Health Committee on Jan. 29th, 2020

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, there are still a few members here who I'm sure would like to ask some questions. There are a couple on our side, and I know there's someone on your side over there. I'd like to have at least an opportunity for them to ask questions of these witnesses. I believe that would be at least three more rounds.

Again, the unanimous consent motion didn't have an end time. The clerk took it upon himself to put an end time on this. However, I would like to proceed until we exhaust all questions on all sides of the floor here.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I have some very serious questions that have not been answered at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Are the witnesses able to stick around longer?

How about we do one more round?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

If we could, until all the questions are exhausted.... I believe that's the intent.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That's pretty open-ended. Let's start with one more round and see where we're at.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

The unanimous consent motion had no end time, Mr. Chair. If we could, again, in terms of the seriousness of this committee, I think putting no end time on it is appropriate at this time. As we go along, I am open to assessing it, but I certainly don't want to put a hard end stop on it if we're finding out details in the moment.

I am happy to do it ad hoc as we go, but just to say “one more round” I think is.... We have at least three more questioners.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Fisher, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chair, obviously this would be at the will of the committee, but perhaps we would like to retain the ability to bring these folks back again sometime because this is such an evolving issue. I've heard an awful lot about where we are today, but this is evolving so quickly that we might have totally different information in a week. We could do it on a case-by-case basis if the committee so deems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Are there any other comments?

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Yes, I have a comment. This is an emergency situation here right now. We have this special meeting set up here today to get some questions answered. We have the presenters here today, and—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

We agree.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Oh, you agree. Okay. Fantastic.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

All right. Then I have nothing more to say.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

But also in addition we'll have them back if they can....

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We have already proposed that we continue these briefings next week. In that regard, I don't know if you've seen the list of witnesses that Ms. Sidhu has suggested. She will share them with the clerk. The clerk will share them with everyone.

If you have any further witnesses you want to put on the list, I'll work with the clerk to try to arrange their presence if we can. I'm reluctant to go open-ended on this because I don't think it's fair to our witnesses. Let's start with one more round and see where we get.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

The only thing with that, Mr. Chair, is that some of us won't be able to ask our questions. Can we make sure that everybody gets a chance to ask questions?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

With one more round, we would have two Conservative slots, two more Liberal slots, and the Bloc and the NDP. Okay? Will we do one more round?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

For how many minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Five minutes.

We're starting with the Conservative Party and Mr. Webber.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Namiesniowski, thank you for your presentation. You talked a bit about travel and the concerns about international travel. You said to check with travel.gc.ca, so I went online, and of course for China you're to avoid “non-essential travel”. For Hubei province, you are to avoid “all travel”. Are there in fact Canadians still travelling over there currently? I know that is a difficult question to answer, but are you hearing of Canadians still travelling to these areas?

[Tina Namiesniowski]

Mr. Chair, I don't think we would have information that would enable us to answer that question.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I didn't think so, but I thought I would try anyway. There is certainly a concern with people travelling over there.

Many are suggesting that we implement a travel ban. Others say that it's not necessary right now. It sounds like that's what you're saying in your health department. Who determines that? Can you answer this question? Who determines whether or not there would be a travel ban put in place? What thresholds are needed before a travel ban would be implemented?

[Tina Namiesniowski]

I'll ask my colleague Dr. Tam to answer that question, because there's definitely an expectation that the World Health Organization has of countries with respect to imposing restrictions on trade and travel.

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Again, the WHO International Health Regulations Emergency Committee will meet tomorrow. They will have some recommendations.