Health Committee on Oct. 18th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Thériault.

As I said previously, I'm at the service of the committee. I have no power to do so on my own, but certainly, if members would like to do that, I'm happy to hear that.

Perhaps by consensus, is it the will of the committee that we release the witnesses?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask this before I cast an informed vote.

Is it Mr. Doherty and the Conservatives' intention to talk the entire meeting about this issue? If it is, then we should let the witnesses go.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you for your interest, Mr. Davies. I don't think we'll going back and forth in that fashion.

My question, then, is back to the committee. I think it's a wise one that Mr. Thériault has brought forward.

Is it the will of the committee to release the witnesses? If not, we shall continue with the speakers list.

We will suspend for two minutes.

I'll call the meeting back to order.

What the committee has been tasked with is understanding whether they wish to dismiss the witnesses or not.

As I said, I'm serving at the will of the committee. It seems as though the Conservative members are willing to dismiss the witnesses.

Mr. Thériault is unsure at this time.

Liberal members...?

Mr. Fisher.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Is there a possibility that we could keep the witnesses for an hour, have a good conversation with the witnesses for an hour, ask them questions and then resume this conversation after that for the last 30 minutes of the meeting?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

I would suggest to you that it would not be the regular convention. This motion is now, of course, the subject of the committee at the current time, so I will redirect the question that I had.

Should we dismiss the witnesses or not? Is it the will of the committee?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Okay, very good. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

Dr. Kitchen, you have the floor.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said earlier, my thoughts are with my colleague. I know how important this topic is to him and his family, and the huge impact it's had on his life. It's a prime example of that. The motion he's put forward is one that addresses this aspect of things, and it's something that should be addressed in a very rapid way.

It's not like this hasn't been going on for centuries. It has, but when we look at it statistically.... For example, I will speak from a Saskatchewan point of view. When we look at 2022, we had 421 reported opioid deaths in the province of Saskatchewan. So far in 2023, the province has already had close to 200 deaths. These are huge numbers that are just escalating, because of what we're seeing around the country.

Some of it is related to the price of the product, which has become more easily accessible. We have parts of the country where we have safe havens for this, so the drug prices have dropped to almost $2 in many cases, which makes it even easier for vulnerable people to use this.

We look at small communities.... My riding of Souris-Moose Mountain is 43,000 square kilometres in size. With that said, in Saskatchewan, 47 small communities in Saskatchewan, and most of them in rural areas, have had confirmed overdoses. In fact, in one of the small towns within my riding—and I'm very well aware of the challenges that have been there—it's disgusting to hear and see some of the things that are going on.

I had a constituent who approached me on the issue. She said that her community members knew where the drug house was. They told the RCMP where it was. They asked the RCMP to go in, and the RCMP basically said, “No, we're not going into that place, because of how dangerous it is.” This lady took it upon herself—and I can tell you this, because she gave me permission to tell you this story—and went into this house on her own to confront what was going on. She saw many things that were going on to the point where she was saying that it was inappropriate. She confronted these big people who were carrying all sorts of weapons. She went from room to room. She went into one room where there was a 13 year-old-girl who was being molested at this drug-infested place. She went into this room, and tried to bring this young girl out of that room. The drug lords that were there confronted her at that point in time, and basically threatened her life. She was told to get out, or she would not be safe.

This transpires in a small community in Saskatchewan. It's going on all over this country, and it is despicable that these people are doing this and taking advantage of vulnerable people in many ways.

Looking at Saskatchewan, as I indicated, 291 humans have died from unregulated drug overdoses from January to June 2023. Motor vehicle accidents in Saskatchewan resulted in only 87 deaths. Motor vehicle accidents have fewer deaths than those from drug overdoses. That's just shocking. We know how passionate we get when we hear about motor vehicle accidents, whether it might be someone who's impaired, or just an accident where someone had a head-on collision. It is just unbelievable what we are seeing happening around this country.

It's a major factor when we look at things in Saskatchewan, and the life expectancy in our province has dropped since 1999. The average life expectancy was 78.48 years, and it's now down to 76.5 for men alone because of the deaths from drug overdoses.

These experts attribute this drop to the deaths among younger people from drug poisoning and suicide, and to the fact that there's been a 300% increase in drug toxicity deaths since 2010. That's just unbelievable. I mean, that's from 14 years ago.

Many of you may know my history, and some don't. I spent my life travelling all over the world when I was a youngster. My father was a military attaché, and we drove from Germany to Pakistan and back. We lived in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran for three years of our lives.

I remember my time in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the silk highway is where a lot of these drugs are found.

The poppy plant, which is basically the papaver somniferum, is grown quite extensively throughout Afghanistan. If anyone ever wants to come up to my office, they're more than welcome, because I have pictures of these poppy fields from when I was a teenager. Everyone thinks about the red poppy, but it transitions from many different colours.

However, the reality is that the poppy plant basically creates morphine, codeine, heroin and oxycodone. There are so many different substances out there that you'll see people smoke, sniff or inject.

In my time as a teenager, when I was travelling through that part of the world, I saw the consequences to many of the local constituents who utilized that product. As I said, that's going back to 1973, and it goes back centuries. It's been going on forever.

However, now we're seeing it here in Canada and around the world, but more so for us as we talk as parliamentarians is the huge impact it's having on our families, friends and constituents. This huge impact is from this addictive substance, and that's what it is. When we look at it, it initially was designed—and I'm speaking from a health care point of view—for its value as an anaesthetic and its value in providing pain relief and assistance.

Ultimately, however, it's been taken one step forward, and it continues to be taken one step forward, because we see continuously these safe houses that are opening up around this country, that are opening up more use and increased uses of these products. My colleague talked about how that impacts us. We see the impact it has on our families.

I spoke to you earlier about what the lady in my community saw and the impact that had on her. I've had other constituents who have come to me or phoned me and talked about how their son has become addicted. They've tried to take steps to do things to release him from that addiction and they have had challenges because their son is over 18 year of age. Because of that, the son basically gets put into a centre where he dries out for two or three days, and then when he comes back out, he's back into the same area. He has become addicted, because there are no programs to protect these people and to assist them so they don't become addicted to these products.

That has a huge impact. This lady who was telling me about her son is basically fearful for her life, because when he gets out and is released from jail—because the police will catch him when he breaks into some place to get some money so he can purchase some of these drugs—

They release him, and the moment he's out, she's fearful because he comes and threatens her and her husband, and he comes to the house and threatens to burn it down. She has all of these fears that she has to deal with. It's so unfortunate. I can't imagine, as a parent, how I would deal with it personally if it were one of my own immediate family, or even my relatives, given how impactful it can be.

This motion that my colleague has put forward is one I think we need to act on as quickly as possible. It needs to be addressed.

I apologize to the witnesses for this, but I think it's of such an urgent nature that we need to get this brought forward and we need to address this issue as quickly as we can.

I wish my colleagues around the table will see the urgency for this and be very supportive in allowing us to get this done and put it forward, so that we can take the right steps to address this issue and get it addressed as quickly as possible.

With that, Mr. Chair, I will cede the floor.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Dr. Kitchen.

Mr. Majumdar, you have the floor.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I was listening to—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

It's interesting to me that you've recognized three Conservatives in a row. I had my hand up very early on—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Davies. Those are the people who had their hands up first.

Thank you.

Mr. Majumdar, you have the floor.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

That's quite ironic.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I understand the reluctance of the NDP to talk about the opioid crisis, given how much they've had a hand in facilitating it through their safe-supply policies for this country.

I was thinking, as I listened to my colleague Mr. Doherty's family experience with this, that there are a lot of us around the table who have virtue signalled around the question of an opioid crisis for quite some time now. We are the Standing Committee on Health. I am a rookie—a newcomer. I would imagine we would be exercised by the defining issues Canadians are being confronted with, particularly the most vulnerable Canadians.

In the aftermath, the PMB we're looking at pretends to be a review of the lockdowns. The lockdowns, COVID policies and pandemic policies we have been dealing with—which the witnesses are here to inform us about—have had massive impacts on the mental health of Canadians. Thousands of people lost their livelihoods as a result of terrible COVID policies. They have, in turn, turned to drugs.

The federal government is ready to offer up a solution with the safe supply of opioids. This Liberal-NDP coalition is obsessed with a culture of death through its policies on medical assistance in dying and safe supply. It requires leaders of conviction to step forward to confront it at this committee, in Parliament and around the country.

Mr. Doherty, I'm grateful for your courage in moving this motion.

I encourage all members of this committee to pay close heed to it.

I have a couple of reflections from my own home province of Alberta.

Seven thousand Albertans died of opioid poisoning between 2016 and 2022. That's seven thousand people. The numbers, as Mr. Doherty notes, are probably higher. This is what we know. The Alberta government and civil society have been informed by an amazing organization that is led by an individual in my riding. His name is Dr. Vause. His recovery-oriented model for victims of the opioid crisis is a force of nature. It is a holistic approach for patients and their families. It has returned 70% success for victims of opioid addiction.

This Alberta recovery-oriented system of care is something that, in our great federation, we could examine closely as a model that could be replicated everywhere. Their capacity is only about 23 patients and their families at a time. When you think about the scale of what I just described, with 7,000 people having died already, it's a scaling that cannot come urgently enough. Replicated properly, it will take a year or two to get teams of people deployed in places around the country.

In London, Ontario, because of the safe-supply policies of the Liberal-NDP coalition, the price of hydromorphone has gone from $20 to $2. They're flooding the market and killing Canadians. It requires us to examine this issue with the gravity it deserves, so we can bring home our loved ones drug-free.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank Mr. Doherty for raising these issues, and for the opportunity to reflect not just on what we're seeing in Calgary but also on the price we've experienced in Alberta.

I encourage members of this committee to take this as seriously as a heart attack and elevate it to the place it deserves in consideration of our public life in Parliament.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Majumdar.

Mr. Fisher, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This is an incredibly important topic to talk about. As a committee, we're tasked with legislation. The legislation we are tasked with tonight on a tight timeline is Bill C-293.

Dr. Ross said it's important to hear from people on the front line. Dr. Barrett is famous for saying, “health without knowledge doesn't happen.”

With respect for our witnesses, I move to adjourn debate.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Stephen Ellis]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fisher.

As we all know, this is a dilatory motion, which will of course mean that we will not have debate on this and we will have a vote immediately.

All those in favour of Mr. Fisher's motion?

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 3)

Therefore, we will adjourn debate as per Mr. Fisher's request. I need to confer with the clerk for 30 seconds, please.

Thank you very much, colleagues.

Ms. Sidhu, you have the floor.

Excuse me, Mr. Doherty, I have conferred with the clerk and I think we've had this convention before with the other chair that when we move a motion and it's been a member's turn for six minutes, whoever's turn it is, we consider that as having used the time. Therefore, we'll move on to Ms. Sidhu for six minutes. Thank you.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your patience and for being with us.

My first question is for Dr. Ross.

Dr. Ross, I want to recognize the importance of your organization and the knowledge you have gathered through the pandemic,. Earlier this month, during a meeting of health ministers, Mr. Holland spoke about the importance of data-sharing. What is the role of a reliable and accessible data system for both the health care system and the patients? Can you talk about that?

[Dr. Kathleen Ross]

Through the chair, yes, I'd be happy to speak about that.

There were several challenges that we faced across the country with regard to data, and I'll speak first about data regarding our health care workforce. We lack a standardized national database of health care workers in this country with specifics on what they are qualified to do, where are they working and what their area of expertise is.

If we're going to have a pan-Canadian workforce strategy, we need to begin with the basics of knowing who's doing what, where and when, and under what circumstances, to build forward.

The second has to do with the lack of consistent health data collection. We know that across jurisdictions in Canada, health data is collected in varying forms, and for that reason it is challenging to share across jurisdictions. If we are going to be prepared, moving forward, for the next pandemic or next health crisis, then I think it behooves us to actually have a database that we can access to know who's doing what and where in our workforce, as I said, and to have an understanding of where the gaps in our system are and where we are able to implement strategies to improve health care.

If I were to look backwards in time—and sorry, I don't want to take too much of your six minutes—there are definitely some public health lessons that we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, which had to do with funding of our public health teams and organizations, defining our increasing awareness of our public health physicians and public health practices and service delivery.

Certainly it is critical, in managing our health care system, that we prioritize a sustainable investment in staffing capacity, acknowledge and address the significant burnout among health care workers in public health, and invest in and develop public health information systems. Decision-making, prioritizing community engagement, focusing on improving health promotion and prevention, and modernizing communications and training and strategies, all of these require a solid foundation in data and shared data.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Ross.

My next question is for Dr. Barrett.

Dr. Barrett, could you speak to the process of early detection systems like waste-water monitoring to inform public health decisions for managing the present pandemic and preventing a future one? What can we see from waste-water monitoring?

Dr. Ross or Dr. Barrett, could you comment on that?

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

I can start. Dr. Ross can chime in if she wants.

On the part of the bill that would be most relevant to what you speak of in terms of early detection, clearly there's a need for early detection and clearly we weren't doing it well. Waste water is a technology that became more used, probably for the first time globally, through technological innovation and need. That became very apparent very quickly. It was not quickly and uniformly adopted, I would say, and that's still the case.

This also speaks to part of the purpose of a bill such as this, to take things that can be useful and not require them to be used, but to collect the data and then, where places want to use that information, that they be able to do so. There are two bits there. One is innovation that quickly comes to pragmatic use, and the second is standardization of collection of data that can then be used in different provinces in slightly different ways that respect federalism and then the associated provincial jurisdiction. Also, three, it comes back to the idea on a bigger scale that things that are in a research domain have to become used and tested in a practical way, quickly and without bureaucratic restriction. In the pandemic preparedness world, parts of this bill would be useful in doing that.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Quickly, how can we combat misinformation and disinformation? We all know that the COVID-19 vaccine is very effective. Can you comment on that quickly?

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

Is that question for me?

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Yes, Dr. Barrett.

[Dr. Lisa Barrett]

I think this comes back to trust and understanding that we have to be respectful and mindful of both individual decision-making and population-based messaging. People are smart; we need to respect that. Where there's a need for education, combine that with science. That comes back to trust. Withholding information and parsing it is not a useful tool in a public health emergency.