Health Committee on Dec. 5th, 2017

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

My guess might have been that it was a misunderstanding of what went out in our consultation, because we didn't talk about food groups in the same way we did them and they didn't see a.... I'm just guessing at that, to be honest there.

When you actually look in the consultation, we do make recommendations of what we consider to be proteins and we put dairy in there as well. At no point have we stated that we're not going to do it. We don't know exactly how we're going to present this to Canadians.

What we heard was that Canadians were having trouble understanding the present food guide so we're trying to be creative and think of different ways that you can actually get dietary guidance out to Canadians. That might very well end up being where you have a pattern with different sorts of food groups, but it might be something very different. We know there are countries like Brazil that have come out with dietary guidance and it doesn't use this concept of food groups. We're doing a lot of public opinion research. We're trying to get at what works for you and what sorts of messages, and then how you want to get those messages. We're trying to learn from Canadians in terms of what works best for them.

Of course, we're getting a lot of input from different types of experts to help us get there as well.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. The time is up.

[A voice]

They do have an app.

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

I just found it as well. There is a free app.

I'm sorry. Can I get back to them right now?

There is a free app available and still for a BlackBerry as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much. That completes our session today.

I definitely want to thank our witnesses for their great information and also the committee members for their great questions. You never know where you're going to come from, so it's really good.

I had one question. In your opening statement, Dr. Hutchinson, you said that you'll start to release this information in 2018. What exactly is the time frame for this?

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

What exactly is that time frame? Where we are right now, of course, is with respect to the policy report, so that it has overarching healthy eating recommendations. It's about a 50- or 60-page document, probably, that is really focused on health professionals, decision-makers, and policy-makers. We're trying to move forward on that. We're hopeful that in about mid-2018 or so we will be able to release that.

Then, of course, we're working quite hard in trying to figure out the right way to get information out using the new technologies. We are hopeful that will be in 2018. I don't know exactly what the date is on that. It depends on how the developmental process goes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

This is not imminent right away. You have quite a bit of work to do.

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

This is not happening in two weeks or even in two months.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Again, I want to thank you all very much.

Dr. Critch, I often think it must be difficult to sit there in front of a TV camera all by yourself, so thank you very much for your patience and your work with us. We appreciate your information.

With that, I'm going to suspend the meeting. We have a little bit of committee business to do. We'll say goodbye to our guests, suspend the meeting, and then resume. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We will reconvene on a couple of things.

I think I was the one who proposed that we do a study on wait times in provinces. The Auditor General has informed us that he's not allowed to do that, so that solves that problem nicely.

Ms. Gladu.

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

Chair, if I could just refresh...? I hadn't understood that's what we were going to ask the Auditor General in a letter. The Auditor General actually shared that they're part of an interprovincial organization. The provinces all do their own audits. We can't directly audit the health care system, but we could ask the Auditor General to try to get the provinces to audit health outcomes, such as wait times, doctor shortages, etc., in the health system. Then our Auditor General would do the overall summary for the nation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I don't know....

What do you think?

[Karin Phillips, Committee Researcher]

I think you'd probably need some guidance from the Auditor General on that aspect. Technically speaking, the Office of the Auditor General will only investigate things within its mandate, which are federal government departments and agencies.

In the area of health, they did do a collaborative audit. The area was e-health, where each province did theirs, and then the federal Office of the Auditor General did an audit of Canada Health Infoway.

From a federal perspective, you could request that the Auditor General audit Canadian institutes of health information that report on wait times on a broad area. You can write the letter. You can request it. They can always say no. That's their prerogative to—

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

It was just an idea that had come when we were asked to meet with the Auditor General. They talked about the things they would do and wanted to know what kinds of things we might be interested in doing.

If there's an appetite, great. If there's not, it's not a big deal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

All we can do is request that the Auditor General do that, if that is the wish of the team.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think we've scheduled this business to discuss my motion to study indigenous health. I'd like to take that motion off the table and move it, and hopefully vote on it. I did have a chance to go back and look at the history of this, and also some of the concerns raised by my colleagues.

There are a couple of things, and I'll be brief about it. On February 22, 2016, the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure of the Standing Committee on Health—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are you talking about the study on indigenous health?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Can we just do the wait-time issue first and get that done?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

What is the wait-time issue?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We talked about it last week. It's about asking the Auditor General to do a study on comparative wait times, by province. He was glad we made a recommendation...or suggested we write the letter. I was told that the Auditor General doesn't have a mandate to do that. He does have a mandate to collect information from the provinces but not do the audit—obviously.

What is the wish of the committee? Should we send a letter to the Auditor General and ask him to see what he can do on a comparative wait-time study? Is that the consensus?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

All right, we'll do that.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I don't know what we're doing here. This is the responsibility of the provinces. It's the provinces' and territories' job to manage their service delivery to make sure there's reasonable access to it.

What's our agenda on this one? What's the question that we're asking? Why is it health committee business that we're asking it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

In my view—and I think I brought it up—in my province I think we have more doctors per person than any other province, but we have longer wait times.