Health Committee on March 7th, 2017

[Dr. José Pereira]

I believe if we were to look at it from a regional perspective, from a large population basis, I would argue that some of those are in Edmonton, Calgary, and Fraser Health, and some in Nova Scotia.

If we look at specific components of excellence—for example, community-based palliative care specialist teams who are supporting family doctors, etc., hospices, palliative care units, and even things like palliative rehabilitation programs—we would see that they are spread in different places in different parts of the country. I think we need to look for those and scale up the successes and implement them more widely.

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

All right.

Regarding the framework that we talk about and what we implement, are there existing frameworks that you'd say we should expand, or do we need a new framework?

[Dr. José Pereira]

I think it's always good to learn from what has been there before and what is currently in place elsewhere. There are frameworks under development, for example, in Scotland, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France. There are other countries that have some of these frameworks. It might be useful to learn from what is working there to see if any of it is adaptable.

I think we also have created some fantastic learning within our own country, such as the secretariat. Across the provinces, some of the provinces are doing some really innovative work, at large population levels, that we can learn from and scale better.

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

All right. Thank you.

I have no further questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That winds us up for the day.

I want to thank you, Dr. Pereira, for your great contribution to our study and also to health care. I think you've made quite a difference to health care in Canada. We want to thank you for that.

With that, we're going to wind up. We just have a little bit of committee business. I want to update the committee on a few things.

We met with the PBO this morning. They are not able to have the report done within the time we wanted. They won't have all the information until the end of March, and then at the end of March they'll start their study. We gave them a 40-day working window, and it's not enough. They're thinking that it will be shortly after the summer before they're ready to make a statement.

It's a very complicated thing. The tonnes of data they deal with, they're telling us, are mountainous. The 40 working days just aren't enough. That's where we are with that. If you have any comments or anything, I welcome them.

At the last meeting Mr. Oliver asked for a letter to go to the Department of Health to find out how many thalidomide cases there were in Canada, how many were turned down, how many were appealed, and how many of those were turned down. We've prepared that letter, and it will go out right away. We've asked for a response by April 10.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

There's a second element to that as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I'm sorry; the second element is the background on how the program was established and the reasoning behind it. Is that okay with everybody? All right.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Mr. Chair, I have a very quick question with regard to our study on palliative care and the witnesses who are coming forward. Today we didn't get to hear from David Henderson. Will he be coming back?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

He'll be here on Thursday.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Okay. We have submitted a list of 10 individuals from the Conservative side. Who has chosen these witnesses to come forward in the future?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The clerk has the list.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Are you working on that right now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're inviting everyone. Some can't come and some won't come.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.