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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION
Standing Committee on Health
EVIDENCE
CONTENTS
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
| ¿ | 0915 |
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The Chair (Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.)) |
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Dr. Tony Wright (Chairman, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee) |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0920 |
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Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ) |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
| ¿ | 0925 |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
| ¿ | 0930 |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
| ¿ | 0935 |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0940 |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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Mr. Gordon Prentice (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Gordon Prentice |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
| ¿ | 0945 |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Réal Ménard |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0950 |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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Mr. Kevin Brennan (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee) |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Kevin Brennan |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Kevin Brennan |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Kevin Brennan |
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The Chair |
| ¿ | 0955 |
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Mr. Kevin Brennan |
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The Chair |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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Ms. Annette Brooke (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee) |
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Mr. Rob Merrifield |
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The Chair |
| À | 1000 |
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The Clerk of Committee (Mr. José Cadorette) |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
| À | 1005 |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
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Dr. Tony Wright |
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The Chair |
CANADA
Standing Committee on Health |
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l |
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EVIDENCE
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
¿ 
(0915)
[English]
The Chair (Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.)): Good morning. It's a pleasure to welcome you here to the Standing Committee on Health.
I'll introduce you to two of our opposition members, Mr. Réal Ménard, who is vice-chair and a member for the party known as the Bloc Québécois, and Ms. Betty Hinton, who is a member of the Canadian Alliance, which is the official opposition. He's from a riding in the city of Montreal in Quebec, and she's from a riding in British Columbia called Kamloops, which is in the interior. It's quite an interesting place, and you can ask her about that.
In any case, we welcome you. We weren't surprised you were late once we knew you were having breakfast with Sir Andrew Burns, who is one of our favourite diplomats in town. He puts on lovely receptions, and we occasionally get invited to them. The main thing is that he has such a delicious sense of humour and makes everybody laugh on a regular basis. We very much enjoy him and we're very sad he is leaving because he has become such a favourite around here.
However, we look forward to whoever the new person may be.
Because we are a little late, I think we should get to the actual interaction. I just want to compliment you on picking this time of year to come to Canada because you will see the weather is very pleasing, and hopefully there will still be some blossoms left as you travel around.
Now, we have a little package that tells us a little bit about how your system works, but seeing as you have come so far, it would seem to me that maybe Dr. Wright would like to introduce his people, tell us a little bit about them, and then make the inquiries you are trying to make as you do this trip.
Dr. Wright.
Dr. Tony Wright (Chairman, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee): Thank you very much, and could I just say, thank you on behalf of the committee for finding some time to see us.
It seems like we've been here much longer than we have. We've only been here since yesterday and we've had a full day. We're already becoming experts on Canada now and we feel quite at home here. Is there anything you'd like to know? Do ask us and we'll try to help.
We are a committee, as you see, called public administration. We look at issues across the departments of government. We have a little health interest because we oversee the work of the National Health Service ombudsman, the person who investigates complaints in the health service, but that's just one little strand of our work.
We represent all the parties in Britain, and most of us are members of the governing party, the Labour Party, but Annette here is a Liberal Democrat; we'll say no more about that. Gordon Prentice is member of Parliament from Pendle, which is in the north of England. I should have said Annette was from the south coast, Poole; lovely place; seaside. Kelvin Hopkins is member of Parliament for Luton, which is in Bedfordshire, which is sort of in the middle somewhere.
Jackie Recardo is a committee official with us. Gillian Licari works for the high commission in London and keeps an eye on us at both ends.
Kevin Brennan comes from Cardiff, which is in Wales. Ian Liddell-Grainger is the only member we bring from the Conservative Party. There aren't many of them these days; they're a protected species, so we have to look after Ian very carefully. Philip Aylett is our clerk and he looks after us, and David Heyes is also a Labour member of Parliament.
So that's us, really. We've come to look at public services in general in Canada, and it's great of you to ask us to come to Parliament to see a couple of committees. We'd like to know the sort of things you do and how you keep an eye on the bit of public services you're interested in.
The Chair: Well, it's probably a little bit confusing in the sense that while we are the Standing Committee on Health, our health responsibilities do not extend to health care for the general population, not even public health for the general population.
The federal Department of Health does have specific responsibilities around specific populations, for example, inmates in federal correctional institutions, the armed forces, and aboriginal people--aboriginal people on-reserve, not aboriginal people in the cities. The actual health care delivery system is run by the provinces. The federal government transfers large blocks of money to them and we have the Canada Health Act, which has certain principles they must adhere to.
But essentially, the on-the-ground delivery, whether it's the inspection of restaurants, the inoculation of babies, or the right to hospital care and clinics, all that sort of thing, is run by the provinces. We don't have too much to do with that.
Now, some of us on the committee have had some experience in that field. We have three medical doctors on our committee who have delivered services themselves. We have a chiropractor on our committee. Prior to coming to Parliament, some of us who are not health care professionals served on health planning bodies, hospital boards, and that sort of thing. So we have a fair bit of expertise around the table, but once here at the federal level, we have very little jurisdiction over the things people care about the most.
To give you an idea of what we do, I can mention that we're about to examine pharmaceuticals and the approval process for new drugs, access to pharmaceuticals....
What are some of the other things we decided to study? We just did this yesterday.
¿ (0920)
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): There is direct-to-consumer advertising.
[English]
There's how firms use publicity with consumers.
The Chair: Yes, we're going to examine direct-to-consumer advertising. We're going to examine how pharmaceutical companies advertise to or, you could say, pressure physicians to prescribe their products. We're going to look at that whole sort of network. That will be our next study, which we will get down to with hard work in the fall.
We have just finished two years of working on reproductive technology and cloning, and we have a bill that is just awaiting the vote on third reading in the House. That was a big piece of work and a very focused one, and we're hoping they bring it forward before the House recesses for the summer.
Recently we've looked at insulin, animal insulin versus synthetic insulin, we've looked at the Canadian strategy on HIV/AIDS, and we made a report to Parliament on that. So we've had a few small topics this spring, but prior to that for two years we were pretty exclusively on reproductive technology--with the exception of one bill. We had to interrupt our work to do clause-by-clause on a bill on pesticide regulation.
So those are the kinds of things we do.
The Department of Health is divided into subsections, and the names of these subsections are wonderful bureaucratese, if you know what I mean.
Unlike you with your National Health Service, we do not, say, inspect hospitals or do any of that sort of thing. We don't have much to do with that.
I'd like to welcome the chief critic for the opposition, Rob Merrifield.
Do you have any questions of us? That's what we expected would happen.
Dr. Tony Wright: Well, I don't know what colleagues feel, but I think because we don't know anything at all about how committees work here, it might be helpful for us if we could start off not talking about your work in health but just finding out more about how the committee system works in your House of Commons here. How are the committees made up? What's the pattern of their work? What impact do they have on government policy? Give us a sense, perhaps, of the place of House committees inside the system.
Mr. Réal Ménard: I would like to describe it.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
A voice: Yes, and after he's done, I'd like to finish.
The Chair: Let the opposition tell you how bad it is and then I'll try to save us.
Mr. Réal Ménard: We have a wonderful chairperson.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Réal Ménard: I'm going to speak in French. As you know, in Canada we have both languages and we have some translation. You have to know, in Canada there are both languages--but I'm ready to speak English if you agree to speak French.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
¿ (0925)
The Chair: You'll notice we have translators in the other room.
Dr. Tony Wright: I think you'd better speak in French and we'll see what happens.
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Ménard: The first thing you should know is that a great deal of time is spent in committee. The committees are where members work their hardest, because the least partisan work of the House happens in committee. All the political parties try to agree on mandates and to work, in a non-partisan manner, in the best interests of our constituents.
Interestingly enough, there is an increasing trend to elect committee chairs. A committee chair is usually part of the government majority. For example, Ms. Brown is a Liberal member, and she is our chair. Chairs will be elected more and more by secret ballot. For a long time, committee chairs were appointed by the Prime Minister, but I think that, in the future, chairs will be elected by their peers, which obviously lends very significant legitimacy.
All the recognized political parties in the House are represented on the committees. First, the committees are totally autonomous. They accept mandates from the House, but how they operate and fulfill that mandate is determined by the members of each committee. The committees are independent.
This is how they work. There is the official opposition, represented by Mr. Merrifield, who will speak in a moment; the representative of that party is entitled to speak first. Time is allotted for question period, to question the witnesses, according to a rule of equity based, obviously, on the number of members in the House per party.
In Canada, the Canadian Alliance is the official opposition. In this committee, when witnesses appear, when questions are asked or when ministers are questioned, Mr. Merrifield is the first to speak or ask questions.
Unlike certain provinces, such as Quebec, the ministers do not take part in committee work. I do not know how this works where you come from, but here, our ministers cannot attend committee meetings, except by invitation. There are some provinces or legislatures where ministers are regular members of committees. This is the case, for example, at the National Assembly of Quebec.
Typically, committees do three things. They consider budgets, such as the Department of Health's budget. This committee considered that budget. Second, committees consider bills. Earlier, our chair told you that we analyzed the bill on reproductive technology, which was discussed via videoconference with your organization in Great Britain. We have been greatly inspired by your regulatory model.
So, committees consider and pass budgetary votes, they consider bills on health care and they conduct independent studies, such as the one on pharmaceuticals.
One very important fact about Canada you should know is that the largest health care expenditure for public administrations, currently, is the cost of drugs. Drugs have increased 20% per year and are the highest budgetary item, because they represent 17% of a public administration’s health budget. Therefore, a study will be conducted across Canada to examine this.
To me, the most important thing is that committee work is much less partisan, and we work very well together; we often reach consensus. This does not mean that we do not each have our own position, naturally, but we are able to work in a non-partisan manner.
Basically, that is what I wanted to say. I could perhaps let my colleague, Mr. Merrifield, speak now.
¿ (0930)
[English]
Mr. Réal Ménard: That's a non-partisan statement.
Mr. Rob Merrifield: In some ways we think we're doing great work and in some ways we do, but it's only great insofar as people will listen to us and the minister will listen to us. Unfortunately, the minister sometimes manipulates committees somewhat--and I don't think that's an overstatement--to try to achieve their will in committee to get ammunition to move forward in the House.
That's just some of the internal politics that happens in every piece of legislation, as I'm sure you're aware. We have rules and we try to work within those rules to be able to push forward good laws for the country.
The Chair: I'd just like to come in here for a second and say, you might wonder what it is we do in the sense of what topics we tackle. We have a set of priorities. If legislation is referred to us by the House after either first or second reading--and either thing can happen in Canada--we have to drop what we're doing and begin to do the work on that bill, to hear witnesses and undertake that process, which is of course followed by clause-by-clause examination.
Now, a minister may not be doing much legislative work, because they seem to go in cycles, and you've probably noticed that yourselves. Then all of a sudden we have maybe three bills on the go from our minister, and then maybe next year there won't be any. When there aren't any specific hand-offs from the House to us, we can then choose what subjects we would like to investigate, and we produce studies and a report.
On that, I have to correct my colleague in the sense that we did do a report on reproductive technology that diverged considerably from the legislation we had been sent, but it was draft legislation and it was a courtesy to us because it was such a hot topic. The minister brought us the draft legislation, we worked on it, and we then wrote a report on which we had a fair degree of consensus. In essence we turned the draft legislation on its ear, and when the minister received our report, they then drafted the real legislation.
My view of it would be that on, say, six or seven major topics where we had diverged from the bureaucratic vision in the draft bill of what should happen, we won about half of our points--not all of them, but about half of our recommendations. So I wouldn't say the minister ignored us. She tried to fit our recommendations in.
Mr. Rob Merrifield: I would say we use different math, that's all.
[Translation]
Mr. Réal Ménard: Could we say that, so that he understands how things work, for the federal Department of Health, the biggest budget goes to aboriginal peoples, who are a federal responsibility. The federal government is also responsible for epidemics. It is responsible for approving new drugs, for quarantines and for research and development policies. For example, one of the important changes in health care in Canada is due to the creation of thirteen Canadian Institutes of Health Research, with a budget of $500,000 million.
For the first time, there are thirteen virtual institutes across Canada in mental health, neurology and various sectors. This truly reflects the recommendations made by the OECD in the early 1990s, meaning that researchers are forming research groups. The federal government plays an extremely important role with regard to aboriginal peoples and drugs, because it is responsible for approving drugs.
The provinces decide what drugs to include on their formulary, and they provide direct services to the public. This is extremely important. For example, the provinces are responsible for front line services, hospitals and hospitalization. This is not a federal responsibility, except when it comes to aboriginal peoples or the armed forces.
In Canada, there are State hospitals for veterans, who are a federal responsibility.
Perhaps you heard that there was a commission of inquiry. Maybe we could discuss this. The Romanow commission was chaired by a former premier of Saskatchewan, who is quite progressive. This commission tabled a report. It was a royal commission of inquiry. Here, the Privy Council authorizes royal commissions of inquiry. This kind of commission usually has a bit more weight than a regular committee. It is possible to disagree with the recommendations, but it made extremely important recommendations about restructuring the health care system. The challenges are enormous, and I imagine that your country is facing the same situation.
There are three major challenges. First, there is the issue of costs. Obviously, governments cannot continue to absorb costs at their current levels. Who is best placed to provide health care? Will there be a debate? Should the private sector play a role in health care? No. The Canada Health Act contains five principles. There is universality and portability. Everyone, no matter what their province of residence, can access the same health care services. Universality and portability of services must be public responsibilities. There must be accountability with regard to services. There is also accessibility.
The Canada Health Act was passed in 1984. A former minister, Ms. Begin, was responsible for this legislation, which we can support or oppose.
We believe that the federal government should not impose federal health care legislation but, to understand the health care system, you should know that all the provinces must comply with this legislation. If they do not, they could be subject to fines. There could be cuts in funding to the provinces. The federal government transfers money to the provinces so they can ensure the delivery of health care services.
¿ (0935)
[English]
The Chair: Does that bring forth any questions, sir?
Dr. Tony Wright: I think it's immediately evident that a big difference from our system is that you--and I think this is true of all your committees here--deal with both bills and inquiries all the time simultaneously. Our system is quite different. We have a strict division between committees that look at bills and committees that do inquiries. I think yours is a very interesting system; it means you develop a great body of expertise because you do bill work as well and you have a direct impact upon--or at least the potential for a direct impact upon--the policy process.
I have one question before someone else asks it. Was the impact of SARS something that was on your agenda immediately?
The Chair: Not really, because the management of such a situation is really within the purview of the province.
I would just like to say that you have to understand that Toronto is like London: it is the media centre. In my personal view, there are bad things happening to good people in many places in the country, but if bad things happen to the good people of Toronto, the whole world will know. I just wanted to put it in a bit of perspective.
Our Department of Health was in immediate contact with the provincial Ministry of Health to say, is there anything we can do? I think they were short of epidemiologists, and right away we sent them three. Then we began to think about the airports and what should be going on there. So we had some role, but as I say, when you're dealing with sick people who need care, that is provincial.
It's very hard on the federal Minister of Health because a lot of people think our system is hierarchical, that the federal government is above the provincial and the provincial is above the municipal, but in actual fact the federal government is over here and the provincial government is over here. It's essentially just a separation of jobs, a separation of the responsibilities we take care of.
What we try to do is have everybody cooperating in a horizontal way. The problem is that the public thinks very much in a hierarchical way because of the organization of their corporations, the army, and all this sort of thing. They seem to think, things aren't going well in Toronto, so the federal government should rush in and save them. Well, unless the army could do something, I'm not sure how we would. We don't have the professionals in the health care field on staff here that the province has access to and authority over.
¿ (0940)
Mr. Rob Merrifield: Maybe I can add to that. Bonnie is right in the sense that there are different jurisdictions and the provinces in Canada provide health care. However, the federal government had jurisdiction as well when it came to SARS because the provinces had absolutely no input into what went on at the airports as far as airport security and surveillance were concerned. That was 100% federal jurisdiction.
When it comes to something like SARS, each party has to do their appropriate role. That's somewhat unfortunate because we feel we perhaps let people down a little bit at the airport on the federal side of it.
There is overlap as well with respect to infections if it's a national disaster, which SARS seemed to have the potential to be. It came into Vancouver as well as Toronto initially, although it was controlled much more effectively in the Vancouver area. It becomes a national issue where there's federal responsibility.
They work hand in glove to some degree even on the delivery side on the population health side of it. I think SARS has given us more ammunition, in a sense, to streamline that process and to work hand in glove much better than we actually did in the last number of years. There's always a rainbow in every cloud.
Mr. Gordon Prentice (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee): We have a list of the studies you've embarked on and the press releases, and one caught my eye here, the People's Summit on Health Care. I'd be interested to know exactly what that was all about.
Can I just make a comment about the study on the cost of new drugs you're about to embark on. One of the issues that is a real political hot potato in Britain is postcode prescribing, where very expensive drugs have to be rationed in some way. Patients living in some parts of the United Kingdom have access to those drugs because the doctor and the health authority allow them to be prescribed, but that's not the case for other parts of the United Kingdom.
I cite one example, beta interferon. I chaired the all-party group on multiple sclerosis, and in Britain some people with that condition can get access to beta interferon and some of these other very expensive drugs while others can't.
Now, in Canada, where you say the provinces are responsible for the delivery of health care, it may well be the case that some provinces decide not to spend money on these very expensive drugs but others do. It intrigues me, how do you resolve that conundrum?
The Chair: We don't. We can't. They get their jurisdiction from the Constitution and they guard it jealously, whether it's for education or health care. We have this general approval of drugs that may be used and may be prescribed in Canada, but once we approve those, it is up to the provinces to decide which of those they will put on their formularies; their formulary is a list of drugs they will pay for.
Now, in some cases some of the more expensive drugs might not be on the formulary for anybody and everybody but rather might be restricted to people who meet a certain set of criteria. But as you have described, there are definitely different things available in different parts of the country.
One of our jobs and what Mr. Romanow tried to do was to describe how the provinces could help one another, making the best use of the money they have to try to come to a situation where a Canadian, whether that Canadian lives in Halifax, Vancouver, or somewhere in between, has at least an equivalency of health care.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: What about someone with MS living in Ottawa who could go across to Hull and have access to--
Mr. Réal Ménard: I would like to add something.
[Translation]
The reason that the federal government cannot impose formularies and have a national formulary, is because, essentially, this is part of provincial budgets. When the public health care system in Canada was created, the agreement was to split the costs: the federal government paid 50% and the provinces paid 50%. Over the years, the central government cut its health care budget. Now, per dollar spent on health care, the federal government provides 14¢. So, the federal government does not have the authority to tell the provinces which drugs to include in their formularies.
In the next few years, the provinces will be able to purchase drugs as a group. At a federal-provincial conference, the premiers, including the Premier of Quebec, agreed to purchase certain pharmaceuticals as a group, for economies of scale. This will be possible. The other thing you should know is that certain provinces have pharmacare programs. Quebec does. Individuals and the government pay premiums and, as a result, certain drugs are refunded.
There was a National Forum on Health from 1995 to 1997, led by Prime Minister Chrétien, and the Romanow commission had recommended that the federal government also consider the possibility of establishing a pharmacare program. To answer your question, that is why the federal government should not dictate which drugs to include in the formulary. It has to tread carefully here.
[English]
But I'm so sorry, I have to leave.
¿ (0945)
The Chair: We regret your leaving, Mr. Ménard, but I do think you've had your share of air time, as usual.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Réal Ménard: Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
I like Tony Blair. He came here and gave a speech in front of the House. He said he kissed Mr. Jospin in Paris.
Dr. Tony Wright: He tells that joke everywhere but it's just a joke.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Rob Merrifield: I'd just like to pick up a little on what you were saying about the drug thing and the formulary. Bonnie is saying, that's a problem; there are no checks and balances in it and it's different in every province. To a degree that's true, but every province is also accountable to its population, its public. If it allows itself to fall behind its neighbour provinces somewhat, it will be victimized in the polls. There are some checks and balances there; they're accountable to the people who elect them.
Don't just think it's different everywhere, because it really isn't. There are some subtle differences but not dramatic ones.
The Chair: If I could, I'll just go back to how we get here together, the 17 of us who are on the health committee. At the beginning of a session the various whips send out a sheet and ask you to put down your three top choices for committee work. In a lot of cases you get what you want unless you're in your first term, when you often don't; you often get your third choice. But as you gain more experience, you're more likely to be assigned to the committee that was your first choice.
On this committee we have nine Liberals and seven members of the opposition. The opposition parties are represented based upon the percentage of their numbers in the House, so this is a mini-version of the House, as I predict your committees are as well.
Each committee is assigned two researchers, and you'll see our two very fine ladies there who lead us through the process. Our clerk--I always call him the referee because whenever there's a dispute, he gets out the book and we figure it out that way--does all the planning. He also contacts all the witnesses.
Suppose we're doing a bill and we want to hold public hearings on it. All the members of the committee will fax to the clerk the people they know or they've heard of they would like to have as witnesses. It's his job to get them all organized.
Very often they come and sit on panels. Rob might have a friend in Calgary, Alberta, or someone else he knows who's an expert in the particular field we're studying. Réal may know someone from Montreal, and I may know someone from Toronto. When we give him these names, the reason we're submitting them, and what their expertise is, he will arrange them in panels.
Usually when we assemble for, say, a meeting at which these four or five experts are present, we give them about five to ten minutes, depending on their numbers. If there's a whole crowd of them, we may only give them five minutes, but if there are only three of them, we may give them ten, etc. They make their presentations and we just listen; then we start the questioning. As Réal pointed out, it begins with the head critic for the opposition, who is Rob, and we work our way down through the top two opposition parties; they go first. The official opposition has ten minutes and the next party, Réal's party, has five. Then we start bringing in the Liberals, and from then on it's to-ing and fro-ing back and forth until the time is up.
In addition to the staff I've already mentioned, the one clerk and the two researchers, if we are doing a bill, we usually have in the audience people from the department. Then if we have a question when we're debating amendments or something, there's always somebody there.
On the reproductive technology bill and, I think, on the pesticide bill we also had an extra staff person who was essentially a legal counsel to guide us. On one of the bills we had an extra scientist with us throughout the clause-by-clause to answer questions, and we sometimes have a legislative clerk, who is very up on the details of how to get through all the amendments in as efficient a way as possible.
When we start doing legislation, we are richly resourced, and there's not a question that's ever come up that couldn't be answered by somebody who'd been assigned to us for that period.
¿ (0950)
Dr. Tony Wright: I know we're running against time, but could I just perhaps bring in the other colleagues who wanted to ask questions.
Mr. Kevin Brennan (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee): Can I ask, can you draft a bill? If you wanted to, as Bonnie Brown, chairman of the Health Committee, could you draft your own bill?
The Chair: I could draft a bill as a private member.
Mr. Kevin Brennan: Could you draft it as a committee?
The Chair: I'm not sure of the answer to that question. I think we can, but we never have time.
Mr. Kevin Brennan: That comes into the question, doesn't it, because you deal with two parts of parliamentary business, which we don't do. We purely question, quiz, and interrogate. You don't have that luxury. If you have your own bill and your minister comes back and does three bills in a year, by the time you've done your inquiries on them yours will be so stale and out of date you'll have to ask, was it worth doing in the first place?
The Chair: You've probably answered your own question. I've been here for 10 years, and I have never yet seen anybody on a committee suggest that if the minister does not have a bill she's just about to hand to us, there might be an opening for that.
We seem to be more inclined to do studies. If in the fall, for example, we don't know there's a piece of legislation coming and we start a study, it's much easier to set aside the work we've done and put it on hold if a bill comes to us. But we've never really thought about doing a bill.
However, we do have a great number of private members' bills. For example, we have a colleague who is doing a private member's bill on something about cigarettes, cigarette papers, and all this sort of thing. His is a private member's bill that passed at second reading and was sent to us. If that is on the agenda, he will come and try to give us the expertise he developed that motivated him to do this bill.
Mr. Kevin Brennan: I have two very quick ones. First of all, can you force somebody to turn up in front of you? Second, can you do an emergency inquiry into something and say, right, we're going to do this no matter what?
The Chair: Yes, we can force people to come. We have not run into that scenario although we've had recalcitrant witnesses. The clerk is very artful at writing letters to people. What we find is that no one really says no to us, but they say, oh, I can't make it on the day you've set aside.
The clerk writes letters of this ilk: we're terribly sorry that you were unable to make it on the second date that had been assigned to hear from you; we are putting the clerk in touch with you so you can work out a date; we want this to happen before the end of June; of course, I'm sure you'll want to cooperate with our clerk, and all that sort of thing. He writes them, I sign them, and all of a sudden the people turn up, but it may have been the third try to get them.
¿ (0955)
Mr. Kevin Brennan: On the second question, on the emergency, if you have to do something quick, can you do it?
The Chair: We can, but there's a sort of philosophical difference in the way different politicians approach it. If a bomb went off in the hall outside here, I would call that an emergency, but certain politicians define something as an emergency so they can get an emergency debate in the House. I always think, well, this emergency has been a problem for the last 25 years; I don't know why it's an emergency tonight.
Playing with the definition of an emergency works well for the opposition, but as a government member I find it's very hard for them to convince me there's an emergency. I get letters from opposition members all the time saying, seeing as there's an emergency, we'd better have this special meeting and call the minister in and all this sort of thing. But I don't see it as an emergency.
The way I'm saved is by the fact that most people other than the lead critic have to go to two committees. If we're having a study and we're doing Monday/Wednesday meetings, the chances are, their other committee is doing legislation and is sitting from nine in the morning till five in the afternoon. They don't have time, really, for many emergency meetings. If it's truly an emergency, the Speaker of the House will usually allow an emergency debate in the evening.
Mr. Rob Merrifield: Let's say I as the official opposition critic saw something as an emergency and wanted to bring it forward. I could bring forward a motion and the committee would vote on it. Even if the chair didn't see it as an emergency but the committee saw it as an emergency and voted that way, it would be done.
The Chair: I'd have to have a meeting.
The reality is, as you know from being in government, that if it's to the opposition's advantage to blow something up into an emergency, the majority of the people on the government side--which is where you're sitting, by the way; the government sits there and the opposition on this side--will vote against Rob's motion. That's where politics comes into it.
Dr. Tony Wright: Yes, we want to ask you about politics in a second.
Annette.
Ms. Annette Brooke (Member, United Kingdom House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee): I just wondered if you could tell us what happens once you've written your report on one of your major studies. What's the process once you've published--
Mr. Rob Merrifield: Nothing happens.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Rob Merrifield: But I have to go now.
The Chair: The partisan remark.
Thank you very much, Rob, for coming.
We just finished a mini-study about Monday. First of all, everything has to be written, approved, and then translated. The members here have to approve both the French and the English. For example, on one of our many reports we approved the English, but the French members were not satisfied with the quality of the translation or of the French prose, so we sent it back to be done again.
Now, last week's was fine; it was Thursday morning after the House opened, and it was supposed to be about 10:15. What happens is, they call for reports from committees. You stand up and in about two sentences you say you're tabling this report. Then we usually proceed down to the press theatre in the Centre Block, just under the House of Commons, and have a little press conference.
When we did reproductive technology, the room was full and people were shouting questions and waving their arms; it was all terribly exciting. But when we had our press conference last week on the HIV/AIDS strategy, there were only one reporter and a couple of cameras there. The other reporters were in the press room watching it on TV. It was too far for them to walk to come to the press theatre, so we didn't get very much coverage. It just depends what the subject matter is for how big a press you get.
We have this CPAC television channel, what we call the parliamentary channel, and it covers Parliament. It also covers speeches important people might give at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce or the Canadian Club, for example; they have what they call Public Record, where people give what is considered to be an important speech.
They also have two programs a day whereby parliamentarians who are doing something new or interesting are called to be interviewed. On the day I tabled our last committee report I had to go down to the CPAC studios to be interviewed by one of their journalists. That's the usual process.
Then the thing is tabled, and one of the parts of the report is always a motion passed at committee that the government respond within--is it always 150 days?
À (1000)
The Clerk of Committee (Mr. José Cadorette): That's unless the committee asks for a shorter deadline.
The Chair: Yes, sometimes the committee might ask, but the traditional amount of time is 150 days. Then the minister must speak in the House and give her formal response to what the committee has done.
Well, it worked beautifully with regard to reproductive technology. We tabled our report just about the last day in December before the House rose for Christmas. Then we usually have Christmas plus the month of January off. The 150 days was over in May, and instead of giving a verbal response to what we had written, the minister introduced the bill in the House; that was the official response.
As I said earlier, the bill didn't thrill us, and of course we immediately decided we were going to amend it because she hadn't followed our advice to the letter. That was really Rob's first big bill, and he was terribly disappointed that every place we diverged from the bureaucrats' original draft legislation they didn't just fall right into line on our wonderful suggestions. The minister did try to incorporate some of our more serious suggestions, so I was quite pleased, whereas the opposition members were quite angry she didn't incorporate all of them.
Anyway, the bill was the response to the committee report.
Dr. Tony Wright: We have to stop, I know, but could I just ask you one general, political question to end. We're trying to get a sense of how this system works and we're discovering some interesting things.
I read the editorial in The Globe and Mail this morning. We've been hearing about this man who was giving out these contracts to party supporters when he was the Minister of Public Works. The bit I was going to ask you about, though, was in the editorial this morning. It said that the Liberal caucus had arranged that this issue would not be inquired into by parliamentary committee; the deal was done. This to us is deeply shocking. We'd have been after that immediately.
The Chair: I don't believe that to be true. I believe it was the public accounts committee--which may be something similar to your committee.
Dr. Tony Wright: No, they do money; we don't.
The Chair: Well, they do money and they do contracts, that sort of thing, and they had several meetings, calling in witnesses. They did their own inquiry into this, and the Liberals were as voracious about getting to the bottom of it as anybody else. I can't imagine what The Globe and Mail is saying. I'm hoping the chair of the public accounts committee, who is from the opposition, will respond that indeed they did a very thorough job.
Now, on that idea of contracts, before an election the different parties always hire different advertising, public relations, and polling firms to guide them in delivering their message. Say there are two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, and say the Conservatives win. Well, it should come as no surprise to anybody that they think because they won, their advertising firm must have been more persuasive and better than the firm of the party that lost. So they hire that advertising firm; that advertising firm does get lucrative government contracts.
A cynic would say, oh, this is because they're all pals. Well, in a way they are. They were hired originally at the beginning of the campaign to sell the party's message, and if they were successful, what is the party now coming into power supposed to do, pick the losing firm? It only makes sense to us that you have your group, you have your candidates, you have your advertising firm, and in some cases certain networks support separate parties. You want to hire the best advertising firm you can get for the Government of Canada--or for the Government of the United Kingdom--and so those people get it.
The other thing that happens is, the pollster who has been guiding the party to win elections will often be hired by departments to do polling on a specific area of their work if they're trying to figure out what the public thinks about this or that. There is a certain amount of that as fallout from the election.
Now, with respect to the specific case in Montreal, that particular minister has now gone off as the ambassador to Denmark, but the fact of the matter is, he knows everybody in Montreal. I doubt there was anybody in Montreal who had that kind of firm who wouldn't have known him, so nobody should say he gave the contracts to friends.
À (1005)
Dr. Tony Wright: Well, I just thought I'd ask. Thank you for that.
The Chair: We're fairly partisan here.
Dr. Tony Wright: It would be nice to explore that further, but I think we have to stop. We've had a lot of your time and we have to be somewhere else, I think, at 10:15.
The Chair: If it's the Treasury Board Secretariat, I can assure you it won't be as much fun, but you may learn more.
Dr. Tony Wright: No, it's another committee.
The Chair: Oh, is it? So you didn't have breakfast with Burns.
Dr. Tony Wright: We did have breakfast with him but you have the wrong day. We went to one of his receptions last night.
The Chair: I had the great pleasure of seeing him at a party where they had written about him as the very model of a such-and-such from Gilbert and Sullivan, except it was for a British High Commissioner. All the words were about his retirement and things he had done in Canada, he sang it, and did we laugh! It was wonderful.
Oh, there's government operations and estimates. This is a brand new committee, by the way. We've always had government operations but they have now taken over serious responsibility for the estimates. We still do our own if we want but they will pick certain departments to do the estimates on from now on. That was as a result of caucus feeling we didn't have sufficient expertise to all of sudden once a year be in total understanding of the budget and the estimates. They're now trying to develop a body of parliamentarians who will develop that expertise, and that's the group. I think they were convened last September, but it is a change in process.
Anyway, I want to thank you very much, and I wish you well.
Dr. Tony Wright: Thank you.
We have a small, humble gift from the British House of Commons.
The Chair: Oh, how nice. Thank you very much, it's beautiful.
Dr. Tony Wright: Thank you very much for your time. It's been much appreciated.
The Chair: Thank you, and the meeting is adjourned.