[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, November 21, 1995
.1536 
[English]
The Chairman: I call the meeting to order. Welcome, everyone, to the organizational meeting for the subcommittee on Bill C-95, a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Health.
I guess the first order of business is the order of reference, dated November 7, 1995, which I will read into the record:
- It was agreed
That upon the presentation of the report of the Sub-Committee, it be deemed adopted, and that the Chairman of the Committee present it to the House on behalf of the Committee.
That the Sub-Committee be empowered, except when the House otherwise orders, to send for persons, papers and records, to sit while the House is sitting, to during periods when the House stands adjourned, to print from day to day such papers and meetings to receive evidence when a quorum is not present and to authorize the printing thereof.
That a Research Officer be provided to the Sub-Committee by the Library of Parliament.
There is a second order of reference dated today, Tuesday, November 21, 1995:
- It is ordered that the Standing Committee on Health authorize the allocation of sufficient funds
from its budget to the Sub-Committee on Bill C-95 for the payment of reasonable travel and
living expenses to witnesses appearing before the Sub-Committee, in accordance with the
guidelines adopted by the Main Committee.
The first of these motions states:
- That when the Chair of the Sub-Committee is unable to act in that capacity at or during a
meeting of the Sub-Committee, he shall designate a member of the Sub-Committee to act as
Chair at or during the said meeting.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: The second one says:
- That the committee print 350 copies of its Minutes of Proceedings.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: We move to the third one:
- That the Chairman be authorized to hold meetings in order to receive evidence and authorize its
printing when a quorum is not present provided that at least (3) three members are present,
including a Member of the Opposition.
Motion agreed to
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The Chairman: The next one states:
- That during the questioning of witnesses, at any meeting of the Sub-Committee, there be
allocated one ten minute period per Party for the first round of questions and five minutes per
member for the subsequent rounds; and that time permitting, every member, or substitute
member, be offered the opportunity to question the witness.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: I'll continue with the next one:
- That reasonable traveling and living expenses be paid, on request to witnesses invited to appear
before the Sub-Committee, to a maximum of two representatives for any one organization.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: The next one reads:
- That Members's staff be permitted to attend in camera sittings of the Sub-Committee.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: The next one deals with transcripts of in camera meetings:
- That one transcript of all in camera meetings be kept in the Sub-Committee Clerk's office for
consultation by Members and staff of the Sub-Committee and, that all transcripts be destroyed
at the end of the session.
Motion agreed to
The Chairman: Gee, that was a whiz.
Under future business, I would like to first of all inform members that subject to the timing that we will be discussing in terms of a work plan, the Department of Health will be appearing before the subcommittee on Thursday, November 23, at 3:30 p.m. Do we have agreement on that? Is that acceptable?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
I should also advise that we've had requests from two organizations to appear before the subcommittee on Bill C-95, those being the Canadian Nurses Association/Association des infirmières et infirmiers du Canada, and the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association/Association pharmaceutique canadienne. At this point, I understand these are the only requests that have been made.
The Clerk of the Committee: Those are the only ones that have been received, yes.
The Chairman: In the interest of expediting our work, and in the event that we are to proceed on Thursday - as we will - I took the liberty to find out if either of these organizations could in fact appear on Thursday, following the department, if time allowed. Because of a conference the Department of Finance or the finance committee is holding, however, these organizations are tied up and will not be available to appear on Thursday.
With that, I would propose a tentative work plan for the committee that would involve meeting with the department at 3:30 p.m., Thursday, November 23. We would begin to hear witnesses on the following Tuesday, starting with the two who have expressed an interest to appear. I would also ask if members have any suggestions, or if members have been approached in terms of other witnesses. I would very much like to deal with this efficiently. We all have much to do, so I'm sure we can make our points with dispatch and get on with other things.
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Perhaps members wish to put forward those names now. Do any have names of people they would like to see appear at this point?
[Translation]
Mrs. Picard (Drummond): We have a list of witnesses who would be interested in appearing before the subcommittee. We are awaiting confirmation from these associations and we will be submitting our list within the next few days.
[English]
The Chairman: Would it be possible to have the list before Thursday so that the committee could decide on Thursday, when we meet, to deal with the department? We could have an opportunity at that time to make decisions and allow staff to make arrangements. Could I ask for purposes of planning whether you have any idea how many we're talking about?
[Translation]
Mrs. Picard: Yes. We have received three confirmations.
[English]
Ms Fry: Mr. Chair, I wonder if you could clarify for us what sort of witnesses you think we should be having for this. This is a specific bill; what do you think is appropriate? We don't want people wandering all over the board asking questions on health in general if we're going to speak directly to this bill. Do you have any sort of clarification?
The Chairman: I think it's important for us all - not only in the context of witnesses, even; in terms of our own performance - where the witnesses appear that we try as much as possible to restrict the discussion to the contents of the bill so that we can in fact get this done, as I said earlier, as efficiently as possible. Clearly, every time a witness appears they can take advantage of the opportunity to speak to issues that are of interest to them and to the country but not to the bill. Certainly, the same applies to us. I say this recognizing I have a tendency toward that particular behaviour myself. I'll be watching for it.
I've been advised by the Canadian Nurses Association that they cannot appear before November 30. Generally, given the number of witnesses it would appear we're considering, the department and maybe three, four or five others, I think that's a safe assumption. We can probably dedicate Thursday to the department, Tuesday, November 28, to witnesses, and perhaps a part of Thursday, November 30, if we're thinking about meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Then we can probably begin clause by clause by November 30.
I've asked the staff to identify some potential times so that we can block out such time as would be necessary. The only assumption contained in this was the fact that we probably would have less than seven or eight witnesses, which this would allow us to accommodate.
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So not knowing at the time that we wouldn't be able to have other witnesses on November 23, we blocked off two sessions. That probably won't be necessary, as we'll simply have the department at 3:30 p.m.
Then, on Tuesday, November 28, of the following week, I would propose that we would entertain witnesses at 3:30 p.m., and depending on what happens on Thursday in terms of how many we have, possibly 5:30 p.m. Then we would meet again on Thursday, November 30, in the morning and again at 3:30 p.m. That will allow us to do clause by clause and be finished - or possibly finished - by November 30 and ready to report back to our committee on their meeting on Tuesday, December 5.
Does that seem reasonable? Given the number of witnesses we have, given the length of the bill, that seems a reasonable work plan, if everyone's in agreement.
Ms Fry: What if we finish all of our work before that time? Obviously we don't need to meet any further.
The Chairman: No.
Ms Fry: Good. Thank you.
The Chairman: This is not so exciting for me that I feel the need to drag it out.
What I would like to do is simply very tentatively provide staff with the guidelines contained in this proposed plan. We'll see what it looks like on Thursday in terms of any additional witnesses, but we'll begin to operate and schedule ourselves according to these times and dates until such time as something happens that means these don't work. We will know then on Thursday, and make final decisions about the balance of the witness list, but the assumption here is we're operating from a short list, and again, I hope we'll all resist the temptation to use the occasion to discuss the broader issues contained in the bill.
Ms Fry: That'll be up to you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Szabo: I'd like to spend a little time with the committee here to reflect on the strategy to deal with this bill. Unlike other bills, most of it is boiler plate. I can tell you, I'm very uncomfortable just asking people to come as witnesses for this bill without having determined that the committee has a need in a particular area and to fit witnesses to the needs of the committee rather than just saying, let's see what they have to say.
There seems nothing specific here, and quite frankly, if the members do not have a need in an area, I don't know whether or not it's appropriate for us to have people come here at some expense to tell us about something we're not sure of. We're not sure exactly why they're going to come.
I think I'd like to see witnesses come for a specific reason. It has to be known exactly what the drift or what their focus is simply so that we're not here just to listen to general discussions about the history of Health Canada.
I don't know that all the members have looked at this bill, or even at the legislative summary, but I think it would be useful to get an idea from the rest of the members of the committee what are the areas of contention, concern or need for information so that we can focus our requests for witnesses rather than simply just issue the invitation and hope they come and tell us something we don't know whether we need to know.
The Chairman: I'm operating under the assumption that there is an interest in certain circles in the bill. I don't think we're talking about a broad interest, as is reflected by the fact that only two people have contacted the clerk to express their interest in appearing. I also recognize that as a member sometimes I get called instead of calling the clerk. That's why I think it's appropriate for members to have the opportunity to at least present their case to the committee.
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I think it's for the committee to decide who we're going to hear, and that would happen on Thursday. My own instinct - and I guess as chair I'm allowed to have instinct if not to vote on it - is that there's no problem if only two people have asked to appear at this point and if we only have two or three when Thursday arrives. But that's for the committee to decide, not me.
Mr. Szabo: If their position is that they fully endorse the bill, period, it's not going to be very useful to us. It would be nice to know where they're coming from and make sure that you don't have a bunch of people all coming and saying exactly the same thing.
I think it's important to find out whether there's anybody out there who has an issue, has a problem, has something they need to bring to our attention because presently the bill as it stands doesn't do what they think it should do. That's useful. If it's just people who are advocating in support of the bill, then we should know that in advance.
Ms Fry: Mr. Chair, I support what Paul is saying. This was the gist of my first question. I think this bill is a very specific bill and I fear we may find that witnesses will want to come and free-range on the very broad issue of health, from soup to nuts, because this is a bill to do with renaming the department.
This bill has very little in it that is new. I see it as very much of a housekeeping bill, almost an administrative type of bill. What I would like to hope, and I think I support Paul in this, is that if people come they will speak to the bill and not to any issue that surrounds health, in which case we could be here for a year discussing every concept of health just because this bill says it's health.
When we need to look at what the specifics of the bill are, what it really deals with is pure administration and what health is doing. There's very little new in this bill that people need to address. What we're addressing is new things in the bill and there's very little that's new.
[Translation]
Mrs. Picard: Mr. Chairman, it was my intention to call in witnesses who have studied Bill C-95.
I realize that overall, not much has been added to Bill C-95, with the exception of certain new powers granted to the Minister of Health. The witnesses that I would like to call will speak to us about C-95 and perhaps suggest some amendments.
[English]
The Chairman: Are there any other comments?
[Translation]
Mr. Patry: Mr. Chairman, if some people want to come before the subcommittee to discuss Bill C-95 and nothing else, we have a responsibility to hear them out. I would think it's a given that the Canadian Nurses Association and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of Canada, both of which have asked to appear before our subcommittee, will be talking about Bill C-95. At least I hope they will.
We will have to ensure, through the Clerk, that these witnesses will speak only about Bill C-95 and that they will not use the time allotted to them to talk to us about other matters. If groups want to talk to us about Bill C-95, I think that we have a responsibility to listen to them.
The Chairman: Mr. Szabo.
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[English]
Mr. Szabo: Under those circumstances I would agree that anybody who has something specific.... But that to me means that prior to inviting them to come before us, we should have them submit at least a one-pager identifying the essence of their intervention. Then the committee will be in a better position to decide whether or not we feel they're an appropriate witness for that.
The Chairman: I see the nodding of heads. Do I read this correctly? This would be an appropriate way to establish who we hear, even for our own purposes. If five different people all speak to the same point, it strikes me that it would make some sense to make a decision as to who might make that point rather than to hear the same thing five times.
If we're in agreement I don't need a motion, do I?
The Clerk: No.
The Chairman: The staff would be instructed to seek a one-pager from the people who have already let us know of their interest. As well, as we make decisions on Thursday, anyone who's bringing forward names should also bring forward a one-pager for Thursday, if that's possible. That would help us to make appropriate selections. It would save a great deal of time if that's doable.
Mr. Hill (Macleod): I just want to go on record on this issue. The bill is to change the name of the Department of Health. If the Government of Canada cannot do that without having a host of people come in and tell us there's a problem with that, our country is finished, collapsing. If I went to a group of high school students in my constituency and said we're having subcommittee meetings that are going to last for weeks on changing the name of the department, they'd say the Government of Canada has lost its marbles.
This should be quick. This should be enthusiastic and done with. I can't express myself any more strongly than that.
The Chairman: As a matter of fact, I know you can.
Having said that, I think ultimately we not only have a responsibility to do the business of government in this place, but we also have to recognize the obligation we have to the public to be seen to be doing it in as open and transparent a way as possible.
We may all agree that there's little in the bill that would require a great number of witnesses appearing, although I don't think that's necessarily held unanimously here. But I do think it's important for those who would want to appear, who have expressed an interest in appearing, given that we've asked them to direct their intervention specifically to the bill. I take the member's point, but I don't think we're really talking about a long period of time. We're probably talking about one day.
Thursday we'll decide specifically. We're not making those decisions at this point. If it looks as though it would be more than that, then we can revisit the question and make some very specific decisions.
Mr. Patry: Mr. Chair, it's November 21 today and you said at the beginning that you're expecting to have the report done by Thursday, November 30. That would be nine days. I think that would be quite fast and I'll be very pleased if it's that fast. That would be sufficient. We're not talking weeks, we're talking days. In the House of Commons, I think it's marvellous to talk days once in awhile and not weeks or months.
Those are my remarks.
The Chairman: In the spirit of operating quickly, if there's no further discussion I will adjourn this meeting to the call of the chair.