Health Committee on Oct. 19th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

On my list, Mr. Van Bynen is first, followed by Ms. Sidhu, Mr. Barlow, Dr. Powlowski and so on.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Well, I'm looking two above and I'm above the operator. I'm the first one.

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

So am I on my screen, Don.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Everybody is first on their own list.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Oh, I see.

Can you reveal the list?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Van Bynen, maybe you could take yourself off this list because you were continuing to speak before the original motion was spoken. In fact, would anyone who does not wish to speak at this particular time in debate remove their hand.

On the list that I have before me right now we have Ms. Sidhu, Mr. Barlow, Dr. Powlowski, Mr. Maguire, Mr. Davies, Ms. Rempel Garner and Mr. d'Entremont.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. That clears it up, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We'll go now to Ms. Sidhu.

Were you intending to speak at this point in the debate?

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I agree with my colleague Mr. Kelloway. I am concerned that the goal of Ms. Rempel Garner's motion is not to get good work done for Canadians. There are more important issues for Canadians. This is the second meeting we have spent largely on one motion in an attempt to discuss these topics without any real concrete direction. Quite frankly, there are some topics in the motion with which I think all my colleagues agree, but we need to find common ground.

It is almost wasting time, I would say, if we are not working on important topics like mental health, long-term care or other important issues that are only briefly mentioned and are buried in the massive motion for the production of documents, and I cannot agree with that.

I agree that there is an important issue that is near and dear to Canadians when we are having a second wave of COVID-19. I trust that members of the opposition do, in fact, want to get good work done. We all want to produce solid reports to Parliament, but this motion is simply not the way to do it.

The approach I would like to see the committee take is to study aspects of COVID-19, whether it relates to mental health, long-term health care or any other topic related to the health of Canadians. We could do a study on a topic, have a report, and then go on to the next one. For example, how are we supposed to even consider studying post-production of the documents when there are more important topics we can study? Let's find common ground.

In my riding, residents are contacting me regarding long-term care, which has been hit hard. This is important. That is most important to me. It's the same thing for many of my colleagues who have important issues, so let's find common ground.

There is no paid sick leave. We have talked about that. Many residents are contacting me on that because it's not there. Yesterday I was talking to someone about why I am talking about paid sick leave. I am because it's related to health. I'm happy to take a moment to speak of the great work of all parties that wish to secure paid sick leave for Canadians.

Long-term care is very near and dear to me.

As you know, we all have seen the statistics that mental health has been very impacted due to COVID-19.

Let's find common ground, and then we can all work together for the betterment of Canadians. This is what I would urge the committee to do. Mr. Chair, that's what I really want to say.

Mr. Chair, there is my motion that I want to table, which is very important for my residents, but now Ms. Rempel Garner's motion is there.

Let's find common ground and, as my colleague Mr. Kelloway said, if we are for production of documents where we can relate the good work and the important work of our health care workers, our public servants....

This is all political games, I would say. Let's do real work for Canadians, which is important for everyone's riding.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the comments from my colleagues. A couple of things jumped out at me in the comments from Mr. Kelloway and Ms. Sidhu. I certainly respect their perspectives, but they're asking us to do in-depth studies that are, for most intents and purposes, provincial issues. Sick leave, mental health and long-term care are, for the most part, under provincial jurisdiction. The provinces should be the ones focusing on that.

However, for Mr. Kelloway to say it's too much work for this committee go through the documents that would be given to this committee as part of this study is very short-sighted. That is our job. Our job here is to look through the documents and find the information that our constituents are asking for. If it's going to take me all night to read the documents to ensure we have the information we need, that is what I was elected to do. It's to do the hard work that my constituents expect me to do. There have been all-night votes. There have certainly been some long nights reading documents, but I think that is one of our responsibilities. Our constituents expect nothing less from us.

This is one of the most important issues we have ever dealt with as parliamentarians. When we were elected, I don't think any of us were expecting to deal with something like COVID-19, which has seized our entire country and our entire economy.

However, Canadians are looking for a couple of things. They're looking for a strategy, a path forward. To arrive at that, we also need to understand how we got to where we are right now.

That brings us to this motion, which I believe is completely fair and is certainly not an omnibus motion. I have it sitting in front of me. It's on a page and a half. Mr. Kelloway should look at the 300-page omnibus bills that the Liberals have been putting forward for the last couple of years—like an 800-page budget bill—if he wants to see an omnibus document. It is by no means overwhelming for a parliamentarian to look at this motion. I think it's quite fair. Certainly some details are being requested of the government, but that is what we need to be looking at.

There's no question, Mr. Chair, that this is the number one issue for our constituents. They want to know what decisions were made for the pandemic and why decisions were made when it came to the pandemic alert system. They want to know what strategy was in place to get us to where we are right now. I think that includes the details that these documents are going to provide. That's why I fully support the motion that Ms. Rempel Garner put forward, and the amended motion that makes it more palatable to all the parties involved. I don't see any reason to delay proceeding.

Seeing the filibusters going on in the other committees, I think Canadians would be looking to the health committee to get some real work done. It is real work, Mr. Kelloway, to be looking at the details of the pandemic assessment, the pandemic reaction and the plans for dealing with this crisis for Canadians right across this country.

I vehemently disagree that this motion is asking us to do too much work. I think this is exactly why our constituents voted to bring us here, no matter what party stripe we are wearing. They are asking us to do everything we need to do to find out as much information and as many details as we possibly can on COVID-19. That is why I fully support that we move along on this study as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

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

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

I too am becoming frustrated with spinning our wheels. I certainly believe what almost everyone here says and claims: that we want to get back to what we actually should be doing as a health committee, which is studying the health impacts of the pandemic. Instead, we're spinning our wheels.

However, I think the Conservatives knew this when they put this motion on the table, when they put in a whole bunch of things regarding procurement of documents that they knew were going to be problematic to the Liberals and yet chose to include them. I question how real their desire to start looking at things really is.

What they've done in this motion is conflate two things. The first part is getting back to looking at COVID, which I absolutely agree with. The second part of the document is about procurement of documents, which is absolutely pretty problematic.

There are all kinds of live issues. Part of the problem with the procurement of documents is that they're looking at dead issues. They're looking at what has happened in the past.

If we really want to be studying—and we ought to be studying—this second wave and what we can do now to help Canadians deal with it and help the economy deal with it, the best way is through having a sound health approach. There are all kinds of health issues that we could be studying, should we choose to do so. There are all kinds of issues related to vaccines, such as how we could develop vaccines potentially more quickly and the issue of procurement of vaccines.

I absolutely agree that there are many issues around testing. We haven't heard much from Conservatives about strategies for testing. It's not just about having rapid test kits. Having rapid test kits is important, but there is also the issue of strategies behind testing. You have to look at the value of rapid test kits in particular circumstances, especially if you're going to use rapid test kits where they want to use them—for instance, when you go into northern indigenous communities or when you go into a factory and say, “Oh, let's just do a rapid test kit.”

Whether that's valuable or not depends on the incidence of the disease in the population. You have to understand, before you say “Let's do rapid test kits, because doing so is going to solve all the problems”, that potentially it doesn't. If you have a high enough incidence of the disease in a population and you don't have a completely sensitive and specific test, it doesn't help you in ruling out disease.

There are also many other issues, such as contact tracing. Obviously many provinces are not doing contact tracing really well. Apparently they've given up on it in places in Toronto. What's that about?

There's the global approach. I'd like to see us look a bit at that. COVAX is an attempt globally to ensure that people around the world have access to vaccines. There's the ACT-Accelerator, which hasn't received a whole lot of press, but it is an attempt by WHO and a number of other international agencies to address the pandemic.

The first part is to get back to studying it. Yes, absolutely. Then there is a second part, the procurement of documents.

I believe in transparency, I really do, but I also appreciate what the ministry and the department are saying, which is that you're asking for a whole lot of documents at a time when, as Mr. Barlow correctly said, this is our biggest health crisis and maybe our biggest crisis in the last hundred years. It is Health Canada officials who are centrally dealing with it. Now we're asking them to suddenly produce tonnes and tonnes of documents and have them all translated into French. I think maybe we should be trying to whittle down a bit the list of what we can and can't produce.

There are also concerns about our relationship with the provinces. Obviously health care is primarily a provincial jurisdiction, and our ability to co-operate and deal effectively with the provinces is integral to the way we deal with the second wave. To produce documents that could potentially embarrass the provinces or harm our relationship with the provinces wouldn't seem at this time to be a good idea.

One of the bottom lines to what we ought to be doing as a committee—and I want this to be working too—is that we should be concentrating on the live issues, not the issues that have occurred in the past.

Certainly this procurement of documents is obviously to dig up some dirt and to look at absolutely everything, but what has happened has happened. I don't think this is the time to be reviewing everything that has happened since the beginning of the pandemic. Our function as a committee would be better served by dealing with issues that are still live issues. If we actually get our act together, perhaps we can start dealing with these problems in a constructive fashion, rather than battling each other.

I'm quite happy to face the fireworks on the procurement issue. I think we have to do it. The opposition wants those things, but why don't we leave that issue to a later date? If anyone actually watches what we do on the health committee—which is questionable, but if they do—I think the Canadian public might justifiably be saying, “What are they doing? Here it is, a pandemic, and they're arguing over procurement of documents.”

I would suggest that we leave it for two or three weeks and start looking at the actual issues again. Yes, you will come back to it, and it's important that you do, because you are the opposition, and that's what you do. However, why don't we leave this conversation for a later date and start actually doing something useful instead?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

We'll go now to Mr. Maguire.

Mr. Maguire, please go ahead.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I would have thought a useful thing to do would be to discuss, examine and review all issues relevant to the situation. That's why I'm supporting this amended motion that my colleague, the shadow cabinet minister for health here, Michelle Rempel Garner, has brought forward, and “all” is all-encompassing.

What is more urgent? We can talk about a lot of things. Mental health is important. Long-term care is important. However, probably one of the most important things right now is making sure we can get testing for people in a timely manner, and we haven't had that. Rapid testing and home testing approvals are what the people in my riding are wondering about.

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, Mr. Maguire called this an “amended motion”. Is it an amended motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

As an amended motion, it would not be in order, because Ms. Rempel Garner cannot amend her own motion. However, she moved it as a separate motion. The other motion still exists out there, lying in wait for us to resume at some other time, should the occasion arise.

In my view, this is a new motion, and it is as much in order as the previous motion was.

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

Thank you for the clarity there. I wasn't certain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Maguire, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to Mr. Fisher for correcting me on that, but it is a motion. I'd gladly go back and discuss the earlier one, because these issues are all in it, but for the sake of co-operation here, this new motion has been brought forward to try to get the immediacy of the situation on the table.

For my colleague, as was pointed out by Mr. Powlowski, this is the most important issue in Canada right now, or one of them at least. People are watching the health committee because health is important to everybody right now in this country.

We finally have Parliament operating again, and it's an opportunity for us to immediately get into this issue and get the documentation. Mr. Kelloway said in his opening comments that somebody might say this isn't being transparent. I would certainly say so, because these documents are not coming forward. If there's nothing there, well then, just bring them forward and we'll get on with things.

The second part in the original motion was “in order to to fully study this emergency situation”. That's what we want to do: study the emergency. The way it has been presented today recognizes it as an emergency, and it is an all-encompassing motion. It includes all issues.

There are issues that we could speak about, and they've been listed, but rapid testing has to be one of those. Vaccine development and all these other things will be there as the world develops them, but the situation now is that rapid testing has already been okayed by the government, but we're not seeing it and we don't have it. All we're asking for is an opportunity to study this and let Canadians have their questions answered, because that's what we're seeing today. Anybody who says that “all” isn't all-encompassing hasn't read the motion or wasn't listening to it when it was read out.

The right balance does need to be struck here, and we could easily move forward. The reason there are dates in here, if you want to move it back a week, is that tomorrow is October 20, and we've already had that original motion for 10 days. I'm in favour of starting tomorrow with this, if we could, because the sooner we can get this information gathered together, the sooner we can make good decisions for Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Maguire.

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

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

This has been another interesting debate. I wanted to comment, in no particular order, on the motion that was moved by Ms. Rempel Garner. To me, it addressed the very problems that were identified by the Liberals in the last meeting.

At the last meeting, I distinctly heard Liberals say that they were concerned that the motion wasn't inclusive. I heard Liberals say that they didn't like the long itemized list. They felt it was too prescriptive. I heard Liberals say they didn't include important issues that they wanted to study, like mental health or live-in care.

The motion that was moved this morning addresses every one of those. It eliminates the list that was so troubling to my Liberal colleagues at the last meeting. It is explicitly inclusive, without being prescriptive. It is fair in the sense that it allocates witnesses. It allows all parties to submit witnesses that reflect their own particular interests. I think I can speak for all of us in saying that I haven't heard any member of this committee say that they're not interested in the issues of mental health, live-in care, the federal health transfer or vaccine development.

It brings me to this. I'm hoping I can stimulate some violent agreement here. First, I hear us saying that we all want to study COVID. I think we should. Let's face it: There are ten thousand issues in health, and many of them are extremely important. This is not to deny the importance of any other issue that we could be looking at, but we are in the middle of the second wave of a global pandemic, and I don't even need to speak about this. I hope my colleagues all agree that the number one public health issue on a national basis in this country right now is COVID. I think we all should and can agree that we should be studying COVID.

Second, I think we should all agree that we should adopt the evidence that we heard in the first session. From January, February and all the way through to July, we heard a lot of excellent testimony.

Third, I think we should agree that we don't want to till well-tilled ground or go over things that we've covered in depth. Rather, I think we can agree that we can and should focus our inquiry on issues that are really important now. I said this in the last meeting and I'll say it again: It's October of 2020, and we are in a different position than we were in March when this was brand new and so much was unknown. We know a lot more now, but there's a lot more to be known, for sure, and we should be able to focus our inquiry. To that end, I appreciate Ms. Rempel Garner's amendment to this motion that allows us to submit witnesses that reflect that.

Ms. Sidhu wants to focus on long-term care. She can put witnesses in to that end. Mr. Van Bynen wants to focus on mental health. He can submit witnesses on mental health. I'd like to understand where we're at in vaccines. I'll submit that. Mr. Thériault wants to submit witnesses on the impact of federal transfer payments on the provinces. He can submit witnesses on that. These are areas we can focus on.

Finally, I think we can agree on a fair allocation of witnesses. I was very proud of this committee. We've operated very collegially over the last—in my experience—five years, and particularly over the last year. We were all putting in an equal number of witnesses. We got a really broad sampling of excellent witnesses that way. On the motion, as far as the study goes, when I listen to each one of my colleagues, I think we all agree on those broad points, but there's obviously a sticking point on the production issue.

I've been in Parliament for 12 years. I can say without too much cynicism that those in government don't like it. Those in opposition do. I have yet to see a government that is enthusiastic about producing documents for the opposition. For the opposition, of course, this is an effective tool to get information.

I hope that we can find common ground. When I listen to my Liberal colleagues, I don't hear them say that they're opposed to production; I hear that we should delay it a little bit. Some say that we should target it.

I must say two things. One is that when we talk about transparency, the argument is that it's very important, but we just can't do it. That is a fallacy. I hear in the arguments that we're very much committed to it, but there's always a reason we just can't do it now.

Frankly, transparency is important at all times. Arguably, transparency is more important at times of great political importance. Transparency isn't something that happens when we don't have an important issue before us. It should be something that happens all the time. If I take the Prime Minister at his word, he's on record as saying that repeatedly.

Second, I categorically reject the argument that we don't have any time for transparency. That argument is that we really want to be transparent, but we just can't burden our civil servants with it because they don't have the time. That's a fallacy as well. Our civil servants are always working, I would hope. They're always working on important issues.

The key is this: Is there a way for us to find a middle ground on this, where we can hone this motion to get the government to produce documents for the opposition that are targeted, surgical, useful, informative and revealing?

Committees do play an important role in Parliament. When Prime Minister Trudeau was elected in 2015, the Liberals recognized this. I will take one little shot at my Conservative colleagues. When they were in government, they did not treat committees in this way. They were controlled by the PMO. There was no real production. They did not treat committees with the respect for their independence that I think should have been the case.

The Liberals said that they were going to change that. At committees, we have a number of important rules. One is we have a historic constitutional and parliamentary power to order production of documents. The reason for that is that one of our functions, besides reviewing legislation and studying issues, is to serve as an accountability body. If we're not getting documents from the government to double-check their political claims, who is?

I want to hear from my Liberal colleagues who say they believe in transparency and who say they believe in production, but who say that this motion is too broad or otherwise unacceptable. I want to see them draft their proposed production, instead of rhetorically....

Let's face it: The Liberals are filibustering this committee. They are talking this out. When Ms. Rempel Garner has gone through the trouble of drafting her motion and putting it out for debate, but it's too broad and they believe in transparency production, they should propose their amendments for the rest of the committee members to see. What are they willing to produce, if anything? All I hear is a lot of general commitment to production and not a word about how they'll do it.

I want to say one thing about Mr. Kelloway's comment. Having witnesses come before a committee and asking them to bring documents can be helpful, I agree, but that is not a substitute for the production request that is before us now. We're talking about documents that are exclusively within the control of the government. Witnesses don't just come bearing documents that way. We're talking about a discrete power of this committee to target documents.

I will sum up by asking if we can agree on this. Can we agree that this committee will study COVID, that we will adopt the evidence from last session and that we will roll up our sleeves and focus on the important issues that we can reach consensus on? Can we agree on a fair allocation of witnesses?

I'll ask the Liberals to draft what they think is a helpful production order so that we can see how far they're willing to go and whether we can find a common ground on the production of documents.

I fear that if we don't do this, this issue will be resolved in a much more blunt way. It won't be done by the consensus, collegiality and agreement that I think has typified this committee up until now.

Those are my comments.

Thanks for listening, colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I note that Mr. Davies mentioned Ms. Rempel Garner's amended motion. I urge members not to consider this as an amended motion. It makes it difficult for me to see this as a separate motion. As an amended motion, it would not be in order. It's clearly of intense interest to this committee, so I'll let us continue it.

We have Ms. Rempel Garner next.

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

As a point of information, is Mr. Davies suggesting at this time that we accept the first part of the motion, leaving the second part for us to try to amend at a later date?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Davies, do you wish to respond to that point of information?