Evidence of meeting #139 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nicotine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thanks very much, Chair.
Certainly, we've talked a fair bit about difficulties with natural health products. This is a very serious topic that has come up many times. We heard from Dr. Sharma previously, when the original omnibus bill was presented. She talked, quite frankly, very much out of order with respect to the death of a young child in Alberta, which, realistically, had nothing to do with natural health products. All of this talk about numbers and outcomes has cast a very negative light on natural health products in Canada. Obviously, that is a very serious allegation. Once again, we've heard some egregious allegations from the minister, which he was not able to substantiate. Even today, sadly, we've heard from witness after witness who wants to tell us that this data exists. However, for some reason, they hesitate to provide it.
Therefore, Chair, I think this is important enough to move a motion related to this particular set of data: that the health committee provide a list of the 700 incidents of adverse reactions, the date of the incident, the product involved and the outcome. This must be provided to the Standing Committee on Health within 30 days.
November 19th, 2024 / 12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Dr. Ellis, I believe the motion is in order, but I'm a little confused about why you are asking the health committee to make the production. I presume the motion is directed at Ms. Hoffman and Ms. Hyland's organization, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada.
Is that right? Are you asking them to produce the documentation?
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
That's correct, Chair.
I'll give you some background, since you asked, of why I would move a motion to do that. As I said, this is a $13-billion industry. What we've heard over and over and over again is this egregious testimony that has been fuelled by words that are very emotional in nature. We've had the minister here saying this is a “cuckoo bananas bill”. First of all, what minister would talk like that?
We've heard him also talk about factories full of rat feces and urine, and, again, nobody was able to substantiate that. We asked for this evidence before at one of our previous meetings. We asked them to tell us a bit about that. How many of these factories exist? Then, of course, the minister went on to say, well, how much feces and urine is acceptable?
Again, without any substantiation, we've heard these claims over and over again. We've also heard other foolish claims that this doesn't affect labelling, but change in the definition of a therapeutic product is really what allows all of the other changes to happen. All of those things are part of this. The minister said that's absolutely not true, which, again, is playing loosely with the truth.
I do believe the only way to put this to rest is to require and compel, under the issue of parliamentary privilege, these egregious claims to be justified. Out of the 700, are there 698 claims where somebody read the label wrong and they were mad because they got the wrong product because they couldn't read a label? This has nothing to do with that. That's unfortunate. That is someone who just refuses to read a label properly.
On behalf of this committee, I think it's important that we finally lay this issue to rest. There have been many claims made. We need the documents. It would appear people don't want to provide the information. Does it not exist or is it actually true? What level of difficulty have natural health products had in the lives of Canadians?
Certainly, as I mentioned previously, from the stacks and stacks of cards and letters and emails that everybody here got, I know it is not just a Conservative issue. My Liberal colleagues have also received untold correspondence, particularly with the original omnibus bill introduced by this NDP-Liberal government. Now we're continuing to hear of these adverse events, and nobody will provide the information to say what it is.
Realizing they are different kettles of fish, so to speak, we also know that 13,000 seniors are hospitalized every year due to prescription drugs. Again, is that different? No, it's about context. It's about the context to say this is a fact. It's not that somebody took a wrong pill and they were upset about it. What we're saying here is that 13,000 seniors are admitted to hospital. That's the seriousness of the effect related to prescription drugs.
That being said, I think it's important that people who put forward claims be compelled by Parliament to put these claims in writing, and it behooves the committee to finally lay this issue to rest.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Dr. Ellis.
The motion is in order. The debate is now on the motion.
It would be extremely helpful if we had the text—
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I think we have the language translated now. It should be in the clerk's inbox.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
I would like the motion to be reread, that we have a French version and that it be sent to the interpreters.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Mr. Chair, we just emailed it to the clerk.
It will be available in both official languages shortly.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Stephen talks about egregious allegations. Again, the suggestion is that the vast majority of these drugs are safe, which is true. We know, however, that even drugs that are normally safe when taken in normal doses can, at higher doses, be exceedingly dangerous. A great example is Tylenol. We all give Tylenol to our kids. We take it all the time. This is really safe. Well, as Stephen, Brendan and I know, people die of Tylenol overdoses. There certainly is the possibility that any drug, in sufficient quantities, can cause harm to people. That's one thing.
Specifically on the motion, I know that the people from.... Now I'm forgetting the exact name of the drug agency, the monitoring group.
Ms. Hoffman, when the issue came up earlier about revealing your data, you had some privacy concerns. I know that the person sitting beside you wanted to speak a little bit to this. A bunch of us here are medical practitioners or were medical practitioners. We certainly understand privacy concerns. Could you tell us a little bit about the privacy concerns in revealing your data? I think that's really central to this issue.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Dr. Powlowski, we got ourselves into a bit of trouble when we invited witnesses to participate in a debate on a motion. I'm not sure that's appropriate, unless it's the will of the committee to allow them to intervene in the debate on the motion.
We don't have unanimous consent, that's for sure.
If you want to finish, you still have the floor.
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
If I still have the floor, then, absent being able to hear from them about their privacy concerns, I don't support this motion.
Obviously, medical records are confidential. If people have confidentially passed on information about what's happened to them, it isn't something that should be made public, nor should we be asking them to make that public.
If the will of the committee is to not ask them about their privacy concerns—and they've told us that they have privacy concerns—in my mind, that's enough for me to be against this motion.
Liberal
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With regard to Dr. Powlowski's comments and the comments earlier on regarding privacy concerns, committees are oftentimes bound by confidentiality. Rules are no different than when we talk with our constituents, in that I'm not going to share unless given approval from the constituent to be able to share the information that's given.
All that would be necessary—whether it's these witnesses or any other witness who appears before the committee with concerns regarding confidentiality—is to advise the committee that they will supply the information or table the information as requested by the committee or as bound by the committee. Obviously, there would have to be a caveat put in that there is sensitive and confidential information involved, with the request that it not be shared publicly unless specified otherwise. That is one way we can go.
I would like to talk about.... It's not necessarily about these witnesses. Unfortunately, they're the ones who are here today, and this issue was brought up. I will preface my comments by saying that I've never smoked before in my life. I'm not a smoker, and I'm not a shill for the tobacco companies. However, I do think there are mechanisms in place for the minister to deal with the issue at hand, irrespective of NHPs, and not take it out on a $13-billion industry.
However—and it's not just this committee but other committees—we do have people who come and testify before the committee, stating stats, numbers, facts, cases and what have you. We haven't, to this point, oftentimes compelled these witnesses or a minister to back up their comments. We had the minister, as mentioned earlier, say some egregious things towards the industry about feces, urine and what have you. You'd almost think that there's a drinking game going on, for the people who are listening in. Every time feces or urine is mentioned on this topic alone, somebody has to take a drink back home or around the table.
Even gargling with gasoline and things like that.... Comments are made that are inflammatory and for which there's no basis or background research to back them up. I think that as this committee moves forward, not just with this study but with other studies, we should compel our witnesses—again, not pointing fingers—if they are going to state things like that, to have that information in advance or at the time to back up their testimony. We haven't done that, and we have to be more astute and more on the ball with that.
I compel our colleagues across the way.... Dr. Powlowski says he's not going to support this motion. All we're asking—and it's not just this study—is for this committee to adopt the policy that when we have witnesses entering testimony that has industry-specific or topic-specific stats and figures, they have that information at hand to back those up. Anybody can say that there are, for example, 700 cases of claims of people misusing the medication or the products.
We had Dr. Sharma here, a well-respected physician, somebody who is at the top of her profession and one whom the government takes direction from. Again, I'm going to err on the side of her; I believe she misspoke. She didn't intend to mislead us by saying that an 18-month-old child died from natural health products, and we know that that wasn't the case. It's for cases like this that we, as a committee and as people who influence and develop policy, have to have all the facts.
Ms. Callard mentioned that bureaucrats move at a glacial speed in changing legislation, so it's about making sure we have the right information at the right time to make the right decision—and that can influence decisions—not just some knee-jerk reaction or comment that you can't back up. What else have we heard? Gargling with gasoline, drinking urine, feces-filled factories.... Look, I don't want to be.... I'm in need of natural health products right now for my knees—that's why I'm standing—if anybody's listening. No, I'm just kidding.
Because we get all heated here, I want to make sure that we're on record as saying that we don't want any Canadian to take a product that could be detrimental to their health. Nobody is saying that. What we're saying is that there are tools and mechanisms in place.
We have to understand that the information that is being presented, whether it's by these witnesses or others or even a minister, is backed up with facts and information that can prove that information is fact. That's all we're asking. This is a simple motion that I think can help clear up some issues that we are going to have in the future.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thanks very much, Chair.
I think it's very important to know.... To me, it would appear that the NDP-Liberal government wants to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. The question then remains, what does the data actually tell us? We've heard this number of 700 thrown around.
Oddly enough, when we asked this of the Health Canada officials last time, they said that we can find it ourselves on their website, which, quite frankly, is impossible. It's not possible. We tried to do that.
That is also why industry asked a very well-respected company, Deloitte, to do a deep dive into the potential adverse events associated with natural health products. I can tell you for certain that they would be happy to table that at committee. Second, they were nowhere near this insane number of 700.
I'm a bit disheartened by my colleague, Dr. Powlowski, saying that he's not interested in supporting the motion. He's been a very data-driven guy.
What's there to hide from? If we ask for data and 698 of the 700 supposed cases are all about somebody misreading a label, that's very different from 698 cases of liver toxicity, which Dr. Hanley mentioned. It wasn't 698 cases, but he mentioned cases of liver toxicity, as did witnesses here from SickKids, who said they knew that kids had been harmed. We asked, which kids? How many kids? What was the harm? What was the substance? Once again, there was no answer. My colleagues across the floor were attempting to say that we're being mean to witnesses. Well, you can't come to committee, not be prepared, make egregious claims and not provide the data. That's what we're here to do. We're here to make decisions and understand the actual metrics that, if they exist, should be a part of the knowing.
The context and the actual data will allow this committee to make better decisions. If there are claims out there, show us what they are, provide the data, provide the substance, provide the date and provide the outcome. That is not a difficult ask.
Liberal
Liberal
Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
Well, I have a couple of things.
With respect to Stephen's difficulty in accessing data from Health Canada, I would suggest to our ministry colleagues that they help Dr. Ellis find his way. I know you go to a lot of web pages. Finding your way through the various pathways can be difficult. I would ask them to help Dr. Ellis out in navigating his way through this. That's number one.
Number two is that I, too, would like the witnesses, within the confines of their privacy concerns, to forward to us what data they are able to, given those concerns. I think that would be very useful to the committee.
Having said all that, I'm going to roll the dice and ask that we adjourn debate.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
A motion to adjourn debate is not, in itself, debatable.
We'll go directly to a vote by a show of hands, please.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Chair, I'd like to request a recorded division, please.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
We'll have a recorded division on the question of whether the debate on this motion should now be adjourned.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)
Debate on the motion is therefore adjourned.
Dr. Ellis still has four minutes left in his turn.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
On a point of order, Chair, the next step in this committee is to have clause-by-clause on this bill. How would this motion ever be returned to debate? Would it be possible to return then?