Health Committee on June 6th, 2022

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

I'm sorry, can I just interrupt you there? When you are talking about health professionals and allowing them to work before they get their credentials, which kind of health care professionals are you talking about, doctors, nurses?

[Jocelyne Voisin]

I'm talking about professionals. I don't have specifics. I'd have to get back to you with this model in Ontario, but it's just one illustration of an innovative model, so, if there are professionals coming into the country who want to get credentialed as nurses, for instance, but that process takes time, then they can still work in the health care system as they work toward getting those credentials recognized from the colleges and regulating bodies. I don't have specifics about which type of profession that is.

Another example, for instance, is creating matching solutions between organizations that are supporting those foreign-trained professionals coming into the country and organizations where they are seeking to get more support and working with regulatory bodies to look at streamlining that process for them.

In terms of your question related to the government's investment, that's for the foreign credential recognition program, which is led out of Employment and Social Development Canada. That program provides support for programs that, for example, do training support for internationally trained health professionals who come into the service—navigator services, for instance—and help internationally trained professionals to understand the system and how to better get credentials.

Those are just a couple of examples.

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

I can't say I know the name of the organization, but there is.... I was contacted about this by a doctor in my riding regarding one of their children, who was trained as a nurse in the United States and was looking to come back to Canada to practise as a nurse. It isn't part of the government, but there is an agency, in my understanding, that looks at the training somebody has had overseas and then advises the provinces what would be required in order for them to get up to snuff to practise within that province. It only makes recommendations.

My understanding from him is that it's been six months since his son applied to this program. We heard in testimony from at least one person during a health committee meeting that this same organization.... I think the person was talking about a nurse trained in the United Kingdom who took years to get evaluated. I apologize for not having the name of that organization, but is this being looked at? It seems like a big bottleneck in foreign credentialing.

[Jocelyne Voisin]

I think you are speaking about the National Nursing Assessment Service. That organization is certainly something of interest, and we're talking to the provinces and territories about how to better support that organization.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Voisin.

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. You looked eminently prepared.

Go ahead, Mr. Garon, you have two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Ms. St‑Aubin, but I will provide a brief preamble first.

I'm a researcher myself. The academics and researchers I work with tell me that it was because of the lack of hospital capacity, particularly in Quebec, that schools had to be closed earlier. Schools are obviously under provincial jurisdiction. As a result, the early closure of schools could have had a significant impact on children’s mental health and learning.

As Ms. Voisin said, one way to increase hospital capacity is to increase funding. I have a hard time understanding why there is this kind of unease when we try to delve into this issue, particularly when we ask questions about what we know about the health consequences on children not going to school.

Ms. St‑Aubin, is the Canadian Journal of Public Health a serious publication?

In the absence of an answer, I will tell you: yes, it's a serious publication.

In only five minutes, my assistant and I found the research done on this topic in 2022. There is this article, for instance:

“What is the effect of school closures on learning in Canada? A hypothesis informed by international data”.

I took me two seconds to find this.

Here's a second example of an article:

“Understanding and attenuating pandemic-related disruptions”.

This is the only time you'll hear a Bloc member speak English.

[Voices]

Ha, ha!

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

There is also the American Academy of Pediatrics, which talks about the impact of school closures on children's health.

How is it that when we want to talk about this, we are suddenly told that there's no research? The federal government tells us that it knows the health sector, that it is able to tell us what to do, that it is able to impose conditions and that it is good at it. However, when we ask if there is any research on this, we're told that it doesn't exist. Yet, as I said, my assistant and I found some in just five minutes.

How is it you're not aware of this? If I'm mistaken, can you tell me what the findings of these peer‑reviewed articles in serious journals are?

[Candice St-Aubin]

To clarify, I didn't say that I wasn't aware of any research. What I will say is that we know that school closures are areas within the jurisdictions of the provinces and territories, and various municipalities, as the honourable member said. The Public Health Agency of Canada does issue guidelines—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I didn't ask you to specify what falls under one or the other.

In public health, from a scientific perspective, is it known that prolonged school closures can affect children's learning and mental health, yes or no?

[Candice St-Aubin]

We know that all areas of the determinants within a child's health have been impacted by COVID-19, including, I'm sorry—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I'm interrupting you, but you'll understand that it's very difficult for a parliamentarian to get clear answers.

The truth is that the issue is one of funding and hospital capacity. Countries with higher hospital capacity, such as Switzerland, were able to wait longer before closing schools. Here, during the pandemic, it was repeated ad nauseam that one of the reasons for confining people was to protect the health care system.

I will close with an editorial comment. I deplore this kind of code of silence that exists in the federal government and in the federal Parliament on health funding and the Canada health transfer. This has been the case on your side and on Ms. Voisin's side, and I deplore it.

Financing is the crux of the issue. However, it seems that all those who manage health care systems in Canada and ask for unconditional funding are wrong, because their requests are being dodged. The federal government would be the exception, but it is obviously unaware of any recent research findings on the subject.

Thank you very much.

I'm finished, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

Ms. St-Aubin, I believe you were in the middle of trying to respond. If you want to finish your response, go ahead, and then we'll move to Ms. Zarrillo.

[Candice St-Aubin]

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair.

What I was going to say is I was going to address mask studies and ask colleagues from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research themselves, who conduct the research on areas related to child mental health and various public health measures, if they had anything specifically to add. I thank you for the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Zarrillo is next, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to take the opportunity for my last two or two and a half minutes here to talk about baby formula supply and food sovereignty for infants. I know this is a children's study, but I'm also very interested in understanding the protection of baby formula supply in Canada as it relates to pandemic issues, global supply chain issues and even global crises.

Is there someone in the health products or food products who could speak to that today around food sovereignty for babies and infants in this country? Perhaps Madam McIntyre or Madam Lourenco could respond?

[Karen McIntyre, Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health]

Certainly, I can.

There's some feedback here.

I can certainly speak to that. This has been a very significant problem that we're facing. In Canada, as you probably are aware, we do not manufacture infant formula. However, the issue is not related to general infant formula. It's related to babies who have inborn metabolic disorders as well as babies with allergies to proteins in milk. The shortage is really focused on those particular products.

As you may have heard in the news, we're happy to hear that the Abbott manufacturer, which is a very large manufacturer of these products in the U.S., has just recently opened on Saturday. We should be seeing some progress in that area.

However, Health Canada has been working very closely with the industry, with the provinces and with the distributors of these products to ensure that infants who need the products have been getting access to them. We will continue to do that.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm going to ask Ms. McIntyre another question, but perhaps she can lift the boom on her microphone a bit so we can get it louder.

I wanted to talk a little about lab testing. We know we have a critical shortage of health care professionals, and lab technicians have done a lot of work around COVID-19. On food testing in general—as we're thinking about kids and infants—I wonder if there have been any issues with food testing before it goes out of the lines of factories in Canada.

[Karen McIntyre]

Just to clarify our role, Health Canada establishes food safety standards for foods that are sold in Canada. It's the responsibility of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to monitor compliance, and this includes laboratory testing. Any kind of food testing that is related to compliance and enforcement is undertaken by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Bonita. That's your time, Ms. Zarrillo, I'm sorry.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Next we have Mr. Lake for five minutes, please.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you again, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start by expressing my appreciation to all of you. In my last round of questioning, I'm sure Ms. Voisin particularly would know I was not communicating directly with her, but to someone else who hopefully would be watching, some of whom might be staff members or MPs in the room right now.

I'm not going to apologize for being impatient when it comes to mental health, particularly kids' mental health. I'm not going to apologize for being impatient when it comes to kids who are experiencing increasing suicidal thoughts and when we're dealing with a raging opioid crisis.

When it comes to a lack of services for people with developmental disabilities, particularly people with autism, the impact of inaction on diagnosis and early intervention and education, and eventually participating in the workforce, and all of those different things, we should, as members of Parliament, be impatient about these things. Hopefully, the communications we have here drive action on some of these things. The Canada mental health transfer is a great place to start, and the suicide prevention hotline is a good place to start.

I'm going to turn my attention back to autism, though, if I could.

The government funded the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences—I think that's what it's called—study of a national autism strategy. I know it was chaired by Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, who is a global autism research rock star, and included phenomenal stakeholders, including many autistic Canadians.

I think the report that was put forward was over 400 pages. I'm wondering if someone could give us a bit of an overview or summary of what might have been in that report.

Is anyone here able to do that?

[Candice St-Aubin]

Chair, I'm more than happy to provide a bit of information, and of course provide anything in writing as well, if this is not sufficient.

Thank you.

That's true. We did provide $1.6 million to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. You are correct. It was a broad and inclusive evidence-based assessment on autism. Many Canadians participated through multiple venues—the autistic community, caregivers, those living on the spectrum and parents, etc.—to try to inform the development of a strategy. It was 400 pages, and we are currently looking through the multiple areas of interest. There was an economic component that was further explored, as well as the social component. Access to services was very much a part of the conversation and the information that was put forward.

Building on this, though, the Public Health Agency of Canada is also continuing to engage with provinces and territories, indigenous people, etc., through various mechanisms to build on this report that's come forward. We'll be organizing a national conference on November 15 and 16 in an effort to build consensus, or at least come to ground on some of those key priority areas of action that the member has so eloquently flagged in his interventions.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you very much.

I talked about measurability a bit before. In the interest of taking a look at that, I'll focus on one thing, the Wellness Together or PocketWell app. I'm going in a slightly different direction, but it gets referenced a lot in terms of mental health. I jumped on my app store, looked at the PocketWell app and noticed that it has, I think, all of 49 ratings. That doesn't seem like a very high number, relatively.

Can someone tell us how many individual Canadians have actually downloaded that app? Is that something that's measurable? Are we monitoring that?