Health Committee on April 30th, 2026

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

You conferred. It's in Hansard. You conferred back and forth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

We conferred—

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

What did the clerk advise you? Was it in order or not?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I did not ask that specific question. I asked her—

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Riding Mountain, MB]

Can you ask her now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

I'm not going to ask her now.

This was my decision. I looked at it, and it was not by name. It was by designation. It's not her decision. It is my decision.

Let's move on. Thank you.

Pursuant to Standing Order 111 and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, April 16, 2026, the committee shall commence its study of the order in council appointment of Dr. Joss Reimer to the position of chief public health officer of Canada.

On behalf of committee members, I would like to welcome Dr. Reimer for the second hour.

Dr. Reimer, you have five minutes for your opening statement.

[Joss Reimer, Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Mr. Chair, members of Parliament, thank you for the invitation to meet with the committee today.

I am honoured to be here in my new role as Canada's chief public health officer and appreciate the opportunity to speak with you early in my mandate.

I assumed this position on April 1, following my appointment by the Government of Canada. I am a public health physician, the former regional chief medical officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, and past president of the Canadian Medical Association.

In these roles, I have learned that public health works best when decisions are informed by scientific evidence, collaboration and community. I look forward to listening to and learning from all partners and stakeholders and to bringing my experiences to this new role at the federal level.

As the Government of Canada's lead public health professional, my mandate is to provide independent, science-based advice to the Minister of Health and the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada. To do this effectively, I will collaborate with partners across jurisdictions in Canada and internationally on public health matters. I will also speak and engage with Canadians, health professionals, stakeholders and the public on population health issues. Finally, I will report annually to Parliament on the state of public health in Canada.

I have had a busy first few weeks listening to and learning from the agency's senior leaders about their ongoing work, challenges and priorities. I have also had meetings with the Minister of Health and the president of the agency, and have discussed priorities and expectations for my mandate.

I am focused on building strong relationships with federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous public health leaders. I had the opportunity to attend my first public health network council meeting as federal co-chair last week. One of the issues we discussed was emergency preparedness, specifically strengthening operational readiness and coordination.

This week, I had the honour of participating in the launch of the Pan American Health Organization's annual vaccination week in the Americas, which was held here in Ottawa. It was an opportunity to both celebrate the life-saving impact of vaccines and discuss how we need to sustain progress and address the challenges we face.

Immunization is a deeply personal topic for me. In Manitoba, I was responsible for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. In addition to that, I grew up in a rural community that at one point in the last two years had the highest rate of measles in the Americas. These issues matter to me and play a major role in why I decided to take on this position.

During my mandate, I look forward to collaborating with colleagues and partners domestically and internationally and with communities across the country to address pressing health concerns as well as health equity. This is a consequential moment for public health.

Canada faces a convergence of challenges with the re-emergence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, the ongoing toxic drug and overdose crisis, persistent health inequities, including for indigenous people, and growing risks linked to extreme weather events and emerging infectious diseases. At the same time, public trust in health institutions has been strained following the pandemic.

Earning and strengthening trust are central to my approach. I will support the delivery of public health advice and information that is transparent, consistent and reliable. To achieve this, I will work closely with partners and experts to address health misinformation and disinformation.

I will also place emphasis on strengthening prevention and preparedness, addressing infectious diseases and reinforcing global health security as well as supporting efforts to encourage innovation and strengthen basic public health functions like disease surveillance.

I am incredibly honoured to take on this role.

Mr. Chair, I look forward to working with this committee and partners across the country to protect and promote the health of people in Canada.

Thank you. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Thank you, Dr. Reimer.

We will go to Dr. Strauss for six minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Dr. Reimer, for being here today.

Thank you for your opening remarks. I had it in my head that you and I agree on a number of things—for instance, that medical misinformation can be dangerous and can harm patients and populations, and that measles vaccination in children is very important.

You didn't say so in your remarks, but I imagine you would agree with me that it's a bit of a gut punch that Canada has lost its measles elimination status. Would you agree with that?

[Joss Reimer]

I would agree that we do agree on many points, including that losing the measles elimination status was a very disappointing thing to happen in Canada.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I suspect that we also agree that it's really important that Canadians have trust in public health institutions and that public health institutions work to build trust with Canadians. I suspect that if you and I were to discuss this at great length, we might find that we have some areas of disagreement there.

I'll be open. In the region where I served as a public health officer, I'm sure measles vaccination rates went down, although good data wasn't even being taken at that time. In the region where you served as a public health officer, did measles vaccination rates go down over the time that you served?

[Joss Reimer]

We have seen a decrease in childhood vaccine uptake across the country. There's certainly variation in different regions and communities. However, I would say that across the board, for a variety of reasons, there has been a decrease, which contributed in part to what we're seeing with measles right now in Canada.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Could you share with me your reasoning for why that happened?

[Joss Reimer]

A number of things happened at the same time. As I mentioned, there was certainly some distress that occurred during the pandemic. For people who were experiencing the decisions that public health made, whether those were the right or the wrong decisions, we know that there were many difficult things people went through, such as losing income and losing access to friends and family. Other individuals lost loved ones. It was a really difficult time across the board.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'd say that's more agreement between you and me than I expected to attain.

You said, “whether those were the right or the wrong decisions”. Would you agree that some of the decisions in some jurisdictions were the wrong decisions?

[Joss Reimer]

During the pandemic, I know that public health professionals were working their very hardest to make the best decisions they could for their individual communities and for the country as a whole. There's—

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Surely they weren't batting a thousand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Raise your hand, please. That way it will work better.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sukh Dhaliwal]

Dr. Reimer, go ahead, please.

[Joss Reimer]

I have no doubt that we as public health professionals did not function perfectly. However, I believe that we made the best decisions we could with the information we had at the time and with the goal of the best outcome for Canadians as a whole.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

In service of our shared goal of increasing public health in institutions, do you think public health authorities specifying when they got it wrong and perhaps expressing some amount of humility or even contrition around those points may be in order as a way of building trust?

[Joss Reimer]

You bring up a really valuable point.

Something that I heard very clearly from Manitobans when I was doing the vaccine rollout was how important it was to them that I was transparent, that I expressed both what I knew and what I didn't know, and that when we changed our approach, we gave them an explanation as to why. Often it was because of new information.

I want to take that into this mandate as well, to make sure that when Canadians hear me speak about a topic, they can trust that I'm going to share what I know and what I don't know and that when we change approaches, I have an explanation for why we changed them.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'll go to some more specifics.

It's my understanding—although I'm not in the field anymore— that many public health authorities in many European countries no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children under 18. It is my understanding, last I checked, that public health authorities in Canada do recommend that. Can you speak at all to that discrepancy?

[Joss Reimer]

Within public health recommendations, we rely on the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, which is an independent body of scientific experts who review all of the evidence that is available and come up with recommendations for Canadians. They provide excellent advice to us because they're an independent body. The decisions about what is covered and offered in each province or territory are made by provinces and territories.