Health Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you, Mr. Vidal.

I understand you're proposing an amendment to include not only officials from Health Canada but also the Minister of Health to appear during that first hour.

We now have an amendment on the floor. Is that correct, sir?

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

That is correct.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much.

There's an amendment.

We have multiple speakers. We have Mr. van Koeverden, and after that, Monsieur Champoux.

Mr. van Koeverden, you have the floor

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate that this was distributed in advance, and Ms. Goodridge approached our side before the meeting started. We had lots of advance notice.

We're supportive of the motion, but we haven't had an opportunity to discuss the amendment. We would be in favour of having, like you said, officials and witnesses from each side, but we'll pass on having the minister at this time. We haven't had an opportunity to discuss it at all.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you, Mr. van Koeverden.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Chair, what I wanted to discuss is not so much the motion or the amendment. Unless we really intend to start another round of questions, I propose that the committee release the witnesses who have stayed. If we plan to debate a motion and vote on it, it would seem to be polite to let them go.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Certainly as you mentioned, that was not about the amendment, but I could poll the room to understand that the witnesses may be free to go.

I see concurrence here.

I'd like to thank both witnesses for appearing today.

I appreciate your insights and how smoothly everything went, and your understanding with the new sheriff and the one-minute sign. I appreciate that and wish you well today.

Thank you very much for appearing.

[Wendy Digout]

Thank you.

[Dr. Tyler R. Black]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you.

Ms. Goodridge, you have the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess to Mr. van Koeverden, when I prepared the motion, I hadn't really.... I'm still a relatively new member of Parliament, having been elected in the class of 2021. It wasn't something that I was initially contemplating, but I take the suggestion from my colleague Mr. Vidal. I think it's important to, whenever possible....

This is an issue that parents from coast to coast to coast are struggling with. Making sure that we have all of the answers as to what's causing it and what is being done to solve this, I think, would be beneficial to parents and would help to alleviate some stress.

One thing we heard from Ms. Digout is that children's mental health is a family issue. I would suggest that a lot of families right now are facing additional anxiety because they are unable to find basic over-the-counter pain medication in a first world country. This is something that is standard in a third world country. This is not something that's relatively standard in Canada. I think that it merits and is worth discussing.

I would hope that members of this committee accept that I am still a new member of Parliament and I think this is a very good suggestion.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you, Ms. Goodridge.

Dr. Hanley, you have the floor.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you.

I appreciate Ms. Goodridge bringing the issue for committee to consider. I think this is important and that the timing would be optimal.

However, I disagree with including the minister. We want to sort out the story from Health Canada's officials' point of view. I wouldn't support the amendment, but I certainly support our having one meeting on this important issue.

Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Mr. Jowhari.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm definitely in support of the motion. Thank you very much. It was distributed. We had the conversation. There is full support.

There are two things. Number one, the 17th is such short notice to be able to get the minister. Number two, I'm sure that supplementary (B)s and the department results are going to be out very soon, probably within the next few weeks. That's a great opportunity for us to ask the minister in that session the questions we want to ask. By then, we will have an understanding of what the department and the witnesses are saying, and we will also have data so that we could ask relevant and key questions of the minister.

I definitely support the motion as presented by our colleague, Madam Goodridge. On getting the minister here on short notice on the 17th without having heard all the other stuff, I will be opposing that.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Mr. Champoux, go ahead, please.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I understand the amendment proposed by my colleague Mr. Vidal and I would like to propose the following.

If the Conservatives want the Minister to be part of this committee meeting, I propose to postpone this subject for a few meetings and move on to the next study, which had been proposed by my colleague Mr. Thériault and deals with breast implants, a very important subject for Quebeckers and Canadians. Two meetings are scheduled for that study. I therefore propose that the date of the meeting that would include the Minister's appearance be changed. That would allow more time to invite him, so our Liberal colleagues might agree to that change.

I will let you discuss it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

If I'm hearing you correctly, you haven't proposed an exact date but the subamendment would be to delay the meeting and have the minister appear at a time in the future on this particular subject.

It's always interesting to be here at the health committee. I've been informed by the clerk that any subamendment should really be directed toward the actual original amendment as opposed to subamending the subamendment.

I don't know how that translated into French.

Monsieur Champoux.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

It was hard to translate.

I would note that it was a friendly amendment for my Conservative friends rather than an official subamendment.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Okay. Thank you very much for that.

Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I would just clarify that we're supportive of having a meeting in short order. It is important.

It is very urgent.

That's a good day to have it.

I would reiterate that, on getting to the bottom of it, we should hear from our communities. I have talked to Ms. Goodridge off-line about this. I've called five or six pharmacies in my riding to check. Hearing from some pharmacists or from some experts in the country would be really helpful, and officials as well.

On a point of clarification, something struck a nerve a little bit. The term “third world” is outdated. It's a Cold War era term that we don't use anymore. It can be derogatory in some cases. Comparing Canada to the developing world doesn't do too much to highlight our challenges. We have some, but the ones in developing nations are different.

Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Mr. Davies, go ahead, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

With the amendments and subamendments it was starting to remind me of the old adage that an elephant was designed by a committee.

We ought to get right back to the simplicity of this. I like the motion as it's drafted originally. Calling the minister unnecessarily politicizes an issue and probably won't add any more substantive information than we'll get from the health officials.

I do think that we have a practical issue, which is getting the witnesses. We would have to have the witnesses we propose in by the end of tomorrow, I would say, as a matter of function in order to give the clerk next week to get the witnesses, because it's the Tuesday when we come back. That's more a question of administration.

I would support the motion as drafted by Ms. Goodridge for the 15th as written. Also if this is an urgent matter, then delaying it seems counterintuitive to the urgency.

It also gives a chance even to discuss among ourselves what witnesses we may want to have. It's my understanding that the shortage of children's pain medication is a global matter. I'm not sure I can say it is every country, but almost every country is experiencing this. Also, I want to talk to industry a little bit. I happened to have a meeting this morning with a Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturer, in fact, the largest domestic manufacturer of pharmaceuticals in the country. He had some interesting information about this as well. It would be nice to have a broad array of witnesses in that second hour so that we can get a fulsome picture to find out what the potential solutions for this are.

My interest in this matter is understanding what the problem is, but more important, seeing what solutions may exist. My interest is not in politically attacking the government on this, but rather working practically to see what we can do to help.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Go ahead, Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to my colleague Ms. Goodridge for raising this issue. I agree with all of my colleagues that it's an important issue. Let's deal with it. I don't favour an amendment or subamendment, but I'm in favour of the motion because it's important.

Let's have a meeting, as Mr. Davies said, on an urgent basis with Health Canada, the pharmacists and then witnesses from your riding.

We're all working collaboratively. Let's work collaboratively on the motion.