Health Committee on Nov. 30th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I should read into the record the actual motion that I'm moving:

That the Standing Committee on Health study the status of health and health care within Indigenous communities in Canada, including status, non-status, on-reserve, off-reserve and urban Indigenous populations, with the objective of better understanding the particular health care needs of this population and the gaps in service delivery, review the effectiveness of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada, and report its findings to the House.

We already heard a couple of disturbing things last meeting. We heard that it took two years for the department to present information to its patient groups about changes to a number of X-rays. We heard issues of a report that should have been done by Health Canada that wasn't done. We heard that even if they have nurses stations, they might not be able to provide the services. There are issues here.

I also was thinking about Mr. Van Kesteren's comments about diabetes and sugar. I have a feeling that issue will probably come up in the context of indigenous health. It will be wide open because I suspect that rates of diabetes, and diet, access to poor food and sugary drinks and that, will be part of what we will hear, as some of the causative elements of poor health in indigenous communities.

I think by just mentioning a target group, it allows us to touch on a number of issues, and maybe even explore issues like organ donation, if there's an interest in that. What is the status of access to organ donation in indigenous communities? It's very wide for us to look into different aspects of it. In terms of waiting, as I said, this was the third or fourth motion moved two years ago. It's been on the docket longer than anything else. It has the advantage of being prioritized by this committee. Again, I think we all agree that the state of health care in our indigenous communities is really disturbing. People's lives and health are at stake here.

Although every issue raised by my colleagues is important, this one is the most important in my view, because these are the people in this country who are most in need of health care, who have the poorest health outcomes of any Canadians. If we're not focusing our attention on them, then I don't know who we focus our attention on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Gladu, I told them earlier that you and I had met with the Auditor General this morning. I told them about the discussion we had. This was one of the things that came up. This discussion came up. We talked about the Auditor General's report. I don't know if you remember, but they said that aboriginal children have twice as many cavities as non-aboriginal children. It's water, nutrition, and so on.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Did you [Inaudible—Editor] the suggestion we had from that to talk about here at the health committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I did. We're going to proceed in a little different fashion.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I was wondering if Mr. Davies could read the motion again. I think we're going to take a two-minute time out. I totally agree with everything he has said about the importance of the study, the at-risk nature of these communities, people living in the community, and the very poor health outcomes that are there. They're very dramatically different from other Canadians in terms of incidence of disease.

Could you read the motion again?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Sure. The motion reads:

That the Standing Committee on Health study the status of health and health care within Indigenous communities in Canada, including status, non-status, on-reserve, off-reserve and urban Indigenous populations, with the objective of better understanding the particular health care needs of this population and the gaps in service delivery, review the effectiveness of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada, and report its findings to the House.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Can we have a two-minute time out?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're back.

Our analyst was just telling me, just in the interest of a diabetes study, that it's certainly a big issue in first nations and she's done some work on it.

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much for the pause.

We absolutely agree with the importance of the topic and the issues at hand. Mr. Davies stated that very appropriately, so I won't repeat that.

We have been advised, though, that the indigenous affairs committee has just completed a review of the incidence of suicide on reservations, and in that, they did a fairly broad look at health care and health care support. So we were wondering whether the motion could be deferred. We could ask the analysts perhaps to take a look at that report, and provide us with a review. We could all take a look at it ourselves, I guess.

We wouldn't want to have a similar process to one a committee just did a few months ago, and be back up asking the same questions and looking at the same issues. I think we should know what's in that, and what that committee studied, before we initiate that one. I'm wondering if this motion could be put on hold until we see that.

Our second comment is our understanding is that we would be doing a study of what is under federal jurisdiction. Status on reserve is federal jurisdiction. If people are off the reservation living in urban settings, that's provincial and territorial responsibilities, so maybe not...just to try to narrow this down to a more focused study. I could be wrong in that, but that's my understanding of what is federal jurisdiction and what is provincial and territorial jurisdiction.

I think the first question is what was done by the aboriginal affairs committee so we don't repeat what they just finished doing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Just as a coincidence, my seatmate is the chair of the aboriginal affairs committee, and we were looking at isolated aboriginal communities today on the Internet. The pictures there, they are less than third world, some of them. So there is a lot of work to do there.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

On the first point, I think that's reasonable. I'd be agreeable to deferring this motion to the next meeting on the proviso that we talk about it at the beginning of the next meeting and we'll have an answer on it. It gives us a chance to think about it as well.

On the second issue, I'm pretty sure that the responsibility of the federal government is not limited to reserves. Certainly, status Indians still are accessing services and are being covered by the federal government even when they live in Vancouver. I was just talking to someone in my office last week who was having difficulty getting some coverage for something through the department.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

So we'll deal with this issue first thing on Tuesday.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes, we can defer it. It gives us a chance to find out what the scope of the study was on the indigenous....

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I'm going to deal with it at the end of the meeting on Tuesday.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll deal with the motion, but thanks very much for everybody's co-operation and handling of this. I appreciate it very much.

We're adjourning the meeting at 4:30 p.m., just like we said we would.