Health Committee on Oct. 18th, 2023

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

To the witnesses, I look at this act, and I think it's fairly simple. I think Nate himself has agreed on that. In terms of the review of the pandemic, he's not all that keen on that part, but he certainly wants the second part, which is basically, I think, setting up or requiring the government to make a pandemic preparedness plan and for various ministers to have certain things they have to do as part of that pandemic preparedness plan.

Two years after the act comes into force, that plan has to be tabled in the House of Commons, where it will be public and we and everyone can review that plan. Then, every two years afterwards, the plan has to be updated and reviewed and again presented to the House of Commons. Then not only us but the opposition will also get a chance to review that plan again and to comment on it.

I have two questions for Dr. Ross and Dr. Barrett.

Is that generally a desirable thing? I would have thought it is. We saw during the COVID pandemic that there were certainly a lot of questions as to what the plan was. Was there a plan? I would have thought this were a very desirable thing to begin with. Do you have any specific things that you would like to see as a requirement for the minister to include as part of those plans?

Maybe I could start with Dr. Ross and then go to Dr. Barrett.

[Dr. Kathleen Ross]

Thank you very much, and I'll be brief.

The CMA has been very active in pushing for transparent accountability with regard to the health care system in Canada, not just looking back at the pandemic and being prepared but also moving forward so that the citizens of Canada can understand where investments are being made and what outcomes can come from that.

I would be in favour of ongoing accountability measures.

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

Dr. Barrett, you have to leave a minute because somebody else wants to ask you a specific question.

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

Yes, having a plan is a good idea—not a shocker there.

Yes, a pandemic plan would be delightful, no doubt about that.

Also, you might want to beef up the science bit and the accountability to science and not suppress it. Use it as not just guidance but the anchor. That's my answer.

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

Darren, I'll go over to you.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

Dr. Barrett, I know it's late at night in Nova Scotia. You're closing in on 11 o'clock, and I'm sure you've had a very busy day, but I want to thank you on behalf of Canadians for your care and compassion. Your tone.... You were the face of COVID, at least in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada, but your knowledge, your care and your compassion were evident every day in people's homes on TV. Also, you had the best backdrop of COVID.

I'm interested in your key takeaway.

I think the key takeaway is the need for data and the ability to use data, but I'm interested in your key takeaway as part of future preparedness.

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

It's raised the bar. We've been far too lax for far too long about data and health and what we expect from health prevention. Now is the time to up the bar and expect more and we're going to have to do that through science, both data generation and connectivity. That's what I think we need to do and I hope this will be a beginning step towards that in this bill.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fisher.

Thank you, Dr. Barrett.

We'll now turn to Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

The Standing Committee on Health sat through the entire pandemic. It's one of the only committees to have done so, and there are three of us MPs here who lived through the pandemic on the committee without ever looking to blame anyone. Instead, we looked for solutions.

I believe that Bill C‑293 puts the cart before the horse and that we must first know what happened before claiming to have solutions. For example, how can we explain that the global public health information network could have been so ineffective, failing to raise the red flag in time and allow personal protective equipment to be sent to China, when our own stockpile was empty? The fact that in Quebec our CHSLDs, our long term care centres, ran out of masks had consequences.

Getting the answer to this question seems important to me, and I don't think an advisory committee could get to the bottom of the issue. Without looking for culprits, we first need to know what we've done, what we could do differently, and then propose a plan of action. A law won't fix this; we already have everything we need to do so.

Do you have any comments on the matter, Dr. Barrett?

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

Again, I think a critical and root cause analysis would be part of whatever this group is going to do, and it's the look forward. This is the third time it's been said by two different people, that the look forward is far more important than, to your point, the blamey bits. A lot of what you mentioned will come up, and that's pandemic preparedness within our domestic group. That means PPE generation, it means vaccine development and bringing [Inaudible—Editor].

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

If this group is not independent, do you really believe it will have the leeway needed to get to the bottom of things?

Never have my colleagues and I, who lived through this pandemic, pointed the finger at anyone. That's why we don't think it's normal that in 2023, we haven't already carried out this analysis, this investigation. How is it that no analysis has been done?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thériault.

If you could tell us who, that was directed to, then I might be able to suggest they provide an answer in writing.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I was still addressing Dr. Barrett.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Davies, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Dr. Ross, I noticed from your biography that you were a founding member of the doctors of B.C.'s diversity and inclusion advisory group. You were also a physician-lead for the Royal Columbian Hospital’s antiracism and unconscious bias working group. It mentioned that in those roles you were committed to fostering learning, awareness, education, and ongoing implementation of inclusive, diverse, and anti-racist practices in health care.

I put this next question in that context to you.

The British Medical Journal, in reporting on Canada's COVID-19 response, found the following:

Despite ostensibly universal healthcare, the highest rates of covid cases and deaths in Canada were among people already disadvantaged: racialised ethnic groups, migrant workers, essential service workers, and those living in crowded housing. For some Indigenous peoples in Canada living on reserves, appalling lack of access to basic needs such as clean water rendered early covid hygiene advice impracticable.

In your view, do you agree with that finding, and what steps should the federal government take to ensure equitable protection of all residents in the event of a future pandemic?

[Dr. Kathleen Ross]

Thank you for the excellent question.

Through you, Mr. Chair, there's no question at all that we lack adequate data when it comes to race-based illness in this country. I think we've heard calls from many jurisdictions now to try to collect those areas so that we can identify and track health disparities and redeploy resources where they are most needed based on actual data.

I agree that the science and how we implement our measures are going to be critically important but we don't know where to point our additional resources if we don't track the data to understand the problem in the first place.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks.

In 20 seconds, World Animal Protection, what do we need to know? What's your advice?

[Michèle Hamers]

I think what it comes down to is if you keep a lot of animals in a small space, they can't engage in natural behaviours and if they are with unfamiliar other species, they're going to get sick. That's the bottom line. We can't manufacture our way out of it with technology and such.

Better welfare is the answer to better animal health, which is the answer to better people health. It's a very simple connection, and we have all the evidence that it needs to be addressed.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Davies.

I will try once again. This time, we are out of time. I want to thank the witnesses for staying later. Those of you not in this time zone, obviously we thank you even more.

That being said, I hope the information was valuable to you all. Hopefully, you enjoyed the discourse we had beforehand.

I have a bit of committee business. This is a reminder to members that the deadline to submit amendments to Bill C‑293 is this coming Friday at noon.

In our next meeting, on Monday, we'll be doing clause-by-clause consideration of this bill, Bill C‑293.

Thank you all for indulging the newness of this chairmanship to me.

Also, on behalf of this committee, I would like to wish our usual chair, Mr. Casey, Godspeed in what he is going through at the current time.

Is it the will of the committee to adjourn?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

The meeting is adjourned.