Health committee  You need a safety net. There has to be a safety net. You cannot have a free-for-all of a country, where some provinces don't do the right thing—whether it's on vaccination, on shutdowns or on the size of public gatherings—and expect good outcomes. If every province is making it

Health committee  In a physical sense, yes, but this is where the law clashes a bit with practical reality. You can set up the hospitals federally using paragraph (g), but how are you going to staff them and integrate them into the health system so that, for instance, you have somewhere to dischar

Health committee  Definitely.

Health committee  Yes, it's all correct. Interestingly, a case around the peace, order and good government power comes to the Supreme Court about once every 30 years, and we just had one decided a few weeks ago. The carbon tax case was a peace, order and good government case. I litigated it—full d

Health committee  Absolutely I would, and to the extent that you can use the Emergencies Act, now is the time to do it. Well, the time to do it was months ago, but it should be used.

Health committee  It fits absolutely all of the branches you mentioned, so again, clearly yes.

Health committee  It is, and let me give you some historical context. You can go back centuries to medieval Italy. At that time, the very best public health measure was the cordon sanitaire, the looping off of an area—the cordoning off of an area and not allowing people in or out. It is the surest

Health committee  Good morning, Chair. I'm Amir Attaran, a lawyer, a scientist and a professor of both. Thank you for inviting me again. This morning I've been asked to discuss federal emergency powers and COVID. Let's start with the obvious: This country has learned nothing. We are in a third

Industry committee  First of all, your question has an incorrect prima facie. Health is a shared jurisdiction under the Constitution, both federal and provincial. With continued sedulous attention to the myth that it's provincial only, simply, you are getting off on the wrong foot as a government wi

Industry committee  I love your plan. I'd make two changes. One, do not bet on mRNA vaccines only—danger, danger, danger. By the way, I personally don't—

Industry committee  We need all three—protein subunit as well.

Industry committee  I do not think there's a chance. Providence has been through a bad experience. I do not think there is a snowball's chance they'll have a vaccine commercialized by the end of the year. That's a separate discussion. The other thing I would change is this: Why must we review every

Industry committee  That's a great idea. I'd go a step further. Just grant automatic recognition to what the Europeans approve and register or what the Americans approve and register. They are technically competent—more competent than Health Canada. There's no need to reinvent the wheel. If we're tr

Industry committee  I really do not know, because there is no transparency. The Prime Minister says that the entire population will be vaccinated by September. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. If we can't see the contracts and the precise planning, how can we know?

Industry committee  It's not even a question of the price. We shouldn't be worried about this. What I'm worried about is that, even right now, the government is failing awfully at advancing manufacturing plans. We are doing it in the slowest possible way we can. What happens if in the next 12 months