HEAL Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA SANTÉ

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, October 3, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.)): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Despite our not having a big crowd, I think we should begin.

Essentially, we don't have witnesses. The witnesses are part of our own team here, our researchers, Nancy and Sonya.

We'll begin with the summary of evidence, which takes us through last spring and to the last meeting in June, but does not cover the last two weeks. We will present the summary of evidence for the first few weeks of the fall after Thanksgiving, and we'll go through the same procedure again.

You will notice in this summary of evidence there are certain sections where it says “no testimony to date”, and you'll find that this summary of evidence begins to fill in the blanks as they keep adding sections based upon more recent witnesses.

Opening that document, you'll see that on page 1 there is simply a summary of what dates the meetings were held, from whom we heard, and the layout of how this was organized. You'll recall that some of the initial witnesses talked in a general way about the topic and did not relate their presentations to the draft legislation, but it's a little easier for us to review based upon the way the legislation is laid out.

I'm wondering if the new members have copies of the draft legislation. Mrs. Chamberlain, did you get a copy of the draft legislation in a package?

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain (Guelph—Wellington, Lib.): No.

The Chair: I think it would be helpful to you, because I'm going to work through the summary of evidence with the draft legislation beside me.

This meeting has two purposes, to go through the summary of evidence and to talk about the work plan. When the latter comes, I think we will move in camera, because the names of certain witnesses may come out, and I don't like talking about experts we've brought in who are sharing their information with us in a public forum, I don't think that's fair to them. So for now we're in open meeting, and a little later we'll move in camera. Is that agreeable? Seeing no objection, I'll follow that plan.

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On page 2 of the summary of evidence under A we have the preamble, which is page 1 of the draft legislation. These clauses tell what the Health Canada official Mr. Shugart said, with the comments of the witnesses. There are three main comments there, one from the ethicist Françoise Baylis, a second from two ethicists, Shanner and Sommerville, and a third one just from Mrs. Sommerville, who has raised a possible addition to the preamble. We don't have to decide today whether we like it or we don't. We're not here to debate the substance. I am here to ask you whether you thought there's anything that some witness brought forward, but isn't included, anything you thought sufficiently important to be in the summary of evidence.

Seeing none, I move to page 3, which has three more points about the preamble. Any comments on that?

Okay. Still on page 3, we go to short title, what Health Canada said and what the witnesses said. Any comments on that section from your reading?

Seeing none, I move to page 4 under definitions. Are there any definitions other than the ones commented on by the witnesses that you think are fuzzy.

Madame Picard.

[Translation]

Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Let me be very honest with you. I think most of us are finding it very difficult to support you at this time. I for one received the documentation today and given our caucus meeting this morning and our other activities, including Question Period, I haven't had time to read the document in its entirety. More than likely, I'm not the only one in this position. I'm looking at my colleagues and they too seem to be wondering what kind of support they can give you at this time. I can't say that I agree or disagree with you. What more can I tell you?

[English]

The Chair: Thank you for your honesty, Madame Picard. I understand your position. At the end of yesterday's meeting I alerted everybody to the fact that it would be on the e-mail before the end of the day, and I asked if they would take it home and look at it last night. But you were not here, so you did not hear that message. I am very sorry. I should have phoned you, knowing you weren't here. It's my fault.

The Chair: Mr. Merrifield.

Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance): I was here yesterday and you did make me aware of it, but it's just that I had prior arrangements. I have gone through it.

The Chair: But briefly?

Mr. Rob Merrifield: I rushed it. I think it's a little unfair. Late yesterday afternoon was the first time we had an opportunity to see it, then today there just wasn't any time.

The Chair: Let me go about it a different way, then.

I have one comment over here. Mr. Dromisky.

Mr. Stan Dromisky (Thunder Bay—Atikokan, Lib.): Well, Madam Chairperson, you know, the more I read... There has been so much printed in the last four or five months regarding this, pertaining especially to definitions that we have to deal with. We're going to need some kind of definite, strong parameters to establish maybe one or two crucial definitions. No matter which way we go, they will have fantastic implications on all further definitions we would like to put into the document. It has a domino effect. So I think we will have to spend some very serious, concentrated time just on this one particular area.

The Chair: Thank you for that input.

Again, this document is really the attempt by the researchers to produce something that is similar to the minutes of a meeting. They are not taking any stands here. They are simply saying, this is what we heard, and particularly, this is what we heard where Health Canada's explanations either were confusing to the witnesses or not sufficiently clear, or where the witnesses were critical of Health Canada's proposals. It doesn't cover every word that was said. It covers those areas where health officials explained that a certain section meant this, and witnesses came later and said, that's not clear enough, these are the possible negative implications of that, etc.

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So it is almost like a set of minutes. That's why I didn't want to get into the substance, and what you're referring to is a substantive matter, although your comment is helpful to the researchers, because you are making a very serious point. The definitions have such impact later on that we do need to have some proposed definitions, and maybe even to debate them, prior to debating the substance of the report.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: I agree with you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: So that was a valuable comment.

Can I just ask, if certain people haven't read it or have not had time to read it carefully and compare it to their own notes, or whatever, in this document is there anything anybody found where they felt the minutes of that section, the report of what happened, is missing something or needs to be strengthened with additional witnesses' comments or something? If anybody did any work, I don't want to preclude their input at this moment.

Mr. Castonguay, did you have any suggestions for where you thought the summary was inadequate, or would you prefer to have another go at it another day?

Mr. Jeannot Castonguay (Madawaska—Restigouche, Lib.): I personally would like to have another go, because there's so much material in here—you know, you have to swallow it, and then you have to digest it. That's our challenge, and I believe we want to do a good job, so we'd better take the time.

The Chair: Okay.

Ms. Judy Sgro (York West, Lib.): It was, I think, about 7 o'clock when we were able to get this last night. I kept waiting for it to come up through the system. So I reviewed it quickly.

I think it reflects the things we talked about. But it is so important that as much as I want to move forward on it quickly, I think if we spent a wee bit more time making sure it reflected everything we wanted, so we were clear, it would be much more helpful than trying to move our way through it this afternoon.

The Chair: Thank you for that. I think that summarizes what I'm seeing as the position of most people around the table.

So I have two suggestions. We could work on it tonight and try to fit 15 or 20 minutes in for any of your suggestions, so that the researchers can hear them, or we could wait until after the break, when they will have synthesized this with the new summary of evidence from the first few weeks. At that point I would ask them to put the new evidence in using some other kind of font, so we can see the difference from what we already have. That would not preclude your doing some preparatory work on what you have, and when you get the new document the first week back, going through what you see in a different font to make sure that's what you heard from the witnesses. Is that agreeable?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Mr. Merrifield.

Mr. Rob Merrifield: That's exactly what I was going to say. These are minutes. It's really not that important. We can go through these. If there's something we find that is inaccurate, according to our notes, we can bring it up on Thursday, if we want, or perhaps after the break. I would agree with you, after the break, when we get the rest of the minutes, that brings us right up to speed as to where we're at. I think we can give you some productive direction from that period on.

The Chair: Good. So we'll probably have to schedule an extra meeting on the Wednesday afternoon after the break to do this. Well, we probably wouldn't get the document until the Tuesday meeting. We might have to put it off for a bit.

But all this is the preparatory work prior to the report our researchers have to write. I think the more we do ahead of time to give them guidance, the easier it will be when we get the actual report to feel comfortable that it reflects what happened in this committee during this period. So I think a little bit of preparatory work along the way will make it easier for them to write a report that reflects our thinking and what we heard.

The clerk is just suggesting to me that we confirm this decision tomorrow with a motion, that we're referring this document and the additional pieces of information that will be added to it to a meeting some time after the break, when we've had time to do it properly.

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Let me just make one suggestion to you. If there's a section in here that you think is very important and want strengthened, with a little more information added—you might say, I think this is important, and I see six lines about it—even such a thing as that would be helpful to the researchers. You may want to say to them, I remember another witness who spoke about that subject, but I don't see that person quoted in here. That's the kind of suggestion you might make. Or you might say, there's really too much in here on this section; it seems to me we're pretty well agreed about it, so we don't need to waste quite so much space on it.

So those are the kinds of comments we're looking for—accuracy, emphasis, and those kinds of things.

I thank you for your input on that. I'm sorry you didn't have it long enough that we could do something really productive today.

Let us move to the second part of the meeting now, ladies and gentlemen. In your package for today you will find another thing prepared by our hard-working researchers called “Revised Workplan”.

I'd like to ask for an informal agreement to go into camera.

Are there any members of the media present? I just see members and staffers, is that right?

The clerk says we can't really go in camera and keep things secret without a motion. But I don't think we're going to record anything here that has to be kept secret.

You're just worried about the transcript?

Let me just say that we cannot formally go in camera without a quorum. But let us, among ourselves, consider that we are in camera and that what is said at this point is between ourselves. That's the best I can do to protect the names, if any names come forward.

Can we turn off the recording without the motion to go in camera. I don't think so.

Mr. Stan Dromisky: We can't make a motion to have it turned off, can we?

The Chair: We can't make any motion at all without a quorum.

Mr. Jeannot Castonguay: Let's adjourn the meeting and talk about it outside the meeting.

Mrs. Brenda Chamberlain: Yes, you could do that.

The Chair: Okay, that's right. Because we're only going to vote on this tomorrow.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the formal meeting is now adjourned.

[Editor's Note: Proceedings continue in camera]