Health Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, we're not on Mr. Barlow's subamendment. That's been settled. We're on Sonia's, right?

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

No, we're on Mr. Davies' right now.

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

No, I think we're on Sonia's.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

I'm trying to understand Sonia's, if you don't mind, Mr. Fisher, for just a few moments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Let me clarify.

Thank you for your point of order.

We are talking about Ms. Sidhu's amendment to Mr. Davies' motion.

Please go ahead.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

All right.

My question revolves in and around why we're bringing this forward now and why we're pushing off the issue of vaccines to February. That's effectively what this motion ends up doing. We can't discuss probably the most important issue before Canadians today, which is vaccines and rapid testing and all that stuff, so that we can get out of the current situation we're in today. I just don't understand why the Liberals continue to want to push this off beyond a reasonable amount of time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Davies, I appreciate your trying to fill in the blanks, but I think you fell into the Liberals' trap here of trying to rag the puck as long as they possibly can so that they can't possibly discuss vaccines within a reasonable amount of time.

Again, I am not saying mental health is not important. We do need to talk about it. I am hoping we can talk about it for a couple of meetings and talk about vaccines and do the couple of meetings when we come back from our break. Don't interpret our vote against this as our being against mental health, please, because that seems to be where things tend to go in these meetings, but, gosh, we have a lot to try to cover here. To get it all blocked up by one is just irresponsible, I believe.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I just want—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Excuse me.

Thank you, Mr. d'Entremont.

Go ahead, Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I want to clarify that my amendment, the mental health topic, had a COVID study consisting of four meetings in total, with the final meeting to be held upon the committee's return in January.

I do agree with Mr. Davies' point. Let's go. We need the work done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thanks for your point of order. Let's not get back into debate.

Yes, your amendment was for four meetings on mental health. Mr. Davies' motion is that three meetings on that study would happen before Christmas and one would happen after, and that there would be one meeting before Christmas on the PMPRB.

Mr. Thériault, please go ahead.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Things are becoming a little clearer now. Committee members cannot do through the back door what they cannot do through the front door.

We have spent a number of meetings on the motion relating to the COVID-19 study, which had to be proposed in the House of Commons. The Liberal Party tried to make us conduct a study on mental health. Mental health is one of my priorities, but there was a debate, and the House made a decision. We got our marching orders to work on the COVID-19 study, and the priority leading up to Christmas was not supposed to be mental health.

In that sense, I agree with Mr. d'Entremont. When the Bloc Québécois sent its list of witnesses and topics Wednesday of last week, we tried to address what would not be covered by the other parties, to avoid overlap and ensure relevant issues would be studied.

What this subamendment would do is have the committee meet three times on mental health and once on the PMPRB before Christmas. I can't support that, because I agree with Mr. Barlow, Mr. Powlowski, Mr. d'Entremont and Mr. Davies.

If we are going to spend only one meeting on COVID-19 before Christmas, it should focus on vaccines. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party is going through the back door to delay the COVID-19 study.

Mr. Van Bynen does not deserve that. What he is trying to do is commendable. I am as interested as he is in examining the issue. I am going to have to vote against the subamendment, not because I am anti a mental health study, but because it has taken us a long time to get to where we are today. We can't turn back the clock and do things through the back door. If we do, we will never see this through. We will never get anywhere if members keep trying to put a spoke in the committee's wheel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Is there any further discussion on Ms. Sidhu's amendment?

Ms. Sidhu's amendment is to add to Mr. Davies' motion the understanding that the committee will deal with four meetings on the mental health aspects of COVID-19, in keeping with our previously adopted motion on the order of studies.

Seeing no further interventions, I will ask the clerk to please conduct the vote on Ms. Sidhu's amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Ms. Sidhu's amendment passes. Is there any further discussion on Mr. Davies' motion as amended?

Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to—

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, does that put an end to Mr. Barlow's subamendment?

I thought Mr. Barlow had proposed a subamendment to Mr. Davies' amendment. Am I wrong?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

No, there is no subamendment.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

All right. It was simply Mr. Barlow's wish to have the committee study vaccine distribution as soon as possible before Christmas.

Mr. Chair, that means we are considering Mr. Davies' motion, as amended by Ms. Sidhu, to have the committee hold three meetings on mental health and one meeting on the PMPRB before Christmas. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That is correct.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

In that case, Mr. Chair, given what I said earlier about committee members' priorities, I clearly disagree on what we should be focusing on before Christmas. That is especially true since the committee would be putting mental health before the distribution of vaccines and spending just one meeting on the PMPRB, if I understand correctly.

I will definitely be voting against the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Go ahead, Mr. Maguire.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I can see a lot of issues here. People want to have debates on the issues we have talked about here today. I have no problem with the three meetings on COVID and the one on the PMPRB, but I would ask our colleague, Don Davies from the NDP, to consider using one of those meetings for vaccines. If that was a friendly opportunity for him to do that, I think it would be fine.

We have no problem with four meetings for the mental health study. We could probably use four for vaccines as well. We know that we can't get them all in now. Many of them would be held in January and February, when we come back after the Christmas break.

I wonder if the committee would look at that idea without making it a formal amendment to his motion. I think it's a very good motion in regard to having three meetings on COVID and one on the PMPRB. I wonder if there would be some consensus to be able to use one of those meetings for vaccines.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Maguire.

I should point out that this is relitigating the motion that we decided last week, I believe unanimously, on how to proceed with this study. Is there any further discussion on this motion as amended?

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Maguire took a bit of my thunder. I'm not sure if Ms. Sidhu is maybe taking advantage of semantics here, but I just can't let this go.

If Canadians had a better understanding of vaccines and the distribution of those vaccines, that would certainly help relieve their mental health and some of their anxiety. Ms. Sidhu's motion was to have four meetings on mental health, which I support, but I don't think the motion stipulated that the next four meetings concurrently have to be on mental health.

I would put forward an amendment to Mr. Davies' motion that of the three meetings we have on COVID prior to Christmas, one of those meetings be on vaccines and on vaccine distribution. I think that is a critical issue. It would help address people's mental health. Maybe we could even massage it into the mental health study. I would move an an amendment to Mr. Davies's motion to add that one of those three meetings on COVID prior to Christmas be on vaccines. We would still keep those four meetings on mental health, but we would just stick one in there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Barlow has an amendment on the floor, which is that one of the three meetings in the remaining time before Christmas be devoted to the vaccines.

Mr. Davies, please go ahead on Mr. Barlow's amendment.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

First of all, I think all of the issues that are being talked about and raised are important. I think one thing we have to resist as a committee is to get involved in politics about which one is more important and that if we vote in favour of studying this or that, it means we don't care about the other one. That's just not the case.

I can think of 10 different extremely important issues on COVID. Vaccines are one, treatment is another, mental health is another, and long-term care, where we've had 80% of the deaths.... My colleague Ms. Sidhu has been a champion on that. That's extremely important.

There is PMPRB reform to all those patients who are waiting for life-saving drugs. That's critically important. I'm already seeing on Twitter and other places the idea that if we push with one or the other, it means we don't care. We all care about all of those issues.

The fact remains we have four meetings in front of us. That's what we have. Surely as a committee we're going to have to start making those little compromises to get going, because if we don't get these meetings done, nobody's talking about anything before Christmas.

The truth is that we passed a motion last week that established a fair order of how we were going to proceed. It's not perfect, but it's a compromise. It allows each party to take their position in turn. The Liberals have gone first, and I think that's as it should be, because they are the government and they have the most members. If you have to determine who goes first, that's the fairest way to determine it.

We then left it to this committee, once each party identifies its topic, to determine how many meetings we as a committee feel ought to be addressed to that topic. I'm happy with what Mr. Barlow said. As I've already pointed out, for my part, I would proceed with vaccines, but in fairness to the Liberals, they are entitled to select their first topic, and that's mental health. They have decided that they would like four meetings for that, and we've passed that. That's not what I would have done, but that's what they've done, and I suppose they'll have to defend that decision politically as well if they want to.

Mr. Barlow's point, I think, is a fair one, which is that they don't have to be consecutive. I think it's understood in the motion we passed last week that we go in turn, so each party picks their issue and we deal with that issue. All we have to do is set the appropriate number of meetings.

I think it would really be up to the Liberals whether they were willing to split up their four meetings. I think if we're most faithful to the intent of the motion we passed last week, we would deal with each topic in turn as we determine the number of meetings for each topic.

Let's face it: Vaccines are going to be a critically important issue in January, February and March as well. While I would love to have some focus on them in one meeting, one meeting in December is not going to do sufficient justice to any of these important issues, including vaccines. I do note that we directed a lot of questions to the minister on Friday about that, and I know we have a session in the House of Commons this Thursday. I believe we have a committee of the whole with the health minister there, so there will be a chance to focus on those issues there as well.

Look, it's not perfect, but it gets the ball rolling. I just think we should get the ball rolling for these four meetings. We're not going to be able to deal with all the important issues that we need to before the holiday season, for sure, but let's get started on it. It doesn't mean that the issues coming afterward are any less important, because they're not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

We have Mr. Thériault now.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

The motion calling on committee members to submit a list of topics and witnesses by Wednesday of last week was based on the fact that each party was supposed to put forward at least one topic and its witnesses. According to Mr. Maguire and Mr. Barlow, we have three meetings on COVID-19 and one on the PMPRB right now. Two parties have already stated that the vaccine issue was a priority in the lists they sent to the clerk. It could be the subject of a single meeting.

The Liberal Party decided that the study would focus on mental health. One meeting could be held on that topic. It seems to me that, in accordance with the rotation set out in the motion Mr. Davies put forward the other day, the Bloc Québécois should get one meeting for one of its topics. That way, everyone would get what they want. The committee would meet three times on COVID-19 in connection with each party's priorities.

I would like the committee to spend a meeting on the importance of health transfers, which the pandemic brought to the fore. That would be perfectly in line with the work plan Mr. Davies proposed last week. That would determine the topic for each of the three COVID-19 meetings, the fourth being set aside for the PMPRB. I imagine there would be consensus on that.