Health Committee on Jan. 18th, 2022

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

So what's keeping you from investing the $28 billion that Quebec and the provinces are asking for? That recurring funding would enable them to rebuild their network right now and make the structured investments they need to treat the non-COVID patients who are currently being pushed aside.

It looks like you're determined to impose standards and play politics on the backs of non-COVID patients, don't you think?

You need to help Quebec and the provinces quickly rebuild their health care systems. Why have we been waiting for two years? Is it going to take a sixth or seventh wave? We're being hit by the omicron variant, but we may have to deal with others. We will come back to that later when we talk about vaccination worldwide.

What are you waiting for to give that $28 billion to the provinces, territories and Quebec?

It would be a structured investment to get us through the crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Minister, Mr. Thériault did not give you enough time to respond, but I will let you briefly respond.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Let’s add up $11 billion, $43 billion, $63 billion, $30 billion and $25 billion. Those are just numbers, but they include a short-term investment of $6 billion to address, as you rightly pointed out, the urgent need to reduce wait times for all kinds of surgery, which obviously grew longer during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Minister, and thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Next is Mr. Davies, please, for six minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Minister and all the officials, for being with us here today.

Minister, will the definition of “fully vaccinated” be updated to include a third-dose booster shot?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

That's an excellent question. I will turn immediately to Dr. Tam, who will have a good answer to provide to that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead, Dr. Tam.

I can't hear you, Dr. Tam. Do you want to check that button again?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, would you please check my time as well?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Absolutely, yes.

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Right now, there's no change to the definition for the border purposes, and the provinces haven't shifted on that definition as yet, but we will review that once more Canadians have had the opportunity to have their booster doses.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, based on the current trajectory of the omicron outbreak across Canada—and you've mentioned you've met six times with your provincial counterparts—do you anticipate that any provinces or territories will exceed their health system capacity in the coming weeks or months?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I have two things to say on that.

First, we are indeed working together very strongly and regularly, as you mentioned. It's a crisis that affects all provinces and territories, although at different speeds, at different intensities.

On whether they are able to meet their actual needs, obviously that depends on the level of public health guidance that they are proposing and that is being followed. It depends also on the restrictions, on the vaccination rates, on the use of rapid tests, on the use of masks, so it all depends on the different circumstances in which provinces and territories find themselves.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Do you have any real concern, Minister, in this regard, that any province or territory may be seeing an overload of their system? I'm just trying to get a sense from you about how serious that concern is with you.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

What we do see in my own province of Quebec, obviously, is that we have now reached a total level of hospitalization that is close to 10,000, which is far more than any previous levels seen in COVID-19. We have obviously more infected people than ever in the history of COVID-19, and that causes a big burden and a severe challenge for all provinces and territories.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

We're pleased to see that Pfizer's Paxlovid COVID-19 antiviral pill has just been approved for use in Canada. We know that this treatment is expected to cut pressure on the health care system because it can help prevent high-risk people from ending up in hospital. However, we also know it must be given within five days of the first discovery of infection and that patients have to test positive to access the treatment and get a prescription from a doctor.

Given Canada's current shortage of rapid tests and slow return times for PCR tests, what steps, if any, is the federal government taking to ensure patients can get test results and a prescription within that five-day window?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Those are two good questions, and I have two quick answers.

First, on Paxlovid, the Pfizer treatment, that's indeed very, very good news. It's not the whole story; it's one tool in our tool box. I would inform the members of the committee that we are not only approving but also delivering these treatments along with very few other countries in the world. Only Israel, the United States and South Korea are as equally successful as we are. The United Kingdom will soon receive treatment courses, but we are really very much at the top of the league.

When it comes to assisting provinces and territories in doing what they need to do, as I said earlier, we've sent $63 billion in in-kind transfers or in monetary transfers to help provinces and territories in the difficult environment in which they need to work.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I think we've all agreed that one clear deficiency that COVID-19 has exposed is the dangerous shortage of capacity in our health care system that I think, Minister, you've acknowledged happened even before COVID. Some key figures have been pointed out and illustrate this situation. Canada has 1.95 acute care hospital beds per 1,000 people, fewer than every OECD country except Mexico. Our hospital beds have dropped from 6.9 per 1,000 people in 1976 to 2.5 today. We are 26th out of 28 OECD countries in doctors per 1,000 people. Among comparable developed countries, we rank 10th out of 10 for wait times for surgeries.

Minister, you recently called our health care system “fragile” and acknowledged that it is “stretched too thin”. Given that the federal share of health care funding in Canada has dropped from its original 50% down to about 22% today, will you commit, in the upcoming budget, to a significant increase in federal funding through the Canada health transfer?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you.

As we were saying earlier, this was true before COVID-19, with all sorts of pressures that I had mentioned, again because of technology, certainly because of the aging of the population, the greater incidence of chronic diseases and their higher costs, the ever-higher costs of drugs across Canada and issues of equity of access to health care in many of our provinces and territories. That's why we have been not only effective but certainly collaborative in working with provinces and territories in doing what we had to do to help everyone go through this crisis.

As we emerge from it, as we exit omicron and prepare and protect against any possible variant that could come afterward, we also need to build for the future, as you've said, and invest in all of those priorities that provinces and territories have signalled to us over the last few months.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I hope that's a yes, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Thank you, Minister.

The Conservatives will start the next round.

Mr. Berthold, you have five minutes.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, thank you for being here and I'd also like to thank all those accompanying you today.

As you know, Canadians are sick and tired of the sweeping public health restrictions all their governments are imposing on them, but they are standing strong against the COVID‑19 threat. Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. Actually, I thank the Conservatives for pushing so hard to make sure we had enough vaccines from the start.

We knew right away that we needed to focus on vaccination. We can applaud the resilient people who, nearly two years into the pandemic, have made Canada a country with one of the highest vaccination rates.

Unfortunately, it seems the government hasn't learned much from the difficult months we have just gone through. The federal government has normalized lockdowns and restrictions to deal with the pandemic, at the people’s expense.

Mr. Minister, I had COVID‑19 over the holidays, and rapid testing was completely unavailable to me and some of my family members. We were unable to do the tests ourselves.

How do you explain the failure to make rapid testing available to all Canadians during the holiday season?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

You are absolutely right to emphasize just how important vaccination is. I would like to remind everyone that Canada is one of the top countries in terms of vaccination.

We still have a little work to do to convince some of our fellow members of Parliament, but I am sure you will pass that on to your leader, Mr. O'Toole.

Having said that, the provinces and territories were requesting an average of 7 million rapid tests per month prior to December, and that number quickly increased fivefold to 35 million. Demand in the provinces and territories did indeed go up in December. We are on track to deliver 140 million rapid tests this month. We received five times more requests in December, and then four times more than that in January, because rapid tests—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Minister, why was the government not ready when this wave hit, when Canadians really needed it?

You are saying that 130 million tests will be available by the end of January, so you have 12 more days to deliver those tests.

Could you tell us exactly when the rest will be delivered? We have heard about 30 million tests being delivered, but when will the other 100 million tests be delivered?

Can you tell us when the provinces will receive the tests? How can you assure us that the remaining tests will also be delivered after that?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I can tell you two things about delivery and contacts.

First, we work with suppliers every day to make sure they meet their commitments. Second, I work every day with my fellow health ministers to give them all the information—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

We know that 30 million tests will be delivered, but when will the other 100 million tests be delivered, Mr. Minister?