Health Committee on Oct. 9th, 2020

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I think a lot of excellent concerns were raised. Dr. Powlowski raised a couple of excellent concerns, and if he looks at the motion, I think he'll see that all of his concerns are completely taken care of. I'm happy about that.

For instance, in terms of it being limited, the motion explicitly says, “that this study evaluate, review and examine all issues relevant to this situation, including the following”. One of his concerns was that he thought the motion may be too restrictive. It's open to everything.

Second, he raised a concern about the redaction around national security or personal privacy. Both of those criteria are mentioned explicitly in the motion as being grounds for redaction, so that concern is taken care of.

The third concern was was prioritization. He was concerned that there was no prioritization. Let's remember what we studied last session. What we were studying was the government's response to COVID. That was the topic that was given us. There was no prioritization in that either. Of course, if anything, this motion is far more prioritized than anything I've seen.

I think it remains open to us to make the priorities we want anyway. Nothing in this motion says that we have to study anything in any particular order. I would suggest that once we adopt this motion, if it is the pleasure of the committee to do that, then we sit down and we do what we did last time. We break this down into themes. We start getting witnesses together. We start the task of rolling up our sleeves and getting at it.

I don't see any problem with prioritization. As well, when you go through the items that are listed as issues that we want to look at, it emerges pretty quickly, I think, which ones may be higher priority than others.

I also just wanted to say that I don't see any petty politics here. There's no ganging up on anybody. This motion has the support of the majority of people on this committee and the majority of parties, though it may not be the motion the Liberal Party wants to study.

Might I remind you that Liberals came to this committee with a motion of their own. They wanted to study the impacts of COVID on mental health, which again is laudable. This motion just says that we want to study far more than that. Once again, I have to sort of gently but categorically reject any notion that this is complex.

It's basically no more than just saying that this committee wants to continue studying COVID-19. It just has listed a number of specific areas that we want to look at, which, now in October of 2020, this committee is far better placed to identify. We couldn't do that back in February when we got the motion from the House. We didn't even know what to study. It was just to study everything in the government's response to COVID, which we did very well.

I think that was everything I wanted to mention. I think we should go ahead and adopt this motion. Then, perhaps at our next meeting, we could decide to sort of prioritize these, start the process of witness selection and get to the job that Canadians want us to do, which I think all of us here want to do at this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We go now to Mr. Van Bynen. Mr. Van Bynen, go ahead, please.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're hearing a lot of anecdotal evidence about the second pandemic and the increased risk that some people may have in terms of depression, psychological distress, substance abuse and PTSD. I very much appreciate my colleague Mr. Davies's passion towards the urgency of the situation.

One of my concerns is that we are lacking focus on this. If we have too many priorities, we have no priorities. There are a considerable number of requests, and frankly, if we're talking about transparency, I think transparency is the obligation to give others the opportunity to read what is being proposed and an adequate amount of time to consider what's being proposed. I don't think that's the case with this motion. I have not had an opportunity to go through it in detail.

I think, in the interests of transparency and openness, that we should all be given an opportunity to review it and find out what the implications are. With some of the documents that were being produced or that were requested to be produced, we had a considerable amount of discussion on that in committee previously. As I said earlier, we have had 34 meetings, 171 witnesses and 51 briefs, and we've yet to hear what that has produced in things we should be considering on a go-forward basis. We've invested a lot of time already and we haven't heard the recommendations or the analysis as we go forward.

The study I have proposed would provide us with a better understanding of the current situation relative to mental health and its impact on mental health. It would enable and provide us with a more informed strategy on mental health and on well-being as we go forward.

We've spent a considerable amount of money in dealing with the early stages of mental health, and I think it's important for us to understand how effective those items are. With this study we would understand the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and well-being of Canadians.

In this motion I see nowhere where it says that we would want to take a look at high-risk groups like indigenous people, racialized Canadians and vulnerable populations, and I think it's important that we take a look at the socio-economic implications that would require us to develop different programs. A general, all-encompassing motion such as what we have before us now takes away the opportunity for us to focus on areas that we need to put an early focus on.

If I recall what we heard from one of the witnesses, it was that if we had focused on what was in the curve as opposed to focusing on the curve itself, we might have had some better results. There is no mention of any of that in this motion.

My concern is that as we go forward with such a broad mandate, we're losing the ability to focus on priority areas, and I think we need to give close consideration to that. When I say “close consideration”, please give us a week to read the document, to consider all the aspects, to look at the implications.

In terms of the document I proposed, I had fully anticipated that if it needed to be referred, I was quite prepared to be transparent in that respect and to permit others an opportunity to give full consideration to that document. That's not happening here, and it's a bit of a disappointment that the proposal with respect to what I consider to be the second pandemic, for which there is no vaccine, was so summarily dismissed, and now it's buried deep between two pages of small-font documents. I think that's totally unfair to people who are suffering at a very critical time.

I would ask that we be given the opportunity to review this in more detail. I know we can go chapter and verse in rules and regulations, and that's fine, and I think they're in place for a reason. Let's respect everyone's desire to make a thorough decision, to do a thorough analysis and to come forward with a consensus, which I think can happen with more thorough discussion and debate and an opportunity to review it.

Again, if we have too many priorities, we have no priorities, and this is too much of a shotgun approach for me to be happy with it. I am willing to give it further consideration if people are willing to give me the opportunity to review it in more detail.

I know that a number of things are reflected in this document that we had quite a robust discussion on, and we came to consensus. Why is it that we're rushing into this without providing the transparency of full due consideration?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

I go now to Dr. Powlowski, please. I'll get that straight one of these days.

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

Yes, yes. Don't worry, you'll have another—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry; I skipped over Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher, please go ahead.

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

We could have gone with Dr. Powlowski.

My apologies to Mr. Van Bynen. I was trying my best to scan through this motion while he was speaking. I'm taking a quick look right now, and I see that the motion asks public health officials basically to stop what they're doing to protect Canadians and sift through emails and documents instead.

Gosh, I've got to tell you that these health care professionals, these public health officials, are working hard day and night. As has been said numerous times, we are in a resurgence. Some people call it a second wave; I call it a resurgence. You have these public health officials working with provinces, working with the Province of Quebec and the Province of Ontario to make sure that people are safe.

I would expect that some of these documents could also catch up a lot of correspondence with the provinces. I think about the need to respect our relationship with the provinces and territories. We hear Mr. Thériault in the House of Commons talking about that all the time, about respecting that jurisdictional relationship.

Again, public health officials are working day and night, especially since this resurgence has hit. I think, as I said the previous time I spoke, that it's very important for us to be transparent, and I know that it's very important to Canadians that they understand how officials are working to keep them safe. I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't get to a place where we get that.

I want to make sure that Canadians indeed have access to accurate and reliable information from public health experts. Those public health experts deserve, at this point in the resurgence or the second wave, to focus on the work at hand.

Again, Ontario is in a second wave. Other provinces are seeing case spikes. Chris, Mike and I are fortunate to be wrapped in the loving arms of the Atlantic bubble; however, we're starting to see some cases creep up in Moncton now in a long-term care facility, and I know that Sonia had intentions of moving a motion forward on long-term care, I believe. I didn't see a motion.

Looking again at this motion, it seems like it's all over the map. Our previous study on COVID lacked a little bit of specificity; it was the opposite of this omnibus motion. It was, strictly speaking, to speak about every aspect of COVID; however, when Tony talked about his motion, his motion was specific in an area that of all of the things that... Of all of the witnesses we had and all of the testimony we had, we didn't get very much testimony on the mental health aspect of COVID-19 that I think—Tony, I was trying my best to listen to what you were saying—you were calling the pandemic within the pandemic, or a second pandemic. There was an example of a mental health crisis line in Nova Scotia that was receiving 25 calls a day pre-COVID and 750 calls during COVID.

It certainly is something that needs to be done, and perhaps it's covered in this motion. Again, I haven't been able to drill down in this motion, so very likely there is a mental health aspect to this motion, but again, with my Surface Pro in front of me and my iPhone in my hand, I have not been able to drill down into this motion.

I'm perfectly in agreement that the committee must focus on COVID-19, but I would have been very much in support of focusing on the mental health side. One of the focuses in my community and through our constituency office is the mental health of my constituents. We've held numerous town hall meetings in our riding, and they're all very well attended. What we've come to see pre-COVID is that we have a patchwork of mental health services across this country. That is one of those things that we all in the House of Commons should be working on tackling: how we can assist provinces and territories that have the jurisdiction for much of this stuff. How do we assist them? We don't want to trample on jurisdiction, but we want to be there to help in all things COVID.

If we truly want to be there to help in all things COVID, we have to be a willing partner with provinces and territories. We have to be a willing partner with Quebec and Ontario as it pertains to COVID and as it pertains to the mental health aspect of a pandemic within a pandemic.

Again, I would seek the ability to drill down on this motion, which, on continuous looks, seems to have an awful lot of good stuff in it. I think it's something that we as a committee could work on, much like we did in the last session, when we worked really well as a committee on finding ways to come to an outcome. We very often had unanimous support for folks' suggestions on studies and where to go, especially as it pertained to COVID.

Mr. Chair, I would seek the ability as a member of Parliament to be able to look at this over on Thanksgiving weekend, drill down on this, and perhaps come up with some suggestions for amendments down the road. That is my plea for members of this committee: It's to give that opportunity over this weekend.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

We go now to Dr. Powlowski.

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

I'm happy that you finally got it right for me as “Dr.”, for a change.

With all due respect to Don, I think this is a complex motion. For example, he rightly pointed out that in the preamble it does say that you're looking to “examine all issues” related to the situation. That kind of detail is something that takes time to fully appreciate, to read and to read again, and ask, “Well, is this an inclusive list? No, it's not an inclusive list.”

However, what's in my mind, having spent a bit of time writing health legislation, is that I would have thought the consideration would be that when you make a list, there is a kind of a supposition that those are the priority issues. Okay, you can add other issues, but you have decided to delineate what you think the major issues are, and I think you've missed some. You've missed some of the big issues. For example, there's nothing here about the global response to this pandemic. This is something that's affecting everyone in the world. I think it certainly ethically becomes us to consider what's happening in other countries and our role as Canadians in addressing the difficulties faced by people in other countries. Just as it is in Canada, it's even more so in poor countries that it's the poorest people who are most often adversely affected. There is nothing on this list to suggest that this is at all a concern of ours, nor is there a suggestion that we perhaps have to look at the global health response and look at the future of the global health response in order to prevent this from happening again.

The International Health Regulations give the World Health Organization the authority to issue recommendations in response to an outbreak of disease or a public health emergency of international concern. These obviously need revising. There are things that could be done with those to perhaps make them more effective. One example is a proposal in the International Health Regulations that the WHO be given the power to be able to send independent observers into a country early on in order to determine whether there is something developing. That's not on your list either.

A big concern, as I said before, is indigenous communities. What happens if COVID gets into the indigenous communities? It's not on your list. There's the disruption of the medical health system and the harm to people because they don't want to go to the hospital because of COVID. People aren't going in when they have their heart attacks. We're not doing the investigations we need in order to detect and treat cancer. This has been a pretty major theme and a pretty major concern. That's not on your list. Schools and day cares have obviously been a really big concern in the last month now that schools have restarted. That's not on your list.

You chose to write a list here, and these seem to be our priorities. Why don't we work collectively to decide what our priorities are, rather than you kind of dictating a list of what we think the priorities are? I think you got some of those priorities wrong. The very first thing you talk about is testing. I have to look at the actual wording, because there again, I don't think you got it quite right. You say, “rapid and at home testing approvals and procurement process and schedule, and protocol for distribution”. You're not even looking at the science, the public health of testing, the rationale for testing and how much you can rely on a test. These are fundamental. That's what you do as a doctor. You decide, when you do a test, what you're going to do with that test. This is somewhat complex. It's the negative predictive value of a test you're looking at. This takes time to explain. When you talk about rapid testing, you have to consider the negative and positive predictive value, and that's complex. It depends on the incidence of the disease in the population. You're just jumping right to the conclusion that we want to do rapid testing. Well, I think it's a little more complex than that.

I think, without the Liberals, you've decided that these will be the things we ought to be examining, and I don't think you got it quite right.

That's one thing, and there's certainly no attempt to prioritize what we're going to do. Heck, if we were to have one meeting on each of these things, I don't know if we'd even have time before Christmas to do all those things.

The second thing, a big concern, is the procurement of documents. As Darren has said, certainly a consideration for all of us ought to be possible implications on our relationships with the provinces. Obviously the provinces take the lead in health issues. They have jurisdiction constitutionally for health care. A lot of our response to the pandemic has been in concert with the provinces. Having a good relationship with the provinces is absolutely fundamental. If you're asking for all emails and all communications, I would think almost inevitably there are going to be some things that could potentially harm our relationship with the provinces. It would seem to me that this might not be a really wise idea at this time when our relationships with the provinces are so important.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. We'll go now to Mr. Kelloway.

Go ahead, Mr. Kelloway.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Just to be somewhat of a bookend to Mr. Powlowski, I wonder if there is an appetite to look at having the Liberal members of the committee take a little time—a little time—to look at the motion. I don't know if this motion is good, bad or indifferent, but I want to be part of the solution. I want to be able to speak to it.

I can certainly mute the microphone and read, and do that now, but I don't think any of the people who elected us across the country did so based on our ability to read quickly. It's to think about what we're reading and how we can add to it, how we can contribute to it. That's team Canada. That's a Team Canada approach. It is looking for a specific amount of time to be able to do that, and not necessarily to tear it and rip it apart, but to add quality and contribute to it for the benefit of all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I wonder if that is something that could be discussed here.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. We go now to Mr. Van Bynen.

Go ahead, Mr. Van Bynen.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

“Seniors’ mental health is a highly relevant issue right now”, according to Dr. Mah, who is the associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She further stated:

We know that during the SARS epidemic in 2003, there were increases in psychiatric problems among older adults in areas with large outbreaks of the virus. Today, one-third of people below 65 years of age are experiencing depression and high stress, even when they have not been infected or exposed to COVID-19. These numbers may be even higher in older adults, who are more vulnerable...

Further, I will offer the comments of the assistant professor at the University of Victoria, who said:

But there are some unique features of the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus' ease of transmission compared to others has necessitated, in some regions, much more broad-reaching public health responses. For example, lockdowns of cities, extensive business and school closures.

I don't think we're addressing the issues that are global, as was mentioned by Dr. Powlowski.

The Canadian Medical Health Association stated:

Canadian mental health has taken a severe hit during the pandemic with the nation seeing exploding rates of anxiety and depression, increased use of alcohol and drugs, and difficulty accessing important supports, according to a recent survey from Mental Health Research Canada.

That's as recent as April 2020.

More than half of Canadians feel the federal government and the provincial governments should be doing more to support mental health for Canadians. I am saying this in addition to the United Nations, which said that good mental health is critical to the functioning of society at the best of times, and must be front and centre in every country's response to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The mental health and well-being of whole societies has been severely impacted by this crisis, and it is a priority to be addressed urgently.

When I see that it is one simple bullet point on two small-font recommendations, I believe that we are missing an opportunity. I know we have seen an awful lot of finger-wagging and accusations that we should have done more sooner when we got engaged and responded to the pandemic that we are now in.

This is my point. We now have an opportunity to get ahead of what I refer to as the “second pandemic”, and it would be on us if we didn't take the appropriate steps to make sure that we acted when we could. That's one of the reasons I brought my own motion forward.

Now is the time for us to focus on containing the issue that we have and, in part, some of these recommendations will help. I'm not sure the production of documents is a productive step forward, but we can work our way through that. Now is the time for us to be proactive and deal with what lies ahead of us. What lies ahead of us in mental health is something that concerns me deeply. I've seen its effect on members in my community.

This is not a pandemic we're going to fix with a vaccine. This is something that requires very careful early thought, and to be one of such a number of broad statements does injustice to people who are suffering from the mental health pandemic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We will now go to Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As my colleague said before, what is in this motion? Yes, testing is important, and I didn't get a chance to read all of this, but what is in it? That is why, on the last statement, I said we need to set our priorities.

Mr. Fisher mentioned a very important point, which is that public health officials will have to work to produce documents to address this motion while case numbers are rising in Quebec and Ontario, let alone the fact that this weekend people will gather for Thanksgiving and we likely could see more cases arise. Today we have over 900 cases in Ontario, and Quebec cases have been over 1,000 a day while Ontario has seen, far and away, the largest case total today. In my riding, case numbers are also rising.

This Thanksgiving weekend has the potential to be a super-spreader weekend. That is what people are saying. This is what our public health officials are concerned about. We must take time to properly analyze and then listen to public health officials, and, with this motion, ensure that we are not overburdening public officials whose job it is to keep our constituencies safe. We need to be cognizant. There is a significant amount of personal information that needs to be protected.

I need to add that operational details and action taken by other orders of government would also likely be caught up in this surge, and it is important for them to be consulted beforehand as well. Materials that do not contain this information can be publicly shared, as requested, but we need to be mindful of privacy issues as well. The hard-working public servants who are doing the critical work to help Canadians and keep people safe would be forced to redirect their efforts to filling these orders. Our teams and departments are in regular communication with the provinces and territories. They are wrapped up in all of our communications.

This is a time to focus on Canadians' health. It is more important. Making some of these documents public at this time could put Canadians' positions at risk as we are trying to resolve the issues.

Mr. Chair, we need to turn on the light of discussion, hear from witnesses and do a proper study so that Canadians are not falling through the cracks. This is an urgent and important study, and through it we can make a real difference.

Mr. Van Bynen's motion would ensure that we study that right away. This is very important. I cannot stress it more. I know when I meet with my youth council, my constituents and stakeholders, I hear how this pandemic is exposing how broken our mental health system already is and how much we need to focus on that. We must invest in community mental health programs and services, especially for our isolated seniors. We need to improve on that. We need to improve our nationwide suicide prevention plan. These are very important topics, along with long-term care, and there are many more.

That is why we need time to read this, to prioritize the study and to read what is in it. We need to bring that in too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

We go again to Mr. Kelloway. Go ahead, please.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

There's a lot of good discussion here on all sides of the aisle.

To go back to just the amount of time, I know that next week is a constituency week, but if there were an opportunity to have the weekend to review—I don't know the procedures for this, Mr. Chair or Clerk—to be able to come back to have that complete discussion, to have what is needed to move forward in whatever form or fashion.... I'm wondering if that is something that the members opposite are open to, to give us the weekend to do so. Is there a possibility, then, to form the meeting during the constituency week if possible, to be able to have that time to, again, simply digest what has been presented in the last half-hour?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We go now to Mr. Fisher.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just noticed that we also have a notice of motion from Mr. Barlow, as well as from Mr. Thériault, but it's too small to read.

We started this meeting by shutting down debate on Mr. Van Bynen's motion. We didn't get a chance to hear the motion from Ms. Sidhu. I can't read this because it is too small, but this could be very important. I don't know if other members have seen Mr. Thériault's motion.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

I have a point of order.

He can't start talking about other motions.

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

Is that in English and French, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you for the point of order.

It's Mr. Fisher's time. He can use it as he pleases.

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

The member is actually right on that. My thinking is that we are here in our first meeting. This is what we've traditionally done, whether it be a blue-sky discussion or business meetings, as you called them, or we sit around and talk as a committee about which motions are the ones we want to move forward on.

Again, my apologies for not being able to read this small print on my iPad, but maybe this motion of Mr. Thériault is extremely important to Mr. Thériault and maybe it's very important to the rest of the committee. I don't know. Again, Mr. Chair, you call it a business meeting, where we sit down as a committee and ask what the most important thing is. What do we want to talk about? What motion, and how might we come to an agreement on a potential motion? Do we amend it? Do we take it holus-bolus as is?

There's been a lot of talk about the transparency of having a two-page motion that one truly can't digest while sitting here listening to the comments of all the other folks on the virtual meeting. I wish I could read Mr. Thériault's motion here. My apologies for it being such small print. I'd like to look at Mr. Barlow's and Mr. Thériault's motions—and Ms. Vecchio is right—as they relate to what we are deciding to do for our first meeting.

I believe there was also a motion at the end, before our proroguing, that was going to continue some of the things that we've done. It was also going to potentially resurrect or save some of the things that we had in the past. All options should be on the table. However, all options are off the table today because we won't get to Mr. Thériault's study and we won't get to Mr. Barlow's study, assuming that they are studies. We won't get to what I truly feel is a very important study with Mr. Van Bynen. We won't get to a very important study that means an awful lot to MP Sidhu.

I would love to see us continue discussion on this motion the next time we meet and have some time to digest it, talk about it, and think about ways it might be amended, so that maybe we can get to a point where everybody agrees. I believe there's value in having a blue-sky meeting or a conversation about what the priorities are and whose motion has the support of the committee. It very well might be Ms. Rempel Garner's motion. It may very well be that we read Mr. Thériault's motion over the weekend and think it has merit and might be something worth looking at first. Again, we don't have that opportunity with this discussion today.

This is something that deserves a further drill-down on the details. It would be very helpful, certainly for this member.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Thériault, go ahead.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I don't know if this is a matter of procedure, but I would like to know how we will operate in the future. When the committee is convened, will we unduly prolong the committee meeting because the Liberals do not agree with what is on the table, or will we respect the committee notice of meeting? We are really starting off on the wrong foot.

I am a workaholic, I don't count my hours, but my schedule is organized. Everyone has an organized schedule, which is important. Time is equally important for everyone. Yet we have now gone 22 minutes over the allocated time. You have not said anything, repeated anything or pointed out the fact. I am a bit disappointed in the way the work is being aligned today.

In my case, it's clear. As of 3:30 p.m., I'm no longer available. Obviously, we will be able to continue to move motions. I'm not too concerned about my motion, as I know I will have another opportunity to move it. I also know that we have the important deadline of January 1.

Mr. Chair, tell us how you want to operate because this is not working well for me. When a convocation is issued by the Office of the Clerk, I think it should be respected. So I am asking you the question, Mr. Chair. How do you want to operate? Will we go over the allocated time every time the Liberals don't agree?