Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology

Issue 1 - Evidence

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 4:30 p.m. to organize the activities of the committee.

[English]

Ms Catherine Piccinin (Clerk of the Committee): Honourable senators, I see a quorum. As clerk of the committee, it is my duty to preside over the election of your chairperson. I am ready to take motions to that effect.

Senator Fairbairn: I would be pleased to nominate Senator Kirby.

Ms Piccinin: It is moved by Senator Fairbairn that Senator Kirby be elected as chair of this committee. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

Ms Piccinin: I declare Senator Kirby elected and I invite him to take the chair.

Senator Michael Kirby (Chairman) in the Chair.

The Chairman: The next thing we need is a motion to elect a deputy chair.

Senator Cohen: I move that Senator LeBreton be deputy chair.

The Chairman: Hearing no other nominations, honourable senators, is it your pleasure to adopt the motion?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Carried. In that case, Senator LeBreton is the deputy chair.

I need a motion to nominate the other member of what we always call the steering committee, although it is technically called the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure.

Senator Cook: I am pleased to nominate Senator Cordy.

The Chairman: There being no other nominations, is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: I remind you that we effectively operated in the previous Parliament with a four-person steering committee, even though that is technically outside the rules. Is it understood that we will continue to operate that way and that, although Senator Keon is not currently a member of the committee, subject to procedural matters, he will remain on the steering committee?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: We need a motion to print the committee's proceedings.

How many copies do we print?

Ms Piccinin: In the last session of Parliament, the committee printed 300 copies of its proceedings. That was based on numbers that went to the Depository Services Program and the number of people requesting issues. The motion in the agenda before you is just to give permission for the committee to print its issues and to authorize the chair to set the number to meet demand.

This gives some flexibility for our printing department, which produces those issues, to be able to reduce or increase as necessary in order to save paper. Considering that all of our proceedings are available on the Internet, this is another way for the Senate and Committees Branch to save money on paper. If there is a need for more issues to be printed on a particular issue in which people are interested, the chair can certainly meet that demand.

The Chairman: Motion number 4 does not specify a number. We set the number on an ad hoc basis.

Senator LeBreton: I so move

The Chairman: Is it agreed, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 5 is authorization to hold meetings and to print evidence when a quorum is not present. That is a standard motion, is it not?

Ms Piccinin: Yes, it is.

Senator LeBreton: I so move.

The Chairman: Is it agreed, honourable senators?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Carried. Motion number 6 authorizes the chair to report expenses. Can I have a motion to that effect?

Senator Fairbairn: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 7 is to get our researchers back working for us, as well as any others that we need.

Can I have a motion to that effect?

Senator Cohen: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 8 is to commit funds and certify accounts. This authorizes Senator LeBreton and myself to approve the paying of the bills.

Senator Callbeck: I so move

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 9 authorizes the steering committee to pay for the travel of a member who goes on official business. We did that a couple of times in the last session for conferences. I presume that it also deals with paying the cost of bringing a witness in. Is that correct?

Ms Piccinin: No, that falls under the next item.

The Chairman: Motion number 9 simply deals with the steering committee authorizing the travel expenses of members of the committee attending official committee business, or a designated official.

Can I have a motion to that effect?

Senator Fairbairn: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 10 is essentially the same thing with respect to witnesses. Am I correct that witnesses on legislation are paid for out of a different pocket?

Ms Piccinin: Witness expenses on either special studies or legislation are paid for from a central budget in the committees directorate. There is no cost incurred by the committee's own budget. There is a common pot for all committees. This is just authorization to pay for the expenses for one witness and to authorize an extra witness if there are exceptional circumstances. It comes from the budget of the committees directorate, not of the individual committee.

The Chairman: Do I have a motion to that effect?

Senator LeBreton: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Motion number 11 provides that the motion that will go to the Senate will include the provision to allow us, at the discretion of the committee, not the Senate, to authorize, among other things, electronic coverage which, translated, usually means CPAC. You will recall that we had a number of CPAC sessions last time. That is a routine motion.

Can I have a motion to that effect?

Senator LeBreton: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: That leads us to the time slot for our regular meetings. In the previous parliamentary session, we had two time slots. One was from 3:30 until whenever on Wednesdays, because we sometimes had long sessions. The other was from 11:00 until 2:00 on Thursdays.

Have we been assigned those same time slots again?

Ms Piccinin: Yes.

The Chairman: That does not require a motion. The time slot has not changed.

Under "Other Business" I have three or four quick items. The first is to ask us to adopt the same order of reference we had the last time vis-à-vis the health care study. Tomorrow, Senator LeBreton and I would propose to move the same terms of reference with one slight change. It said last time that the committee would submit its report no later than June 30, 2001, and that needs to be changed to June 30, 2002.

There has been no change in this. This is exactly what we put through the Senate last time. We will talk in a few minutes about the detailed work plan, but to simplify logistics we should go with the same general broad-based terms of reference as we had last time.

Could I have a motion to that effect?

Senator Robertson: I so move.

The Chairman: Is everyone in favour of that?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: The second matter is to adopt an order of reference for a follow-up on Bill C-6. To remind you about that, Bill C-6 was the privacy bill that this committee considered about a year and a half ago. You will recall that this committee amended the bill. When the bill was presented to the committee, it bill had a one-year delay on it; that is to say, the bill did not go into effect until a year after its proclamation. This committee amended the bill so that its application to the health care sector did not go into effect until two years after proclamation. The two years is up at the end of the current calendar year; that is to say, the bill went into effect on January 1, 2001 pertaining to every sector of the economy other than the health care sector.

Several of you, in particular Senator Murray, who was heavily involved in that issue, although he was not technically a member of the committee, have said that it would be important for us to understand what has actually transpired and what progress is being made by the health care sector in resolving the many problems that were put before us. We had said that, while we do not technically have any authority to force a change, our purpose was to keep the pressure on the government on one side and the health care industry on the other to come up with a solution that worked for the privacy policy on one side and the health care industry on the other.

A couple of you have said to me privately that you think it would be useful to have a public session to get up to date on where the matter stands, thereby keeping the pressure on the various interested parties to work out a solution. It is my understanding that some progress is being made, although perhaps not as rapidly as would be required if the matter is to be dealt with before the end of the year.

That is the background. The order of reference effectively just summarizes what I said without talking about putting pressure on people. It just talks about finding out where we stand.

The idea is to have one session to hear from the government officials on where it stands. We would hear from the key medical players who are concerned about it, and generally try to ensure that some progress is being made to solve the problem.

Senator LeBreton: Did we not specifically say that we would do that?

The Chairman: I think we did. Frankly, I had forgotten about it until Senator Murray asked me where we stood, and I said that we should do such a session. I know that he is interested in it. Senator Finestone came in on bits and pieces of that.

You are right. We certainly said that we would watch it.

Senator LeBreton: I have a sense that there were two issues, the one we are presently discussing and the issue of the impact of divorce on children. We will have that coming back as well.

The Chairman: Yes, the child support guidelines. That was when Senator Murray was chairing. I will get us a history on that in order that we will know where that stands.

In the meantime, can we have a motion to do this?

Senator Pépin: I so move.

The Chairman: Is that agreed?

Hon. Senators: Agreed.

The Chairman: Does anyone feel the need to go in camera to discuss the draft report? We will not deal with the substance of it, only the process.

Let me remind you, with regard to volume 1 of the report, that when the committee met in October and we went through the document we agreed that it needed some editing. You delegated to our four-person steering committee the authority to produce a final version, which we were in the process of doing and getting translated when the writ was issued.

The result is that the first report, which is essentially a historical background as to how we got to where we are, was never tabled. We will distribute that report to you today and I hope that when we meet next Wednesday we will agree to adopt the report, because, as I say, if the election had not intervened we would have tabled it. Nevertheless, since there have been a couple of changes on the committee, I would like to give everyone a chance to read it.

We propose to adopt that on the 28th and also to adopt a motion that would, I gather, allow us to read into the record of the committee in this session all the evidence that we took in the last session. I am not sure why we need to do that, but I am told that procedurally we must. It would allow us to make a seamless web from the first into the second.

I do not know that we need any detailed discussion on that until people have had a chance to read it. We would propose to table it shortly after it is through the committee. We will table it after the break. That is where that stands. We will not make decisions today but rather at our meeting next week.

While the clerk circulates that document, let me remind you that phase two of the study is the piece that deals with the trends that will impact on the system -- particularly costs. The clerk is now circulating to you a draft work plan for that session. This essentially takes the place of our original terms of reference and expands it into how it would actually be covered. This has been worked on by the staff and has been looked at in various and sundry forums by members of the steering committee. I would ask you to take it home and look at it so that next week we can talk about it.

We would hope to do phases two and three together. Phase three is the international comparative piece. You will remember that we agreed that one of the things we needed to understand was how health care is organized in a limited number of other countries. The steering committee, with input from the policy officials in Health Canada, developed a series of countries. I believe that they were Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Sweden and Germany.

Am I right?

Mr. Howard Chodos (Researcher, Library of Parliament): They are Australia, United States, Sweden, New Zealand and Netherlands.

The Chairman: I was modestly close. It turns out that there is no definitive comparative study, so we worked out a set of terms of reference for such a study and persuaded Health Canada to fund it. The study is being done for the committee. Let me be very clear on that. We developed a system in which the study comes to us. They do not have any control over it. We worked out a set of terms of reference that is useful to them and to us. We went over them in some detail with the members of the steering committee, in particular, Senator Keon and myself. The original target for the completion of the study was the end of February; it is now the end of March. Our hope is that following Easter we could have a series of hearings on that to get some reaction to it.

Once we have read about how a country operates, we will do a video conference with health care experts from that country. In that regard, I will ask you to respond to a note that the clerk will send to you. When we did international teleconferences on the Banking Committee, we found that you have to do them outside your normal working hours because time changes make it impossible to do otherwise. I propose that we duplicate what the Banking Committee did. That is to say, there would be three or four times when we would need to take a day -- for example, either a Monday or a Friday -- when, typically with time changes, we can hear from a couple of groups in the course of a day. None of this will happen until after Easter, but I would like to hear from you individually, through your response to the clerk, the answer to the following: If we were to pick a day of the week, is it better that it be Monday or Friday? I think you will probably say Monday.

Hon. Senators: Monday.

The Chairman: Is it Monday for everyone? All right.

Second, would you look at your calendars beginning after the Easter break, which is around April 18 or 19, and tell me what Mondays you are available from then until we recess in the summer or in the middle of June? Tell the clerk what Mondays you are free and we will then look at it. It is roughly a two-month period from the end of the Easter break until Parliament recesses. We will need to use probably three or four Mondays in that stretch. I need to know what Mondays work best for people on that.

Finally, I sent you an outline of phase four, which is the piece that we would hope to put out around Thanksgiving. It will form the basis for a cross-country set of public hearings next fall and into the winter. I want to discuss that in some detail next week, so I ask you to read that carefully. If we were in the academic world, we would call this a research plan. We spent a lot of time on it. We went through many drafts with many people, including steering committee members and other policy experts. This is a document that says that what we will put out in the fall will outline a series of policy questions that need to be answered and provide a bunch of options, which will be derived in part from the results of the first three reports.

We should not underestimate the fact that simply asking the questions is provocative. It seem there are certain questions that you are not supposed to ask in this business. That is not a good reason for not asking them, but I do not want anyone to be under any illusions that our conclusions will be contained in the fifth and final report. The fourth report, merely by asking the questions, will provoke commentary.

The reason for spending a fair bit of time and trying to write that outline is so that we can all agree on where we are going. That is the critical question. The document that I sent you, which outlines the fourth report, has the full support of the old steering committee. I do want you to think about it. I am happy to talk about it next week, but it is important that we have a roadmap as to where we are going. Those are the main things.

Do we know of any bills that are coming to us in the next little while?

Ms. Piccinin: We have already received Bill S-14, the bill to establish Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day.

Senator LeBreton: Why did we get that?

The Chairman: I was not there to say no. Is that the problem? Why did we get that?

Ms Piccinin: We have it.

Senator LeBreton: We have it already.

Ms Piccinin: I believe the motion was adopted in the chamber yesterday.

The Chairman: We will get to it some time. Do we have anything else? Do we have any other government bills that we know about?

Ms Piccinin: There is no government legislation but there is the possibility of two other private members bills being referred to us. In the last session of Parliament, the committee received Senator Finestone's bill dealing with privacy. There is a possibility that her bill may come back. Also, Senator Milne's bill dealing with statistics and census is still in the Senate at second reading. The committee had received that in the last session of Parliament. There is a possibility that it may be referred here, too.

The Chairman: Has Senator Grafstein reintroduced the poet Laureate bill again?

Ms Piccinin: It passed.

The Chairman: It is gone. You do not know of any government legislation coming to us, though?

Ms Piccinin: Not so far.

The Chairman: There is none on the Order Paper?

Ms Piccinin: The only one that may be reintroduced is the one dealing with refugee legislation. That was in the House of Commons in the last session.

The Chairman: Why does that come here instead of to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee?

Ms Piccinin: It has not been reintroduced yet, but immigration does fall within the committee's realm.

The Chairman: All right. The answer at this point is that we do not have anything. We will focus on the health care study.

When we meet next Wednesday, if anyone has comments on the draft report let us know. I hope that, if you do, they are relatively limited since we have already had it translated. We really need a discussion on the work program for phase two. I know I have said that the steering committee signed off on this, but it is important that we are all comfortable with the document that I sent to you related to the phase four outline, which is the research outline for the study. There is nothing worse than getting into a situation of unanticipated comment, and I think we can anticipate this quite clearly.

Senator LeBreton: On a point of clarification, for phases two and three, you said you would like to study them together. Is it "study" them together or "report" them together?

The Chairman: I really meant study them together. We may at some time, for example, on a Monday, hear from witnesses together, but there is no need report them simultaneously.

Does anyone wish to make any other comments? If not, then we will adjourn.

The committee adjourned.