Evidence of meeting #2 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was home.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
That's not bad. I think what we did here today is incredible in terms of all the things we've come up with and the issues we've discussed, and we haven't even got to me yet.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I compliment everybody on their work on this and their thoughtful approach to it.
I had occasion to talk to my own doctor. I asked him what the big issues are that he runs into. He said, “Wait times and lack of home care.” He said that 30% of our hospitals have people in them who shouldn't be there. Thirty per cent of the beds are occupied by people who shouldn't be there.
On another issue, I agree with Mr. Davies on indigenous health. It's come up from some members in talking to me. I haven't had any direction at all from the minister, by the way. I've not had one ounce of direction from the minister on this, and I'm pleased that we haven't. Eventually we will have, because there will be legislation, and hopefully she'll come here and make a presentation and tell us her direction, but nobody is trying to direct this committee. We're on our own, and I hope we stay that way. I appreciate that.
I did talk to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs because the aboriginal issue had come up, and I wondered if it would be a problem for her if we did this. She said, “No, I'd love you to do a study on aboriginal health.” Just to let you know, she said that to me, and I was very pleased to hear it.
I really like the idea of organ donation, because it's something that I think we can have an impact on very quickly. I think we could.
Another one that didn't come up is veterans' health. I don't know whether that's an issue for us, but it's certainly an issue in my province. Veterans are homeless. There's a lot of post-traumatic stress. I deal with them all the time. I don't know if there's a role for this committee in veterans' health, but it's an amazingly frequent issue that I run into as a member of Parliament.
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
On pharmacare, about two weeks ago the Province of Nova Scotia announced a whole new pharmacare program. They announced it and then had to withdraw it about two days after they announced it, because it was not well thought out, I don't think, and it ran into a wall instantly. Pharmacare is a big issue. It's on people's minds. It's on Canadians' minds for sure.
Actually, I think we're going to have to take these and give them to the steering committee—
Mr. Eyolfson.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
I apologize. I was thinking at the end that there's just one more thing on my list that might bear looking into, at least from a cost-benefit analysis. It's something that has only been in the news a bit, but I'm sensitive to it.
I had many jobs concurrently with emergency medicine. In one of them, I spent several years as a medical director for Manitoba's Emergency Medical Services system. There is a lot of concern regarding the role of EMS and ambulance service in the health care system, particularly with the inconsistency of fees charged for this service and when all the other parts of the health care system, other than drugs, are paid for. You do get an ambulance bill, and it can be very expensive. It depends on where you are and how far you have to go. It can be a couple of hundred dollars if you're in a major city, but it can be several thousand dollars if you are in a rural area.
One of the problems is that as it stands right now, for some reason, emergency medical services are not really part of the Canada Health Act services. They're considered a municipal or provincial service and are paid for out of those budgets. Every jurisdiction has to come up with ways to recover costs, because, as you might imagine, it's an expensive service to provide.
We do know that there are people having some adverse outcomes because they're not calling an ambulance. They know they can't afford the bill. In particular, these are people with chronic medical conditions who have frequent hospital visits.
Some of the calls that I received personally during the campaign were about this, so it might be worth looking into seeing if there's a way to put EMS under the umbrella of health in Canada.
Liberal
Darshan Singh Kang Liberal Calgary Skyview, AB
I'll take it a step further. I know this is a provincial issue, but parking at the hospitals is another big issue that I hear about. It costs so much to park. If you have a loved one sick in there, you're paying $25 to $30 a day for parking. It's very expensive, as you know. Maybe we can look into that somehow. Maybe ambulances and parking could go together.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Well, it's probably not going to be a priority, but we'll have a look.
Does anybody else have anything else they want to put on the table?
Mr. Davies.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
It's just a question of process, Mr. Chairman.
We've had probably two dozen good ideas here. How do you see us moving forward? You've made reference to this being referred to the steering committee. Is it your view that the steering committee will meet and then decide this, or will it come back with recommendations to the main committee?
Also, I think we could deal with a couple of my motions today, either up or down. We could at least deal with whether or not we want to get some briefings or ask for the committee's report. Is it your desire to deal with those? I'm just curious about how you see this moving forward.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I'd say that other than the ones you have particular motions on that you want to deal with today, we should refer the subjects we talked about today to the steering committee. We might find that when we do a little research and when the analyst has a look at things, maybe the committee has done some of this work before and maybe that will affect us. We'll home in on the items that we think are the best, and we'll come back to the committee.
Is that normal? Is that how we do it, Mr. Clerk? Do we come back to the committee? I want everybody to agree. The steering committee will weed through the pros and cons. Some subjects can be done very quickly and some will take longer. Some we can actually have an impact on quickly, and some we can't. We'll look at those and talk about what we can do. I am sure the analyst will also have some thoughts on what can be done, how long it will take, and who we need to have. Then we'll come back to the committee with our recommendations and we'll decide. How's that?
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
The other lens I would put on things is whether they are under provincial or federal jurisdiction. A lot of what we've talked about is under provincial jurisdiction, and quite frankly there are provincial governments at work studying some of these issues already. I think the lens of whether something is really our work needs to be applied. I think that's what Len mentioned.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
I think if we come to them with a consensus on something that's a provincial issue, we could at least make a comment. We can't do much in the way of making recommendations, but we could make comments and send them to the provinces. Is that okay with everybody?
All right, we will refer those to the steering committee.
Now, have you reserved a room for tomorrow?
Are all members of the steering committee available? Mr. Davies, are you available tomorrow afternoon?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Sorry, it's at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. We thought you weren't available, for some reason.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
That's fine with me. How long will the steering committee meeting last? Is that a two-hour meeting?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
You both have House duty? I wonder if we could get the Speaker's room. Can we do that? Is that possible?
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
John Oliver Liberal Oakville, ON
Will there be enough time in one hour to consolidate the ideas that are here, digest everything that's been suggested, and try to understand what our committee agenda will be?
Maybe we could have a meeting of this committee first to say what the top five are and what is involved in doing the top five, and there might be a second meeting so we can come back with a more detailed plan of how we're going to approach this work. I don't think one hour is going to be sufficient to come back to the committee.