Health Committee on Feb. 26th, 2018

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Was it March 19?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The main estimates would be in May? When are they proposed to be?

[The Clerk]

Last year it was in April.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I have to agree with Mr. Davies. At the end of the day, she can decide what she is going to do. The supplementary estimates won't address pharmacare, but the main estimates may give us some indication. It could be that it serves a purpose for her to appear twice.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

When was she here last?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

It was two weeks ago.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

It could be a good exercise for her to appear here twice. I don't think she'd be wasting her time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.

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

Thank you, Chair.

When she was here on Bill S-5, my colleagues and I had some questions about health care spending and related things, but we restricted our questions to Bill S-5. I would prefer to have a chance to ask her more questions. Some of the questions we have are more general, on spending for health initiatives. We could ask them in regard to the supplementary estimates, so I'd prefer to keep that date.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We don't have a consensus. Should we have a vote?

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

Excellent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are there any other comments?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Is there any other business we have to deal with right now?

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Given that March 19 is now freed up, I'm going to move my motion. I served notice of it today. I would normally have given 48 hours' notice, but we are now in committee business, and I'll just read it. I move:

That, pursuant to standing order 108(2), this Committee convene a meeting as soon as possible to hear from representatives of the more than forty previously funded community-based HIV organizations across Canada that will be forced to close or reduce services when their funding is eliminated by the Public Health Agency of Canada effective April 1, 2018.

I think many people in this room may have been contacted by these groups. They're across the country. I would propose that we have one meeting on March 19 to hear from them. I think it's timely because it's before April 1. This would be a chance to influence the government on this issue before these groups have to close their doors. One of them is the Canadian AIDS Society. I met with executive director Gary Lacasse, who told me they're closing their doors April 1 if they don't get this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.

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

I have to agree very strongly with Mr. Davies. I also received a visit, and as I understand it, the government has cut all of the care and support in order to focus on the prevention side of things. The funding is not a lot of money, just $6 million for some of these that have to close up April 1. There are 15,000 people across Canada with HIV, and this would leave them without a network of care and support. I think it is worth an urgent debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are there any other thoughts on this?

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Could we have a five-minute huddle?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay, you have five minutes to have a huddle. I'll time it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Congratulations. You took three minutes and 29 seconds.

Is there any comment on the motion of Mr. Davies?

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

I agree with this in principle. We've just acknowledged, however, that we have a packed schedule, and we've just rescinded an invitation to the minister because we are so busy. We have more than enough on our plate, and for that reason I don't think I could support this motion. We have too much going on right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We've agreed to have two more meetings on the food guide. We were just talking about when we would do the food guide and we don't have a hole for it yet, so we're not even going to talk about it today.

Are there any other comments on that?

[The Clerk]

Are we going to vote on Mr. Davies' motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We're going to vote on it now.

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Could I have a recorded vote, Mr. Chair?