Health Committee on Jan. 29th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

We go now to Mr. Barlow. Please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Rempel Garner has said much of what I was going say. I understand Mr. Van Bynen's motion and what he's trying to achieve, but I don't think this report should.... If the analysts have the time, they're able to manage that and they want to work on that in their own time, I can understand that, but that report should not in any way interfere with the ongoing study of this committee into what is now going into vaccines.

As part of the mental health study, we've heard from the witnesses that one of the root causes of people's stress, mental health and anxiety right now is not knowing when access to vaccines is going to be happening and not having home-based and rapid testing. If we really want to address people's mental health, we have to give them some answers. On those answers right now, the most critical thing is vaccines and where they are and what the distribution plan is going to be.

I have nothing against Mr. Van Bynen's motion, as long as that study in no way impedes what this committee is going to be doing next into vaccines. Mr. Davies may have a further point in regard to the fact that the NDP's priority is going to come up after the vaccine study. He may see that as equally important to how the Conservative members on this committee feel on the vaccine.

I agree that the impact on mental health as a result of COVID is immense and profound. We've all heard that from our witnesses. We've seen the statistics that have been released. We saw the suicide numbers from across Canada as a result of an Order Paper question released yesterday. Alberta, my province, was the second-highest in the country, behind Ontario. We understand the impact this is having, but the root cause and the number one priority with Canadians that I think all of us are hearing right now is vaccines—where are they?

Unfortunately, the news just keeps getting worse and worse every day. Our Alberta health minister earlier this week came out saying that we are getting zero deliveries this week. Our delivery access from the feds will be reduced by 80%, with 63,000 fewer vaccines provided to Albertans in this quarter. That is unacceptable. We need answers.

Mr. Van Bynen, I appreciate your push on the mental health aspect. I support that, but I cannot support this motion if it in any way impedes our study on vaccines.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Davies, please go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Yes, it's hard to debate this specific motion after hearing such impactful testimony, but what I want to do is broaden the discussion. We've been studying COVID since last February. We've heard a lot of evidence on a lot of subjects between February and now. Of course, with the prorogation, that ended that evidence. If my memory is correct, we adopted all that evidence when we struck the new committee, and we carried on with our study.

My concern is that, as impactful as the evidence we've heard over the last few weeks on mental health has been, we've heard a lot of impactful evidence on a lot of issues. I'm concerned that selecting one issue out of all of the different subjects and important areas that we've heard about, and then occupying the committee's attention on that one particular issue, doesn't do justice to many of the other issues we have. It kind of prioritizes one particular issue out of these things. I think a very strong case has just been made by Michelle and John that if an interim report were to be issued on anything right now, it probably should be on vaccines or the next thing. I don't think it does violence to anybody's position that all of these issues are important. It's just that the real question before us is that, in the middle of this study, do we really want to stop and isolate one aspect of it and then devote very precious and scarce committee time to that particular issue?

I think I can say at the same time that I think mental health is extremely important, but I don't know that it stands alone, among all of the issues we're facing in COVID, as being the issue that we should stop and focus on.

With respect to Michelle's case, I always admire her work ethic. I'm starting to understand why she was voted the hardest-working parliamentarian. I'm not as hard-working, I don't think. Actually, the truth is that we're really stretched. I mean, we have two committee meetings a week. I know that some of us are on more than one committee. I'm also on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which meets four hours a week. We also have our caucus meetings and our question periods. We have our constituency work as well. Of course, maybe it's my unique situation, along with Luc, but we're just one on this committee. There are no substitutions allowed. There's just one of us. So I don't think the answer is to develop more meetings. That would be very difficult to schedule.

It's up to Mr. Van Bynen, but I'm wondering if you might consider withdrawing the motion or tabling it. We could reconsider this maybe after we've heard at least the first priority of each of the parties on this study. We've just completed the first theme. The Liberals chose mental health. Conservatives are choosing vaccines. The NDP's and the Bloc's issues are yet to come. I thought maybe at the end of that first priority, since we have four each, we could revisit this idea there. Maybe at that time we could review the major themes we've had and at that point consider doing an interim report, which I think is not a bad idea. Perhaps we can pick four or five or six or seven issues that we might want to select out of the many issues we've focused on over what's coming up to a year. We could issue an interim report, not just on one particular issue but on several. Perhaps that would be a logical break time for us to consider the wisdom of doing an interim report.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Ms. Sidhu, go ahead, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to remind the committee that we have scheduled the witnesses. There is no wish to.... It's one year of work. It will take time for the analysts to do the report. Ministers are coming. We are all willing to do the vaccine study. Witnesses are already scheduled for next week.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

Mr. Van Bynen, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me be clear that there was no intent to delay the study on vaccines. I think that's an important issue, which I think we all want to make sure we study. We're looking at options on how we might do this. I note that the analysts had indicated that this would be helpful for them. Going back over materials and things we heard a long time ago makes it difficult for us, I think, to capture what we heard in these last number of meetings.

I had in mind that, if need be, I'd be quite willing to participate in additional meetings, as was suggested by Ms. Rempel Garner, during the recess. That was a very welcome suggestion, on my part, so that we could go forward and capture the essence of what we heard. Frankly, I think it's a good idea to do the same thing for vaccines and any of the other programs. I think there's a real benefit for us to do it. If we can find a way to make that happen without delaying our progress on the overall plan, I think we should seriously consider that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

Mr. Thériault, the floor is yours.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I first want to point out that I didn't receive this motion, at least not in French.

That said, I want to talk about methodology. We did some work before the prorogation. However, I haven't seen a single written note of it. I would have liked a reference document, a bit like the notes that we receive before our meetings, simply to continue to give us food for thought. This isn't about embarking on a process of interim or final reports.

We've just completed the series of meetings on the first topic. We decided, after several meetings, that we would work by topic, based on the priorities established by the parties. As Mr. Davies said earlier, before we start working together on any part of an interim report, perhaps we should first go through the topics that the parties want to study. That's one thing.

In terms of mental health, it seems that the analysts could prepare a document, similar to the notes that they give us on a regular basis, which we could read and enhance on our own, depending on our schedules. Before we go any further, let's wait until we've finished addressing at least one of the topics chosen by each party, such as mental health or vaccines. The Bloc Québécois has tried to prioritize elements of the pandemic that haven't already been covered by other parties, to avoid overlap. For example, we shouldn't spend eight or twelve meetings on vaccines. For our part, we haven't thought about this issue yet. We're biased in favour of all the collateral damage, meaning the impact of the pandemic on patients who don't have COVID-19. That said, we aren't announcing anything yet today.

So let's do what Mr. Davies is suggesting. Since there may be an election coming up, we shouldn't lose sight of all this. In terms of methodology, it's important to create a reference document that summarizes what has been said on a given topic. We should have this type of summary at each stage of the study and we should be able to add to it. Once we've finished studying the first topic chosen by each of the four parties, perhaps we can then dedicate meetings to preparing an interim report. That way, we'll stop wasting an incredible amount of time on details. At one point, it took us seven meetings to come up with our methodology. That doesn't make sense.

I want us to have a summary of the work done before the prorogation and to know what was written, out of respect for the people who worked on this. We never discussed this. I understand that we're in an emergency situation. Nevertheless, we could receive this document, which would give us information for our work and enable us to ask even more relevant questions.

If Mr. Van Bynen and the Liberals are serious about scheduling additional meetings to work on an interim report starting now, and if that's the purpose of the meeting this afternoon, I certainly disagree. I hope that my proposal is clear. We should wait until we've studied the first topic chosen by each party before we focus on an interim report. At the end of the study on each topic, the analysts should prepare some type of reference document that would then help us work on an interim report. Right now, I think that we need to manage the crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

We go now to Dr. Powlowski. Please go ahead.

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

Thank you.

I don't think, in fact, we have disagreement over this issue. We want to get on with the vaccine study too. We're all in the same boat; everyone in Canada is. We all have.... My parents have been staying by themselves in their little house for the past four weeks or something, not able to see their grandchildren. There's an outbreak at my kids' school. None of them got their vaccines. My colleagues in the emergency room haven't gotten their vaccines. We're all in the same boat. We shouldn't all be rowing in different directions, and I don't think we are.

The Liberals do not want this to impede getting on with the vaccine study. In my reading, that wasn't the intent. I would have thought that perhaps the analysts could start putting together the material while we continue, as planned, with bringing the ministers here and bringing in the other people on the vaccine issue.

We're not being passive-aggressive. I want to be aggressive. Bring the vaccine people here. Let us ask them the questions. Let everybody.... Let Michelle ask them the hard questions, because we want answers. We're not trying to hide anything. I want to ask the questions, too.

It certainly wasn't the intent to put off the vaccine study, because we all agree that it is overwhelmingly the most important issue facing the country right now.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

We go now to Mr. Maguire. Please, go ahead.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The mental health issue has been on everybody's mind as well, but as we said earlier on, one of the best ways to help solve that is to learn more about vaccines and when we're going to have them available.

As Ms. Sidhu said, the meetings have already been set for Monday, Friday and going forward on vaccines, with the ministers coming in next week. As Ms. Rempel said, I wouldn't want to do anything to disrupt the process that's going for vaccines. I know that was a priority for Don's team as well, and I concur with the comments of Mr. Davies. He's absolutely accurate in regard to making sure we're not interrupting what's going on.

I wouldn't even mind having that.... It's a good idea to look at taking the first priority of each party and doing an interim report on those at the end as well. There is a need for each one of them to be done in a similar manner, but then we're breaking up what we said we would do in the agreement to start with. We said we would have two studies, one on the medical prices review board and the one on COVID, which included mental health, vaccines and other issues like PPE and such.

The only thing I'd be concerned about, if there is going to be discussion on an interim report on mental health, is that we look at it as taking some extra meetings. I believe our colleague from the Bloc, Luc—he can correct me if I'm wrong—just indicated that he wasn't on side with that.

I would look at proposing some wording for an amendment, Mr. Chair, that any meetings related to the drafting or review of this interim report be held over parliamentary constituency weeks. We have one of those coming up the week after next. We already know what we're doing next week. If the staff feel they have the time to put towards this interim review on mental health discussions that we've heard about in detail from all of our witnesses, and provided that any discussion we would have on that review would be done during those weeks, I would make that as an amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Maguire. That is so moved, although it restricts our scope of action. It means we can't add time to existing meetings. Anyway, that's your amendment.

The discussion is on the amendment.

Ms. Rempel, go ahead.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Chair, I was just wondering if Mr. Maguire could clarify his wording for me. I was listening to it. I just wanted to clarify that what he was moving as an amendment to the motion was that the wording “interim report” be changed to “summary of evidence”, per Mr. Thériault's suggestion, dating back before prorogation, and that any meetings relating to the drafting review of this interim report be held over parliamentary constituency weeks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That was not Mr. Maguire's amendment, as I recall. He was just adding the request or the requirement that we deal with any meeting relating to review and approval of such a report during constituency weeks. His amendment did not change the nature of the report to be a summary of evidence.

Mr. Kelloway, please go ahead.

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

Thanks, Chair.

There's some really good discussion happening here. To start off, MP Michelle Rempel Garner made some good points in terms of the heaviness of not just today but this whole pandemic and how it impacts mental health. It's personal for me on multiple levels. What I heard today reinforced a lot of things I've seen in my own community and in my own family.

I want to go back to where Dr. Lalonde talked about pragmatic and practical approaches to this. Again, being somewhat relatively new to this job—I'll be able to say that for only so long—when we look at interim reports.... Again, I guess this is on the elasticity of the analysts, but I personally would be happy to do an interim report on the things that happened and were discussed before mental health. We could look at ways to bookmark this, with one on mental health and one on vaccines. Is that practical? Is that doable and whatnot? I've been an author of many studies. The worst thing that can happen when you do a study is that it sits on a shelf and gathers moss. Those are a couple of the things I wanted to bring up.

The other aspect of this is how we started off the conversation. To paraphrase it, we don't want this to be a way for the Liberal members to slow down discussion on vaccine, or meetings on vaccine, or whatever the case may be. You know, that to me is such a.... I'm trying to find the words here and I can't really find them. There is no way, in any reality check, that we would do that. Would anybody do that? Would anybody on this panel do that? Would any party delay a discussion on vaccines that is already lined up?

My hope is that throughout these sessions, because it is wartime, we sit down and.... Again, we can critique the hell out of each other and our parties' stances on this, but I wonder if we can start with the practical first and then work at the political second.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Maguire seems to have misunderstood my comments, and I seem to have misunderstood his comments. We both agree with Mr. Davies' suggestion that we should consider each party's priority before preparing an interim report. However, he's moving an amendment that contradicts this idea. I don't support this amendment.

I agree with Mr. Davies' idea. It would be worthwhile for the analysts to provide a summary, which we could work on separately. We could then address the topic of vaccines, then the topic proposed by the Bloc Québécois, and then the topic chosen by the NDP. We could then table an interim report. Rather than having a big document to work on afterwards, it would be good to receive a document that we could enhance at each stage. That way, once we get to the meeting on the interim report, we would save a great deal of time. That's what I said.

Since I support Mr. Davies' proposal, I don't see the need to hold meetings next week in order to work on an interim report before we move on to another topic.

We don't want to stop anyone from working. I'm not questioning the motives of my Liberal friends. They want us to keep working. I assume that they're acting in good faith. I believe that we can prepare an interim report only after each party has determined its priority.

I want to remind you that the motion passed in the House involved a study on COVID-19 that included topics that we could propose. We decided to start with mental health, and that has now been done. We can move on to another topic. We'll also be effective when the time comes to prepare an interim report.

In short, I don't understand why Mr. Maguire is moving this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Maguire, go ahead, please.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can certainly agree with Mr. Thériault more now. I am much more clear on what he was looking at.

Mr. Chair, would it be possible to add 15 minutes to the next meeting so that we could have a separate part to discuss this at that time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think it would be possible, if it's the will of the committee to do so.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I would make that as a suggestion. We could discuss this further at that time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I think what we're looking for here is a motion to amend to a date certain, which I believe is in order. If it's not, I will ask the clerk to step up.

If that's your will, Mr. Maguire, I suggest you make a motion to adjourn the debate until Monday after our witness testimony.