Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Good morning, everybody. As we know, the weather across the country is varied, but we're here today and ready to do some good work.

Welcome to meeting number 18 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. The committee is meeting today as requested per Standing Order 106(4) and a letter dated February 9 by four members of the committee to discuss their request to undertake a briefing on the emergence of COVID-19 variants in Canada.

Ms. Rempel, I believe it's your motion, if you wish to move it. I believe we all have copies of the letter, so I don't think you need to read it unless you wish to.

Please go ahead.

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

Thanks, Chair.

This has been another week in the health committee during the pandemic, and there have been big changes. In the last week, a few concerning things have happened. First of all, we have had more reports of the British variant in Canada, and I will remind colleagues that this variant was detected in a very tragic and severe outbreak in a Barrie area long-term care facility. Through that tragedy, I think we all saw what this variant could do in Canada.

The South African variant has also been detected in Canada. I think a lot of Canadians are bearing with these long dark days that are cold, but they're also bearing with, in most parts of the country, a second significant lockdown. With provinces looking at potentially lifting some of these restrictions, I think it's incumbent upon our committee to get a briefing on some very pertinent technical information.

In the last week, countries around the world have started to report their concern with this, particularly regarding the ability of domestic vaccination programs to outpace the spread of the variant. Without getting overly partisan here, I think everybody would agree that Canada is behind the rest of the world right now in terms of vaccinating our population.

CNN is reporting on Canada's vaccination status. We have less than 3% of our population vaccinated, while the Americans are at over 10% now, on track to have over 150 million people vaccinated within the first 100 days of President Biden's administration. The U.K. is at 20%.

I think we really need to know a few things. We need to know what the federal government is doing to detect and monitor variants and how they're communicating with the provincial governments on this.

With regard to the efficacy of our vaccine portfolio, in terms of when these vaccines are scheduled to be approved, or the assumptions, we know that the regulator does that. Politicians don't do that, but we need to know what assumptions the government is making with regard to approval of different vaccine candidates in the context of their efficacy, including against some of these variants, particularly given that epidemiologists around the world are concerned that these variants could become dominant strains. I know that the Americans are particularly concerned that the British variant could become the dominant strain by the middle of March, which is why they're accelerating their vaccination plan.

I'm looking at reports. There are concerns. I know there are different schools of thought. I've seen different reports in the last week about whether or not the AstraZeneca vaccine is effective against the South African variant. It's incumbent upon the health committee, to put it mildly, to understand what the federal government is doing. There hasn't been a lot of information from our government put forward yet with regard to these issues, and I would hope that we could all ask the federal government if it has put sufficient resources in place to monitor these issues and what the curve is, or what it's anticipating in terms of our capacity to vaccinate the population versus its modelling for the spread of the variant.

That was the genesis of using Standing Order 106(4). I know that with Family Day on Monday, we weren't scheduled to meet until Friday next week, but every day counts right now, and our committee is in the belly of the beast.

For the record, Chair, just so that it is moved according to all procedure here, I move:

That the committee invite the following representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada to give a joint presentation of no more than 15 minutes:

Roman Szumski, Senior Vice President of the Vaccine Acquisition Branch

Gina Charos and/or Stephen Bent, Director General level official for the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases

Bersabel Ephrem, Director General of the Centre for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control,

Cindy Evans, Acting Vice President of the Emergency Management Branch

Kim Elmslie, Vice President of the Immunization Branch

That Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization be invited to give a presentation of no more than 7 minutes;

That the above witnesses be asked to present on the following:

a. current outbreaks, occurrences, and modelling for COVID-19 variant spread in Canada as it relates to projected vaccination rollout timelines;

b. capacity to surveil the emergence, prevalence, and spread of variants;

c. current federal government assumptions regarding vaccine effectiveness on variants in the context of the federal government’s vaccine portfolio;

d. Canada’s procurement of variant related booster shots;

That the witnesses remain available for question rounds after their presentations, that the meeting be no less than two hours duration, and that it be held no later than February 19, 2021.

I have a few things to say to, hopefully, pre-emptively answer questions colleagues might have.

We've asked for specific director general-level persons within the Public Health Agency of Canada, because I'd like to get more technical-level information than what is typically provided at high-level media briefings. This is why we'd like to have representatives who we know are actually doing the technical modelling and the technical work right now on the ground.

Chair, with regard to putting the time limits on the presentations of 15 minutes and seven minutes, we've asked for a lot of witnesses, and we don't want to eat up the whole two-hour meeting with presentations. We would hope that the people who are requested to come to committee will be able to provide written briefs to the committee in both official languages prior to the committee meeting as well.

Really, what I'm trying to get at here is information. Beyond the high-level messaging that reporters and parliamentarians are getting on a daily basis, I really want to know what the federal government is doing with regard to this. I've also heard from provincial colleagues across the country that they would like to hear this as well.

I really think that this is where we need to be managing to as a committee. I think the context of the rest of our COVID-19 study also needs to be urgently framed out into this information, given the level of urgency that has been expressed by media and by epidemiologists around the world and the fact that, frankly, putting it mildly, we are behind in vaccinating Canadians. Given that provinces are looking at lifting provincial restrictions in the coming weeks, and given that we are behind in vaccinating Canadians right now, I would like to know how that fits with the spread of variants.

I also think that we have to start giving Canadians some hope that Parliament is finding a way out of this. I know it's a shifting situation, but people who are at home and who are being asked to sacrifice a lot, be it their jobs or their mental health, and in many situations, front-line health care workers.... We need this information.

I think this is fairly non-partisan. I think this is in the best interests of Canadians, and I think this is what our health committee should be doing: being nimble and watching where the pandemic is going and coming up with smart motions that provide information to Canadians so that we can provide a path forward. We're a year into this now. We should have systems in place to deal with these issues. If we don't, it's incumbent upon Parliament to ensure that we do, and that's the job of each of us here.

Thank you, Chair. I hope that all of my colleagues of all political stripes will support this motion today, that we can quickly pass it and that we can move on with business.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

We will undertake debate on this motion.

I have Mike.... Sorry, Mr. Kelloway, please go ahead.

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

You can call me Mike any time, Mr. Chair.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

I understand that there's going to be a birthday soon. Happy birthday this weekend, MP Rempel Garner.

I don't disagree with this motion. It's something that I'll support.

I think what I'd like to talk about a bit—and I think Michelle highlighted some aspects of it—is just about the committee. My experience over the past year and a half—and, for that matter, over 30 years in community development—is in terms of the ability to work collegially and respectfully together to get to a particular item, in terms of picking up the phone and establishing a rapport with each other individually or collectively offline. In this case, we have an existential crisis that every country is battling, and every country is doing its best to ensure hope, health and safety.

As for what I see here—again, in my interpretation of this—what I'd like to see is more of the collegiality in terms of the connectivity between each other, and not to even get to this point of issuing a 106(4), even though it's the right of every parliamentarian to do so. I think that when you have an existential crisis like this, Canadians expect us to get together and to iron out this particular item—the one in question—together. I don't know if it needs to get to this point, because we all have a stake in it. It's not a political issue. It's not a Conservative, New Democrat, Bloc or Liberal issue. It's a Canadian issue. This is a war that the world is fighting. Canada is fighting it. We're active participants in that battle, and we're trying to do our best to help each other.

Again, my hope is that we can do a lot better on that front. Instead, I think we're doing a lot of talking, but I think we need to do a lot more sharing in terms of looking at the shared ideas and common paths. That could be a Zoom call offline with Michelle or John—sorry, MPs Rempel Garner and Barlow or MP d'Entremont or whomever. I get a sense that—again, it's my opinion—sometimes we're over-politicizing this, and I think what we need to do is bear down and do a lot better job so that we don't get to this point before meetings.

That's my take on it, Mr. Chair. I'm not against this motion at all. No one would be. When I see this motion, I'm not against it. We'll support it, but it seems like, I don't know.... There seems to be some degree of political posturing and whatnot, and I think we can do better than that. I think we need to do better than that in going forward, for the betterment of Canadians. Whether it's the inner workings of managing...our personal management of each other and the committee and looking at the things that are related to hope, we can do that, in my opinion, without a 106(4), but it's the right of every parliamentarian to do so. I think we can get more accomplished by doing that, so that we're not at this point.

Again, everyone has the right to do so, but I think that on this committee we're sometimes politicizing what's not political. We can ask the tough questions. We can debate each other, which it is our job to do, to do the best for Canadians, but there seems to be an over-politicization of it that I wish we would change. I wish we could move forward from today and make a renewed commitment to work better together, to work together in dyads and triads with the common purpose of putting things together that do not require this. There are times when they will, but I think we need to do a better job on that front.

I'll leave it at that, and I thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We go now to Mr. Davies.

Go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I think I can be quite brief, and I'm hoping that the meeting can be brief. It appears to me that we have broad agreement on the substance of the matter. I wholly support the motion, for all the reasons that Michelle went through.

I would also just note that the variants, as I think we're all starting to become aware, are becoming a much more prominent and much more concerning issue. I personally don't know a lot about it. At the time we put in our priorities to continue the COVID study, I don't think the issue of variants had prominence, or at least it didn't in my mind. Similarly, even with our vaccine witnesses—although I'm interested in part of the variants issue, besides understanding what they are, how deeply they have penetrated Canada and what the considerations are—even though there is an aspect of vaccines and whether or not the vaccines will be successful or partially successful against variants, I don't think we knew that at the time we put in our witnesses, so I think having a special meeting on variants is really timely and really important. That's all I have to say on the substance of it.

I have just a brief comment on the process. The Standing Order 106 process is a completely legitimate process. I think it's really appropriately used in this kind of situation. In fact, I think this is exactly the kind of situation it's used for. We have a period of time when we're not sitting and it appears to four members that the health committee should be called together. I think it's an important right that all of us have. Any four of us together can exercise that right. As a matter of right, the meeting is called to put business before the committee. I think in this case it is very appropriately used.

One thing that's been going through my mind is that for quite a long time, we have not used the subcommittee on agenda. That has representatives from each of the parties. In answer to Mike's comments, I am wondering if that might be something worth revving up again. Maybe the subcommittee on agenda should be meeting somewhat regularly. When we come to that committee, of course I for one bring the full agreement of my caucus. Luc can speak for himself as well.

If the Liberals and the Conservatives come to that committee with the agreement of their colleagues, we can actually determine these things at the subcommittee. I know that maybe we have to come back to the meeting and formally pass it quickly, but if we have the agreement worked out in advance, we can save these kinds of meetings and have it done in a subcommittee way. That's just a suggestion for folks to think about.

Finally, I have a question for Michelle. I am not clear on how long the witnesses have to speak at this meeting. Am I understanding correctly that all of these witnesses together, collectively, will have 50 minutes and then we move to questions? I want to make sure we have lots of time for questions, so if Michelle could clarify that for me, that would be helpful.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I just want to make a comment about the subcommittee. The reason we haven't been using the subcommittee is that it takes up a meeting slot, and we have a very limited number of slots. It takes up the same slot as a regular meeting. As a personal observation, all have the opportunity to participate in a regular meeting.

In any case, that's just a by-the-way.

Dr. Powlowski, please go ahead.

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

Thank you very much.

I support the motion. I think it's a good one.

We have to be concerned about the variants. Certainly, there's a possibility with the variants, and specifically the South African variant, that they will knock us back to square one. I don't think that's the case, though. It seems like some of the vaccines are probably effective against it. Even Johnson & Johnson's, although only 50% effective in preventing disease, was 100% effective in preventing hospitalization and mortality. It is essentially going to be a big issue, because we thought we had this solved.

I would highlight a couple of things, and I don't know what witnesses you have and whether they're going to be answering these things. One of the questions I asked at the last meeting was what the regulatory process is going to be, because both Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are modifying their vaccines. It's fairly easy, seemingly, to do it, because you just have to modify a couple of sequences in a messenger RNA and change the spike protein. Otherwise, everything else is the same. Do they have to go back to phase one, two and three trials, which is obviously going to take a long time? That's a big issue and I'm not sure any of these people can answer that.

The second thing is having somebody discuss what the government may be contemplating in assisting studying the possibility of mixing and matching vaccines, like putting a booster from a second vaccine. I've heard that it's quite possible—even, from an immunological perspective, perhaps advantageous—but the companies aren't going to do it themselves. Moderna is not going to advocate a booster from Johnson & Johnson and vice versa. My understanding is that we need to have the trials and be doing the trials with that kind of thing to see how much we can use boosters from another vaccine.

I don't know if any of your witnesses would be able to answer that question, but I think it's an important consideration and a question we ought to be asking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

We'll move along to Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Fisher, please go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As Don has said in the past, it looks like this might be an outbreak of “violent agreement”. I really like that term.

It's been said that 106(4) is everyone's right, and it's absolutely everyone's right, but I think back to a mentor of mine when I was first elected, Bill Casey. He was the chair of the health committee and he talked about how collegial it was, even though it was all political stripes. It was so collegial, with everyone trying to get to a particular place and get the work done.

I feel like we have the ability to get there. I think this is a meeting to hold a meeting, and it might have been done as an email or, as Mike said, maybe a quick Zoom call or something. Whatever, that's fine. We all have lots of things that we would like to do in our constituencies today.

The basis of this motion is fine, with a very founded rationale. I'm happy to support it. I think using 106(4) over and over again is something that.... Again, everyone has the right to do it, but we could get to the same place, that violent agreement. From the comments I've heard so far, we all think this is a good idea. I am happy to support it, and I look forward to hearing the information that this motion is seeking.

Again, maybe I'm an optimist. I would like to get to a point where we could all sit in the same room—virtually, in the same Zoom room—and get all the answers we need and have the witnesses we all seek and want to hear from.

Don brought forward pretty much the only motion yet that we have been totally unanimous on, which was our work plan. It was a good work plan, and I'd like to make sure we get back to that work plan. I also remember that it was done on such a level of fairness. Don, you worked very hard to make sure that it was very fair. I think about you and Mr. Thériault and your priorities. I hope we get to those priorities, because I want to make sure we put the same effort into the priorities you've chosen as the priorities we've chosen.

I am happy to support this.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, assuming we're in agreement with this motion and we get the answers we want to get as a committee.

Thanks, folks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

I would remind everyone to please address their remarks through the chair.

Ms. Rempel Garner, please go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

You know, I don't do passive-aggressive, I do aggressive-aggressive. I just want to address the comments, for people watching, suggesting that this isn't collegial. I find with colleagues from the Liberal Party that they often say we're not being collegial, or we're not working hard together. But that is actually code for saying, please don't question us when we're failing.

It is my job and the job of everybody on this committee to get answers for Canadians. What's been happening during this pandemic is that we've had Parliament shuttered. We've had prorogation. We've had the Prime Minister coming out of Rideau Cottage in the morning and giving out statements that even the media are criticizing him for now. They have to be walked back later in the day.

Mr. Fisher, as the parliamentary secretary, you haven't reached out to me once in the entire time I've been health critic, so there's that. In terms of having a Zoom call, I've tried to have informal meetings and I've been shot down by the chair.

You know what? The Standing Order 106(4) procedure—yes, I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it every single time to make sure we get answers. If colleagues want to be more collegial and do better for Canadians, then I ask them to look inwardly within their own party. The Liberal members on this call—I mean, if there's chastisement about lack of collegiality—need to push back to their health minister and say, hey, I'm getting roasted in my constituency; people are tired of the lockdown and we need answers; it's not acceptable for the Prime Minister to go out and give false information to Canadians in the morning; I'm trying to do this on health committee and, you know, maybe Rempel's got a point.

If we want to work collegially, then the Liberals have to start demonstrating that they're committed to getting answers for Canadians. I am glad there's agreement on this motion and we're going to pass it, but frankly, we're half an hour in here. I've heard two Liberals talk about the need to be more collegial. Kudos to Mr. Powlowski for actually raising pertinent questions. But I have to push back. Yes, I am going to use every procedural tactic in the book to get answers for Canadians. I will do that. I am not going to just let the Prime Minister come out and give the Rideau Cottage thing every morning.

Chair, I just refuse to subscribe to the notion that it's somehow wrong or uncollegial for an opposition parliamentarian to be using parliamentary procedure to get answers for Canadians on the pandemic during the pandemic. You talked about how we can't use the subcommittee because we have only a certain number of slots virtually. Like, we should be meeting all the time.

Anyway, Chair, I don't do passive-aggressive well, but I will do my job well. I think that's what we did today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

I just want to make a comment about informal meetings. The reason we can't do them is that we don't get translation when we do that, and that's not fair to our Bloc colleague. The only way we can really get simultaneous translation is through a subcommittee meeting or through a regular meeting. That's the way we're trying to work.

Thank you for that.

We go now to Mr. Thériault.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with Mr. Davies, Mr. Kelloway, Mr. Powlowski, Mr. Fisher and Ms. Rempel Garner; I may have forgotten someone. The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether we are going to have a meeting about vaccines and variants. Everyone agrees on that.

I don't think I would be misrepresenting Mr. Fisher and Mr. Kelloway's views if I said that the request for a meeting under Standing Order 106(4) could have been signed by a member of each party. That would have been a very collegial way to proceed. That is not a reproach. That said, if we had wanted to proceed in a spirit of collegiality, we could have called a member from each of the parties to obtain the necessary signatures to request this meeting. That way, we would already be voting, right now, and we would be holding a meeting on Monday. And that is what I propose we do.

Like Mr. Davies, I have concerns about the wording.

On the one hand, there is talk of delivering a joint presentation of up to 15 minutes, and of inviting up to six witnesses. Is it a total of 15 minutes for all six witnesses or would each witness be allowed 15 minutes? Then it says that Dr. Quach-Thahn could make a seven-minute presentation. So is it 22 minutes for all the witnesses, or do we have to add five or six 15-minute presentations to the seven-minute one? That should be clarified.

On the other hand, I hope that the witnesses will be summoned as soon as possible and that questions can be sent to them. In fact, I hope that they have already been contacted, given the short deadline. Indeed, we should receive these witnesses on Monday and they should be able to address the issues that we want to deal with. How many of them will refuse to speak because they consider that their opinion on these issues is not relevant? These are all questions we are entitled to ask ourselves. We will know on Monday, when we hold our meeting.

Can we vote, once and for all? Yes, our schedules are very busy. Today, we are here strictly to decide whether or not to hold a meeting. We are not here to decide what topics will be discussed, even before we decide to hold the meeting. I would like us to proceed to the vote, since everyone agrees.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

I would like to just make a comment regarding your question about the speaking time. That is set forth I think reasonably clearly in the motion. Five of those witnesses would jointly present for a total of 15 minutes—that's 15 minutes for all five—and then one of the witnesses would have seven minutes.

We'll go now to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, please go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks for that clarification, Mr. Chair.

I have just one point, I guess, and a question. I've sat on many subcommittees over the years. We never meet during regular meetings.

I'm just wondering, Mr. Chair, if you're correct on that, because it was my assumption that the purpose of a subcommittee is to deal with these agenda issues without taking regular meeting time so that we can facilitate the more effective use of committee time. Is it a question of you thinking that we can't meet outside of normal regular times? Or is it a question of resources? If it's a question of resources, I think we should be going to our whips and getting the resources.

I'm not talking about the subcommittee on agenda meeting all the time; I don't think we've met since this Parliament. To me, not using the subcommittee on agenda is part of the reason we find ourselves in these situations. It's there for a reason. It's there to work out these issues without taking regular meeting time, without taking the time of all the members.

Again, as I think Mike and Darren pointed out, the main point that I'm hearing them make is that if we can get more effective communication among ourselves, we can facilitate better use of our time. I guess my proposition would be that we should be using that subcommittee, and we shouldn't be doing this in regular time.

The other thing I was just going to mention in terms of getting to the priorities of the NDP and the Bloc is that my first priority was vaccines. It turned out to be the same as the Conservatives' priority, so I've moved to my next choice.

I don't want to cloud the issue at this meeting today, but I think that maybe at one point I want to put the idea into our members' minds as to whether or not we may want to have another meeting or two on vaccines. It does take unanimous agreement, but to me, on vaccines, I think the entire country is waiting with bated breath on vaccines, right up to the Prime Minister. I think we all understand the importance of that. I think that would be one issue in the priorities that we may want to have a fifth or a sixth meeting on. I guess we can evaluate it as we get to the end of that. I just want to get people thinking about that now to see if there are other aspects of vaccines that they may want to delve into.

Again, I don't want to put this on the agenda at this meeting, because I'd like to have this meeting over with, with time to do some other things today for other people.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

I'll just comment further on the subcommittee meetings. Mr. Davies is correct that in other times we would be able to meet much more freely outside the regular course of our scheduled meetings. However, in this COVID world, where we have very much more limited resources in terms of committee rooms and the availability of hybrid resources, the meeting slots are in extremely short supply. They have expanded quite considerably since we started doing this, but they're still not to the point where we were in pre-COVID days with in-person meetings. That's why we haven't been doing it.

During the spring, when we were first undergoing this virtual meeting concept, we did meet as a committee on an informal basis, and we were only able to arrange consecutive translation. Consecutive translation is extremely difficult. It's difficult for Mr. Thériault, and it's difficult for us when Mr. Thériault speaks, because by and large the meetings are conducted in English, so Mr. Thériault is way behind the eight ball on this stuff. It's really not fair.

Anyway, that's kind of why we don't want to go back to informal meetings. The informal meetings we had actually were not sanctioned by the House; they weren't covered under the provisions of the orders of the day. Now, we could conceivably do it, but in order to give full recognition to Monsieur Thériault and the right of every parliamentarian to speak in either official language of their choice, we have to have a meeting slot somewhere. That is the limitation.

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We'll go now to Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just want to reiterate—and I think you've clarified—that we do want 15 minutes total for PHAC and then seven minutes for Ms. Quach-Thanh. There will be plenty of time for questions to meet Mr. Davies...and I could not agree more with Mr. Davies that to have these folks at committee and to have the opportunity to ask some questions is critical.

I do want to just quickly address some of the other concerns that have been raised by some of my colleagues. I find some of the questions somewhat surprising. Now, I am reassured that it seems as though everyone is going to support this motion, but to be asking this committee to have these discussions behind closed doors or not in the open I think is misguided. We have to have these discussions in this committee, in the open, in public, so people know exactly what we're doing.

I agree we were very unanimous in our support of the work plan at the get-go, but I think all of us have to realize that we cannot possibly be that naive, and we have to realize that we're going to have to be agile through this and we're going to have to be nimble. Things are going to come up, as they have over the last few months, that we as the health committee will have to address. For us to say, well, you know, we've supported this work plan and we're going to go A, B, C, and D...when variants come up, there are travel restrictions, no delivery of vaccines, and failure after failure after failure.

I know that I am not the only member of Parliament on this call who is getting calls and emails every single day from constituents frustrated with the lack of information and the inconsistent messages and with not knowing when they're going to get a vaccine, how that vaccine is going to be delivered, what the distribution strategy is or whether there is a strategy at all, and what is going to happen with the variants.

I just have to say that when the Prime Minister announced these travel restrictions, for example, with no details, no timelines, and no assessment of who was going to be impacted and how, I hope everyone understands how his doing that is adding stress and anxiety to Canadians who just don't know what impact this is going to have on their daily lives. I asked the minister the other day how many people are going to have to be vaccinated before life can return to normal, and the minister was unable to answer that. Those are real, legitimate questions that Canadians have.

I understand that we did support a work plan at the beginning of the reinstatement of this health committee; however, I think it is absolutely imperative that all of us—and I am reassured that it seems as though everyone is going to support this decision today—will have to be nimble. When things arise, everyone looks to us to be the ones to react, and those of us on this committee have been entrusted to find the answers to those very important questions. I don't want us to delay having meetings anymore or delay decisions about how we should be meeting.

Our job is to find the critical answers that our constituents, all Canadians, are desperate to know. We've talked about mental health. I know Mr. Van Bynen isn't here today, but this lack of information and misinformation are having devastating effects on Canadians. We have to give them clear, definitive answers, and the only way we get those is by having the experts who can provide that information at committee in the most timely fashion possible. If we have to meet on Family Day or during a break week, giddy-up, I will be here. During a pandemic, there is no time for a break, no time for a holiday—no offence intended. Canadians are looking to us to do the job they've elected us to be here to do. Whenever we can get a slot, I will be here to make sure that we find those answers.

I appreciate my colleagues on this committee who are willing to support this motion, and who are coming here on a day when we did not have a meeting planned, and I hope we can continue to do that. If it means burning the midnight oil, then that is what we're going to have to do.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

Ms. Rempel Garner, go ahead, please.

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

I just want to clarify for Mr. Davies that, yes, in fact, PHAC would have a joint 15-minute presentation, and the other witness we've called would have seven minutes, so that we could go right into testimony. I hope we can vote for this motion so that we can get back to work for Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

Mr. Davies, go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I would like to make just one comment on when we have this meeting. The one thing I would say is that we don't have the meeting on Monday, which is Family Day in British Columbia. I know nobody means this, but I don't want anybody to think that the timing of this meeting is an indication of anybody's work ethic. The motion itself says to have the meeting anytime before next Friday.

I don't think we should have this meeting on a statutory holiday in British Columbia when I, among other people, want to spend some time with my family. I, like everybody on this committee, have been working crazy hours. Last week I did four committees. Here on the west coast, I was up at 5:30 in the morning four days in a row to hit those 8 a.m. meetings that are at 11 o'clock.

I'm going to ask that we don't schedule a meeting for Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday is fine. It's not because I don't want to work hard or I don't understand the pressing nature of this, but I think all of us, like all Canadians, deserve to have some time with our families and a little bit of mental health relief as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Seeing no other hands, I will ask the clerk to conduct the vote, please.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Excellent. That brings our business to a conclusion.

Thank you all. We are—

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Chair...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.