Health Committee on Nov. 24th, 2016

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. I guess I'm taking you at your word, but if we put forward a national strategy with regard to all forms of dementia, from there the next part of that bill is encouraging greater investment in all areas of research related to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. Alzheimer's does take the lead in that paragraph, followed by all forms of dementia. Would your intent be to change that paragraph as well?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

No. As I said at the beginning, it would only be clause 3. First of all, having heard this testimony, I've asked them not to table that first round of amendments because I think it was really important what we heard from the authors on the intent of the bill that they had. However, I also want to respect what we heard from the witnesses in the first round.

I was not going to make or ask for any other changes in clause 3 except for this one, which deals with a national strategy for dementia, which I thought was more consistent with what we heard from our witnesses.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I hear my colleague, and I do recognize that the Senate did a lot of work on this. However, I thought I'd just ask the clerk, is this amendment even in order? The whole idea here is the national strategy on Alzheimer's disease. By taking that out, is it in order? May I ask the clerk that?

[Olivier Champagne, Legislative Clerk]

I agree that it changes the bill significantly, but procedurally speaking, it's perfectly in order because it's within the scope of the bill.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Procedure is procedure, but intent is intent, right? This is the bill. This is the form in which it passed through the House. We had unanimous support. I'm really concerned that if we start to open this up, it will really take away from what Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Oliphant worked very hard on together. It's not a partisan issue here. We heard from the witnesses on how really enthusiastic they were to get through this entire process.

By doing this, I think my colleague, maybe inadvertently, is changing the entire purpose of what our two colleagues want to bring forward. We can talk procedure, and we can go back and forth on procedure, but when we're here in front of the committee, we should honour the intent of our colleagues who brought this forward and also honour the intent of our colleagues in the House of Commons who unanimously voted on this bill.

I really think we should pay attention to what the clerk said here, because we are masters of our own destiny. I think it would be prudent for us to respect what our colleagues said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Just a point, the House voted to send it to this committee to be examined and possibly amended. That's what our role is, and that's what we're here for. We're going to have the debate on this.

Mr. Oliver, you're up next.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I've been convinced by my colleagues and by the earlier comments, so I'll withdraw my proposed amendment, and we can move on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you.

Mr. Kang.

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

Mr. Chair, this is part of the democratic process. This is what we do. When the bill was unanimously supported in the House, it was the intent of the bill that was supported and not the whole bill. That is why we are going through it clause by clause.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That's what we're doing. Are there any further comments on clause 3?

(Clause 3 agreed to)

That's the national strategy clause, the one you're talking about and which you just discussed.

We'll move to clause 4.

(On clause 4)

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Sorry, but I'm confused by the numbering here.

Under the national strategy, I guess it's still clause 3, but there's a two. Is it 3(2) then, the conference?

I was just confused by the layout of how we're doing this. I was looking at 3(1), national strategy, and then we have 3(2).

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Oh, sorry. Okay.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I do apologize, I didn't realize that was part of the clause that we were discussing. I apologize to Mr. Carrie. This is one I did hear from Mr. Oliphant that he thought should be changed.

It's simply how we populate the conference. It's representatives from, and the focus is on the Alzheimer Society, the advocacy groups, and it doesn't mention others.

I'd like to delete that or add the words “and other advocacy groups from other dementia”.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

We're on clause 3, correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We passed clause 3.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We passed clause 3.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We could go back to it, with unanimous consent, but it's—

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Okay.

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

On a point of order, I was under the impression also that clause 3 was 3(1), and then there's 3(2). That's the only paragraph that was a second—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We haven't gone through (a), (b), (c), or (d).

I just asked if clause 3 carried. We had a show of hands, and it passed unanimously. We could go back and do it, if you request that.

Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's all just a point of order.

We're on clause 4 now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're on clause 4.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I was going to make this change before. It's paragraph 4(4)(b), representatives. It's the creation of the advisory board, including representatives from...and it's limited to the Alzheimer Society of Canada and other Alzheimer advocacy groups.

I wanted to add “and other advocacy groups resulting in dementia” or we can just say “representatives from dementia advocacy groups”.