Health Committee on Nov. 6th, 2020

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Yes, I'd like to move a motion that the minister table her opening statement for this committee so that we can review it in preparation for the next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Fisher, go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, I think the minister has to have the right to make that opening statement.

I'm sorry. I just do not agree with this at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Is there anybody else?

Mr. Barlow, are you raising your hand again?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

No, I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Is there any further debate on Mr. Barlow's motion?

Mr. Kelloway, go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, on a point of clarification, what I'm hearing is about a written statement, as opposed to her speaking through the statement. I just want to be clear.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Yes. In response to Mr. Kelloway, my motion would be that the minister table her statement. My reason for this is that it would give us more time, and all of us here today have spoken about the need to have as many opportunities as possible to present questions to the minister and officials.

I would prefer that we have that 10 minutes to pose questions, rather than having an opening statement that we could all read over the next week and be prepared and be ready. I think that's a better use of our time than just having the minister use that 10 minutes to give an opening statement when we could read it. Now that we know it's ready, we could read it over the next week and not have her read it again at the next meeting.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and, through you, thank you for that, MP Barlow.

I would just say that I look at this also as an opportunity, obviously, for the minister to have a conversation with us in her 10 minutes—and it is 10 minutes, I believe—but it's also a conversation to be had with the Canadians who are watching.

I see Mr. Barlow's point of view, but I would prefer it if the minister spoke to parliamentarians on this committee and, through us and then through other means, spoke to Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We go now to Mr. Van Bynen.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm concerned about the request or the motion, largely because it's not following a pre-established routine motion. We have never asked others to present their opening speeches in the past. It's inconsistent with House of Commons Procedure and Practice, chapter 20, at page 1069, so we're establishing a different precedent here. Will that be the expectation or will that be required of all other witnesses? Let's be fair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Let me interject here. I think we can ask, but I don't think we can compel in this case.

Mr. Fisher, please go ahead.

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

Mr. Chair, with all due respect to Mr. Barlow's motion, we see a pandemic that's changing on a daily basis. An opening statement next week by a minister could be a different opening statement than we would have heard today.

This does not show any respect at all to the Minister of Health. This is not something I have seen on any committee. I absolutely think...and I apologize to Mr. Barlow, but I feel this is a ridiculous request.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Let me interject here. We have already passed the motion and it says that we are going to reschedule the meeting, so we really have no further need to compel our witnesses to stay.

I would like to thank the witnesses, thank the minister and all the officials for being here. We hope to see you soon when we reschedule. Thank you.

If the minister and the officials wish to depart, I think that's okay. We can carry on with this discussion.

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

Mr. Chair, point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Maguire, go ahead.

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

That would be relevant, unless we vote that the minister should table her words today, in which case, if she's not here, she can't do it. I just raise that as an issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, but of course we can make that request, and whether she's here or not, she can fulfill it or not, as appropriate, depending on circumstances.

I really would like to thank the witnesses for taking so much of their valuable time and offering it to us today. I know we can count on them down the road.

We will carry on the debate on Mr. Barlow's motion.

Mr. Davies, you have the floor.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I have a couple of preliminary observations. I do think that we in the past have at various times cut down the amount of time for witnesses to give opening statements, and we routinely request that witnesses provide written documents.

In this case, I'm going to disagree with the motion, with respect. I think Canadians do want to hear from her. The meeting is televised, and I think it gives her and witnesses the opportunity to speak directly to Canadians, as all witnesses do.

The other thing is that if we do meet next week or the week after, there could be other developments that occur between now and then that may affect what the minister wants to say or comment on.

I do think that out of respect for our witnesses, who do take time out of their busy lives to come and share their time with us, the minister should have the opportunity to have her 10 minutes to address the committee and Canadians, as every other witness does.

I think it is a good point that Mr. Barlow makes about providing more time for us to ask questions, but even given that, I think it's important to give our witnesses the chance to give their statement. I'm going to oppose the motion to have it tabled in writing, and allow the minister to provide her opening remarks in person if that's what she prefers to do. I suppose if she wants to table them in written form, she could, but I think that if she wants to prepare and to give her remarks verbally, I think she should have the right to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We go now to Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the feedback from my colleagues on the committee.

Mr. Fisher, you do not have to apologize to me. I'm a big boy, but I do want to point out, before I get to my comment, that you were incensed with the language from my colleague Michelle Rempel Garner, but you had no problem calling my—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Can I ask the members not to speak directly to each other? Speak through the chair, please.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Chair, for Mr. Fisher to be calling my intervention “ridiculous” isn't exactly in the most parliamentary tone that we are trying to establish here on this committee, so I would say to be careful with glass houses. I don't think any intervention by any of our colleagues on this committee should be deemed ridiculous or inappropriate. I've certainly sat here for the past hour listening to all the comments from my colleagues on this committee and giving them the weight and attention they deserve.

My point with this motion, Mr. Chair, was simply to provide more opportunity for the members of this committee to ask important questions of the minister and the officials. This was not in any way to rob the minister of an opportunity to speak to Canadians, which she gets every single day at every press conference she wants to schedule and at question period every single day.

For my colleagues on the Liberal side to say that.... Yes, this is changing every single day; this is why we want the minister here next week and not in two weeks. Yes, we want to get to work. The opposition parties on this committee were not the ones that prorogued Parliament for almost a month when we could have been doing important work. When Canadians needed their elected officials, at the most important time in their lives, the government decided to prorogue Parliament.

I find it a little bit ironic that now they're complaining that it's time to get to work. Yes, we could have been working for the past two months. That is why we think it is critical that the minister appear here next week and that we have as much time as possible to ask her the important questions our constituents want us to be asking on their behalf. That was the impetus behind my motion, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

Ms. Rempel Garner, please go ahead.

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

Again, I appreciate what my colleague Mr. Davies said. I also appreciate what my colleague Mr. Barlow said. I think the frustration here, Chair, is that we as a parliamentary committee are being asked to approve quite a bit of funding, and that in the last year, from my perspective, the government has seen this review process and this scrutiny as an inconvenience. It's actually fundamental to our democracy. I think the spirit of the motion that my colleague Mr. Barlow is making today is to say, table what you have today. We'd love to review it in terms of preparation to see if we have questions on the appropriateness of these expenditures. If stuff changes, table stuff next week too. Come prepared with another statement.

I think the point that's being made here is that we need more information, not less, and that it has become very difficult to be a parliamentarian under these circumstances when we're getting massive spending bills rammed through Parliament without really understanding how the government is making decisions and on what principles.

I would love to review that statement. I also want the minister in front of committee to make a statement, but I'd like to know what she would have said today, if the government had not conveniently scheduled a vote during the time she was to appear, so we couldn't start the meeting earlier.

I'll leave it to the committee. I think it would be great to review and to prepare for next week's meeting. As you said, she of course has the choice to make that...appropriate or not.

I think, Mr. Chair, this is meant to say that the days of the government ramming things through this committee and pretending that we're not going to scrutinize their decisions or that they can't have accountability to us—