Health Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

There are three circumstances under which the motion can be considered. One is if it's moved in committee business. The second is if it is relevant to the subject matter of the study. The third is if there has been 48 hours' notice given.

I find that none of those conditions exist. The motion is therefore out of order.

Go ahead, Dr. Ellis.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Chair, I would certainly like to challenge the chair on that.

We know very clearly that during the pandemic the opioid epidemic became significantly worse. That's not to say that it wasn't bad before that, but we know that it became significantly worse. It is very much germanely associated with what we wish to discuss today, that being pandemic preparedness, which would include such things as understanding how to look after folks who struggle with things like addiction, homelessness, other health issues and access to the health care system.

I would suggest that what we need to understand very clearly is the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Dr. Ellis, I'm sorry to cut you off again, but I'm going to be consistent. You moved a non-debatable motion and you're now engaging in debate on a non-debatable motion. We're obliged to go directly to the vote.

The chair has ruled that a motion with respect to an opioid study is out of order. The question for the committee is whether the ruling of the chair shall be sustained.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I have a point of order, Chair. It's directly related to the pandemic. It's the opioid crisis as it relates directly to the pandemic, which I believe is part of the bill that we'll talk about here, which, I might say, is an act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Dr. Ellis, it's a fair point.

Just for the clarity of the committee before we proceed to a vote, I'd invite Dr. Ellis to again read the motion that I have ruled out of order.

Go ahead.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair. It is that, owing to the escalating opioid epidemic having had a devastating impact on the health of Canadians, especially during the pandemic, the committee conduct its upcoming studies on women's health concurrently with its study on the opioid crisis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

For clarity, colleagues, I've ruled that motion to be out of order, and the ruling has been challenged.

Shall the ruling of the chair be sustained?

(Ruling of the chair sustained)

(On clause 2)

We are now back to clause 2. The first amendment is CPC-1.

Is there someone who wishes to move CPC-1?

We have Dr. Ellis, please.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair.

When we look at this bill in its essence, part of the idea around this bill is talking about the prevention of a pandemic and future pandemics. Most of these pandemics are international in origin, of course, and to suggest that we could have a bill here in Canada that could prevent everything that happens around the world is, in my mind, a bit overly ambitious.

I guess the other difficulty I would have with this is that it's my understanding that the individual who presented this bill really hasn't been very actively engaged in promoting it or in trying to make it something useful. When we look at the goal of a government in a future public health emergency, it is to reduce the spread, to mitigate damage and to protect the public. To suggest that a bill we have here would be able to prevent a global catastrophe—much of what we have seen here in the last three years—is, as I said, perhaps aspirational in nature but very much overly ambitious and unrealistic in its scope. Also, I would suggest that the other parts of this bill are very jurisdictional in nature and, with their inability to influence provincial governments, it really is kind of nonsensical.

That being said, a bill that would suggest that the Government of Canada could control the actions of the entire world really seems nonsensical to me. Therefore, continuing down the road of having discussions when we have other significant things to discuss—and perhaps more significant things—and when the Liberal government has chosen not to have a pandemic inquiry, it would appear by this bill that the Liberal government doesn't wish to have a pandemic inquiry, but that they would be satisfied with having a private member's bill suffice for all Canadians to be the inquiry with respect to a pandemic.

From my perspective, when we look at this, Chair, it would seem to be something that is incredibly short in its ability to provide what Canadians are looking for. Realistically, the pandemic took a significant toll on Canadians regarding their ability to provide for themselves, their ability to access medical care and their ability to continue their businesses. Of course, since the time of the pandemic, what have we seen? We have seen 40-year highs of inflation. We have seen escalating interest rates at the hands of this Liberal government because of the money they printed.

Part of the original issue, when we came to this bill.... Witnesses presented by the Conservative Party were also those who would have spoken on behalf of Canadians in terms of the cost of living crisis that the printing of money has since caused. They also would have talked about the banking system. They also would have spoken very clearly about the mental health effects that happened to children, in that perhaps there were more issues related to mask-wearing than not, and whether these things are going to be an essential part of moving forward. We also would have called witnesses related to the issues around—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

What is up with this guy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Davies has a point of order.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Maybe Dr. Ellis could turn off his mike before he makes snide comments.

My point of order is this: The issue that we're debating is the purpose of the act, which says, “The purpose of this Act is to prevent the risk of and prepare for future pandemics and to promote transparency and accountability”, and the Conservative motion—which was moved, unironically, by the Conservatives and by Dr. Ellis—is simply to change the words “to prevent the risk of” to “to reduce as much as possible the risk of”.

As you said at the beginning of this, Mr. Chair, when moving a motion to amend the bill, we are to speak briefly about the amendment. What Dr. Ellis is doing is meandering through all sorts of completely unrelated subjects, including the economy, when the only purpose of his own amendment is to change the words “to prevent the risk of” to “to reduce as much of possible the risk of”. If he wanted to talk about these other subjects, it was entirely open to him to amend the purpose of the act to talk about the economy and all sorts of other things. He did not do that.

My point of order is that I would call on him to speak to his amendment and restrict his comments to the reasoning for his amendment—and any facts relating to that—instead of the meandering subject of the pandemic in general.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

A point of order with respect to relevance and repetition is a valid point of order. As I said before, the chair has pretty wide latitude with respect to relevance. Dr. Ellis is clearly testing the outer limits of that, but with that advice, I will ask him to retake the floor.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I guess “meandering” is an interesting word, which my colleague wishes to use when we're talking about a pandemic that happens only once in 100 years and had extremely wide-reaching effects across all segments of Canadian society. Certainly, there have been multiple Conservative Party amendments put forward—20 or so—on a bill that is incredibly wide-ranging. I think the relevance, Mr. Chair, is really related to the fact that it is exceedingly important to underscore the impacts that this pandemic had on Canadians.

For one, before there was a point of order, I was suggesting that.... Is this Liberal and NDP coalition government really ready to have a pandemic inquiry based on a private member's bill? Is that realistically the kind of shield that they wish to hide themselves behind when we know very clearly that part of the goal—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Ellis is clearly outside the relevance of this issue because the issue of an advisory committee and an inquiry is in the next clause. It's in clause 3 of the bill. If he's read the package, then he knows that the NDP has submitted an amendment to create a public independent inquiry into COVID, and that's exactly the subject of the next clause. He is clearly beyond the scope of clause 2.

I'm going to ask him to confine his comments to the purpose section and to explaining his own amendment, which is a fine point: changing the words “to prevent the risk of” to “to reduce as much as possible the risk of” a pandemic. I'm curious to hear his rationale behind that. In fact, I plan on supporting it.

However, certainly, if he's talking about the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Davies, just hang on a second.

We have another point of order from Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chair, with all due respect to our colleagues....

Mr. Davies, I've been part of many bills and reviews of many studies. I believe Mr. Ellis was merely stating the background as to why CPC-1 is relevant to this study. Whether it's at this committee or others, the chair has given latitude to members, whether they're Liberals, NDP, Greens, Bloc or Conservatives. They're allowed to explain the rationale behind an amendment, and that's all our colleague is doing.

Explanations can be short or they can be long. It's whatever it takes to adequately express the purpose behind the amendment. That's all my colleague is doing.

I think Mr. Davies is probably going to chime in with more points of order today, as it seems to be the way things are going. However, with all due respect, Mr. Chair, I think you have done a good job of giving the latitude to allow our colleagues to express.... Whether it's to us, the Liberals or the NDP, there's an enormous amount of latitude that the chair will give a member to adequately express the mindset behind their amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Do you want to share remarks on your point of order, Mr. Davies?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm sorry. I didn't catch that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Did you have anything further to add with respect to your point of order?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'll add just that I think it's really important to reiterate what the amendment is here. The purpose of the act is “to prevent the risk of and prepare for future pandemics”, and Dr. Ellis is proposing that we amend this to “to reduce as much as possible the risk of”.

That is the narrow amendment he is proposing here. He's making a lot of comments that I think may be germane to other sections of the bill but not to that particular amendment. I know there's wide latitude, but the latitude is anchored in the actual amendment before us. I think he's going far beyond the latitude that is normally given. I'd ask him to wrap up his comments so that we can vote on this amendment and proceed to the other important concepts he's raising.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I'm sorry, Dr. Ellis. That is, indeed, a valid point of order.

My ask of you is exactly as Mr. Davies has said. If you could confine your remarks to clause 2 and to the amendment, that would be in order and appreciated.

Thank you.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Part of the difficulty of needing to explain everything in this particular committee, of course, is related to the Liberal-NDP coalition. What we have seen in this committee many times is that.... Essentially, we'll often see small conventions with the NDP member and the Liberals deciding what their next maleficent mode of action will be. When we look at those styles of things, they relate to the fact that, for those of us who are here to hold the NDP-Liberal coalition government to account, it requires significant explanation in order to have anything be done.

I would suggest to you that future governments, should this incredibly ridiculous piece of legislation be adopted, look very clearly at what the purpose of the act is as suggested in the wording. Therefore, to have the NDP member continue to suggest that he is the arbiter and the only voice of good sense and reason is an affront to significant democracies—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

We have well-established rules in the House and in committee about parliamentary language. I said no such thing. I did not set myself up to be the self-appointed arbiter of anything. Those are not words in my mouth. That's an insulting tack and, very frankly, beneath the honourable member. I'd ask him to retract that.

Once again, he continues to speak beyond the purpose of his amendment. Frankly, if the Conservatives wanted to redraft the purpose to deal with the issues they're raising, they well could have. They did not. The narrow amendment before us.... What I'm trying to listen to here is why preventing “the risk of” a pandemic is different from reducing “as much as possible the risk of”. That is the amendment my honourable colleague put before us. He could have put all sorts of other things that he seems to want to talk about in the purpose, but he didn't ground those speaking points in an amendment. That's what he's not permitted to do.

I would ask that we cease the personal shots. How a Liberal-NDP coalition, which frankly is actually incorrect—there is no Liberal-NDP coalition—would possibly be relevant in preventing the risk of a pandemic versus reducing the risk of a pandemic is utterly beyond any right-thinking person. Clearly, the Conservatives are trying to filibuster this meeting. If we want to talk about good faith and bad faith—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I have a point of personal privilege.