Health Committee on March 7th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

As far as I know, we're done. Does that satisfy your motion?

That's it for Zika.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes, I think so. We could always call them back later if you want.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I was thinking of some other association.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

We wanted a one-meeting briefing, and I think we got that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Depending on what happens, we can always call them back for an update. They're pretty good about that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That solves that problem.

Now we'll turn to the steering committee report. It's interesting that we undertake a study and then request a briefing from the Canadian Blood Services on the “Call to Action” report. Did you want to comment on that? I suspect you want more than a briefing.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

No, not necessarily, because I believe that many organ and tissue donation studies have occurred in the past. Is it necessary? Perhaps not. Maybe we bring in Canadian Blood Services and the ministry of health and listen to what they have to say, and if the committee decides we would like to get more information, perhaps from the Trillium Gift of Life in Ontario and some other groups, then we can make that call at the time, if that's okay with the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The analyst came up with some reports that have already been done. Could we copy them and send them to all the members? Okay, but that's just a start.

We have several different subjects and we can't just stop and do one. I think we're going to have to run them together somewhat. In general though, does everybody agree with the priority: pharmacare first, then the organ donation issue, home care and palliative care, aboriginal health, and the status of antibiotic resistance. Does everybody agree with that in principle?

All in favour of adopting the report as our schedule?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We have an agenda now.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Chair, this is more like a procedural question. I wanted to know the difference between a study and a briefing. During a briefing with these organizations can the committee still ask for others to come and comment on the “Call to Action” report as well, or just the organizations referred to in the wording here?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

My own thought would be that we will do whatever it takes on organ donation. We'll get a start on it and see where it goes. If you want to add more to it, I'd like to see that done and I think most members have a lot of interest in organ donation.

I just talked to Canadian Blood Services. They provide 600 million dollars' worth of pharmaceuticals in blood-related issues. They have a pharmacare program funded by the provinces. I didn't know about that, so there's a model for us on pharmacare.

Yes, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chairman, it's good that we've adopted, and now I think we have to consider putting some shape into this and maybe some business for our next meeting. Typically it's helpful to allocate how many days of hearings we may want to choose and then, of course, you have a couple of days to discuss the report.

This is a very ambitious agenda. It certainly would carry us to the end of the year. Is that what you intend, that this will take us until the end of December? Because certainly until the end of June, we would do well to knock off two of these, if that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

This is up to the committee. It's not up to me; it's up to the committee. It depends on how in depth we want to get into these things. The pharmacare one is a big one. I know there's a lot of interest in that. Nova Scotia just announced a pharmacare program, and it lasted two days before they had to reverse it because it wasn't well thought out. It met a lot of opposition and they're still apologizing for it. Pharmacare, I think, will be a welcome discussion right across the country.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes, because I'm thinking, just loosely speaking, that a pharmacare study would be somewhere between, say, four and six, or four and eight meetings of witnesses.

On the home care and palliative care, I would think something similar, four to six to eight meetings. Aboriginal health would take four to six meetings. Antibiotic resistance might be a bit fewer, maybe two to four meetings. Then you'd have the meetings to go through the reports on top of that. Then, of course, the organ donation could be two to four meetings, depending on how many witnesses there are.

I can't remember how many meetings we have before the end of June. I think we're around 15. Do we have 15?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I have the schedule right here. How many do we have?

Let's start with the pharmacare. What I'm thinking is that we'll start with the pharmacare and we'll gather information on the others as we go so that, when we do get to them, we'll have more information and we can act in an efficient manner. That's my thought.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

What is the timeline for submitting our witnesses for this? What's your thought process on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

They should be submitted by the 11th. Do we have the minister coming on the 21st? No, the minister is on the 23rd, and the department's coming on the 21st. Those will take up those two meetings, I would think. Those two meetings are gone.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

The minister is on the 23rd?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The 21st is the department; the 23rd is the minister. The minister is only here for an hour on the 23rd. The officials will be with her, and they'll stay as long as we want them to. There are also Department of Health officials here on the Monday.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

We take those out of the schedule and it reduces the number of days we have.

Could I suggest that we start by saying six meeting days of witnesses?

[A voice]

Yes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

That's two and two. That's two organizations per hour, so that's four. That would give us 24 organizations or individuals to hear from, which would be probably lots.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That gives everybody time to line up. We find witnesses don't come really fast. They don't respond quickly. If we knock off the 21st and the 23rd with officials and the minister, then you can start gearing up for the pharmacare witnesses after that. In the meantime, we can be gathering information on others. Does that work for everybody?

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

Mr. Chair, with two appearances from any organization, do you think that would be enough? Will there be enough time to question them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Actually, yes. If we're concise in our questions and if we're pointed, I think we can get the information we need.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Davies brings up a really good point. We've gone through this exercise in HUMA, and it's amazing how quickly the sessions get gobbled up. We actually only have two studies and we figure that's going to take us right through the year.

The other thing to consider is that the estimates will also be coming after the budget, and that will take a couple of days as well. You said you had the minister coming. You will also probably want to have updates from different departments before you get witnesses. That will take up a session.

I was just saying, this is not just your first year. This is maybe your first two or three.