, they've brought that five-year ban down to one year, which was a positive move.

However, there is still an issue with that one year. I would like to see a study done to determine whether that one year is unreasonable. Is it something that should stay current or do we take that one-year ban out altogether? I know that Rachael would propose that amendment.

Maybe I could get you to read that out, Rachael.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

The amendment would read, “That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study this fall of the current restrictions imposed on men who have sex with men when it comes to the donation of blood to determine if the current ban is scientifically supported or to determine if this restriction can either be reduced or eliminated while maintaining a safe blood supply system.”

The two changes to the motion are that rather than an immediate study, we take on the study this fall, and rather than determine if the current five-year ban is scientifically supported, it would now read, “to determine if the current one-year ban is scientifically supported.”

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

That is the proposed amendment to this motion. Thanks, Rachael.

I would hope that it would be supported by the committee, and we could go from there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is there any discussion on this motion?

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to welcome all committee members back from the summer.

I think it's an excellent motion that is certainly worthy of support. The New Democrats have also gone on record as saying that we don't see a scientific basis for the ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men. It should be a science-based decision.

The only issue I have though is the timing of this motion. I'm wondering if Mr. Webber could elaborate on the time sensitivity of this study.

We are in the middle of a pharmacare study. We had a work plan that was circulated a while back that appears to me to really chew up most of our time for the fall. We have other motions that are very important that are in the docket including studying home care, aboriginal health, microbial resistance, and others.

They're all important, and Mr. Webber's motion is very important and worthy of study, but I'm wondering if he could tell us if he sees any particular time sensitivity to it that would require us to alter the current committee business schedule.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I appreciate that question. I would see this as an urgent study. The reason is that people are dying right now, lying on tables waiting for organs that are not available. If we can make these organs and blood possibly available to individuals from donors who fit in the category of being in that ban, it could save lives. I know there are many other issues out there that are important as well—you brought up a number of different issues—but I believe that the sooner we get this done, the sooner we could get more organs and blood available to the human organ, tissue, and blood procurement system.

I see it as an urgent issue. I initially wanted this to be an immediate study. I have gone down to it being a study sometime this fall. I realize we have other items on the agenda, but I see this as an important study that should be done as soon as possible. Of course, Rachael has proposed the amendment to study it sometime this fall.

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

I think Mr. Webber is talking about organs in here too. In the motion, it is only blood. Do you want to amend the motion to include organ donation too?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Yes, that is a good question.

[Darshan Singh Kang, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

The amended motion doesn't talk about organs.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Yes, that's right. Right now, we will leave it just for blood. I continue to say “organ” and “tissue” because I think that would follow. This is a passion of mine, and I would like to see it evolve into that. Right now, let's just work on the blood donation and get that scientific study in there. I am asking only for perhaps a one-meeting study, just to get some scientific evidence in here. That's it. It is not going to take up a lot of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Oliver, go ahead.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I am assuming there is general agreement around the table with the intent of the motion as amended. It is just a question of timing. There is probably some downtime in drafting on pharmacare coming up, so I wonder whether we could ask our clerk for a schedule of how we could fit this in and an estimate of the time, just so we can get this concretely mapped out for us. What is the work plan that would be associated with the motion? Is it one meeting or two meetings?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. David Gagnon]

It also depends on what the committee wants to do on the pharmacare study. A work plan was distributed yesterday. You may want to have a discussion on that. There are a couple of meetings on that. It is up to the committee to decide how many meetings they want to have with this one.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Chair, I have looked at the work plan for the next few months. It looks like we are going to be on this pharmacare study for quite some time still. I have looked at a number of the meetings here, and I would like to discuss this—I am sure we will discuss it—to determine what is important and who we feel should come here to present to us. Others perhaps aren't so—I am not going to say “worthy” because they are all worthy to present to us, but maybe we can shorten down this schedule in order to find time to do this study or this presentation with scientific experts. I don't know if you have seen the table here of meetings that we have planned in the future, but I am certain we can squeeze this down a bit in order to get this study done on the motion that I have on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Eyolfson, go ahead.

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

I would agree. I see some urgency to this. Even if we are just talking about blood, the blood supply is always precarious at best, and it tends to wax and wane. Having been on the blood donor list, I know they are always calling, because they are always short. Every time there is a long weekend, with our traffic patterns being what they are, we have very large spikes in demand. Anything that restricts the available supply that is not based in science should be dealt with in a reasonably short period of time. I think it is in everyone's best interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, I'm afraid I don't see the urgency. I see the importance of the issue, but I don't see the urgency. As Mr. Webber has now clarified, this motion doesn't have anything to do with organ transplants. It's about blood donation.

I could make the same argument. We're in the middle of a pharmacare study. I would venture to guess that there are Canadians who are dying, probably this week, because they don't have access to their medication.

We've had testimony already about the effect of cost-related non-adherence, and there are Canadians who get seriously ill because they don't have access to their pharmacare. That's a pressing problem right now.

Quite honestly, the Conservatives were in power for 10 years and never touched this issue once. Frankly, the current government had a chance to look at this and moved from a five-year ban on men having sex with men with regard to blood donations to one year.

This is an important issue. I don't think it's urgent. I think we should be looking at it. Even if we study this issue, say a month from now, and we devote a meeting—which, by the way, I don't think a meeting is enough for this. I think if we want to have a science-based, evidence-based look at this, we're going to have to hear from a number of experts in this field: hematologists and otherwise, Canadian Blood Services.

I haven't heard whether we're going to write a report or not, which we would probably have to do if you want to have an impact with the minister. You're talking about multiple meetings, unless we just want to make a political issue out of this and have a pro forma meeting.

If we want to take a real look at whether there's a basis for this issue, we should treat it with the seriousness it deserves. It would probably need three or four meetings, I would say, to look at that issue.

If we do that, then we're pushing our pharmacare study back significantly. I'm not so sure, when you weigh the competing importance, that there's any real way to differentiate between them. As important as the ban on men having sex with men issue is, again, I think so is pharmacare.

I would urge that we pass the motion, but I'm not so sure that we need to schedule hearings on this until after the pharmacare study.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

In the interest of time, I'm going to suggest that there seems to be consensus around the table that this is worthwhile and it should be done.

Can we vote on the motion, and then the clerk and the chair will work on timing to get it on the table? In the interest of moving forward, can we vote on the motion and we'll try to find time to fit it in?

First of all, we'll have research tell us how much time, how many meetings it will take, and then we'll work it out.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I think the motion would then tie us to doing this review in the fall, because that's built into the amendment.

I guess we would need to have a friendly amendment to remove that and maybe change it to “as soon as possible after pharmacare is completed”, or something like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is that okay? There is a consensus that it's an important issue and it should be done, but it's a matter of timing. Can you live with that?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Can we perhaps change that to getting the study started this fall, have one session of witnesses here to present to us, just to get it started, and then from there it would be whenever the clerk feels it's appropriate to put in some other meetings on it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are there any comments on that proposal for or against?

Dr. Eyolfson.

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

I don't think one meeting is going to cause any undue delay to other initiatives. I think that one meeting to discuss and get our priorities for it...and then some background research can be done and we start collecting witnesses.

I'm certainly in favour of that.