Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There is one interesting piece. We get lots of correspondence and we've asked for lots of facts on this. We've had lots of information shared by Health Canada officials and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada, and I found it really interesting when we got a letter back very quickly from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada in both official languages. It went into our HESA email. It stated that they would happily provide the data, but only within two weeks and only after we made a decision.
I asked specifically in the meeting if they would provide the information, and they said yes. They have now decided that they're only going to provide this information if we actually vote on it, which I think is fairly telling, in that they're setting the timeline as to how long they will give us. They're also dictating which information they would give us. It's not that parliamentarians get to decide which information we will receive; they have set out what they will actually allow.
There is one other concern I have. When we had the Minister of Health here, he spoke about all the different adverse impacts. He talked at length about feces and a variety of issues. He made it sound as though perhaps this entire industry had some very serious issues when it came to feces.
In doing some further clarifications, we asked for information as to the number of these incidents. Eventually, we found out there were three. We asked for this information to be tabled with the committee.
Health Canada tabled the information with the committee, but it only tabled information with regard to one feces case. We still don't know about the other two cases. We still don't have that information. This is another example of not having the information that we have requested and that we need as a committee in order to move forward.
It's very frustrating that this Liberal government is trying to destroy a $13-billion industry. They have all these safety concerns that they have brought up, but when push comes to shove and we ask for the data, they cherry-pick which data they will actually provide to us. Canadian small business owners, primarily female small business owners, are going to be the ones suffering the consequences of the fact that we as parliamentarians don't have the right information.
I don't understand. This wasn't that difficult. We didn't ask for that much information from Health Canada, but we didn't get two-thirds of what we asked for. For three incidents, it should not be that difficult.
Health Canada officials said there were 282 observations regarding unsanitary conditions. They didn't give any details in regard to what those looked like. They didn't give any of the details. They literally gave us sentences that had data sprinkled in, and not actual information.
I'm raising this issue because this isn't the quality of information I would expect to have at the committee.
The letter that came from Ms. Hoffman from the Institute on Safety of Medication Practices is not okay. That's not what we should be getting from a witness, saying, “Here's the information we will provide to you.” The last time I checked, Parliament had some pretty wide, sweeping rules saying that we can ask witnesses for a variety of information. If you're going to come here and share information with us, you should be willing to actually share all of the information with us, should we request it. You don't get to tell us which information you will and won't share. That's not how parliamentary privilege works.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.