Question Period Notes
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In accordance with the Access to Information Act, the government proactively publishes the package of question period notes that were prepared by a government institution for the minister and that were in use on the last sitting day in June and December.
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• Diabetes is a serious chronic disease, and one of the most common chronic diseases affecting people in Canada. Diabetes poses many challenges for those living with the disease, their families, and communities, and has various implications for health systems. It is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and lower limb amputation.
• Health product shortages pose a risk to the health of Canadians. Recent shortages of over-the-counter analgesics, antibiotics, and prescription diabetes drugs are a concrete illustration of the impact shortages can have on healthcare, people in Canada and their loved ones.
• Health Canada is working on medium- and longer-term policy options to improve access to health products in Canada. To develop these options, the department has consulted with provinces and territories, supply chain players, patient groups, Indigenous groups, and the healthcare community. A public online consultation was also held in the summer of 2023.
• A report of what we heard during the consultations has been published. Health Canada is using the feedback from the consultations to design tools and approaches that will be adopted by the Government of Canada to enhance health product supply chain resilience.
• Rare diseases are often chronic, can be seriously debilitating and potentially life-threatening. With few or no treatment options, available treatments can be high-cost, which poses significant challenges to patients, caregivers, and the health care system, including the sustainability of public and private drug plans that pay for these drugs.
• The SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to circulate and evolve worldwide for the foreseeable future. PHAC continues to work in collaboration with the WHO, international partners, provinces and territories, and health care organizations to transition critical emergency response activities to longer-term, sustainable COVID-19 prevention, control, and management.
• Persistent and important gaps in data collection, sharing, and use negatively impact personal, health professional, and system-wide health decision making in Canada.
• These gaps impair public health responses, reduce health outcomes for Canadians, and contribute to health inequities.
• Canadians should be able to securely access their own health information and benefit from it being shared between health workers and across health settings – allowing for better care while respecting their privacy.
• Budget 2024 proposed a suite of measures to modernize the federal research support system, including investments in core research, scholarships and fellowships.
• The Federal Government’s position on amending the Criminal Code to permit advance requests for MAID.
• The temporary exclusion of MAID eligibility for persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness has been extended by three years, to March 17, 2027.
• Between April and June 2023, Health Canada consulted Canadians on a policy update regarding its proposed approach to restricting the advertising of foods to children (known as M2K). The policy will form the basis of draft regulations expected to be published in Spring 2024 for public consultation (CGI). The proposed restrictions are more targeted than what was proposed in 2018 and will apply to TV and online media only. Health stakeholders are supportive of federal action and the targeted restrictions given the proposed policy’s strong nutrient criteria, its application in areas of high exposure and the commitment to continued monitoring to inform potential future actions, however, will continue to advocate for broader restrictions. Industry is critical of the government advancing regulations as they recently introduced their new self-regulatory advertising Code, which was implemented on June 28, 2023.
• Beginning in late 2023 a large increase in measles has been observed worldwide, particularly in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European Region. The WHO reported that the number of cases of measles worldwide increased by 18% and deaths increased by 43% globally in 2022 compared to 2021.
• Currently, cases of measles have been reported in several provinces in Canada. As of May 22, 2024, PHAC is aware of at least 77 measles cases in Canada. While some are associated with international travel, most cases in 2024 in Canada were a result of a Canadian exposure. Many cases are in unvaccinated individuals.
• An unvaccinated child has died of measles. This is the first measles death reported to PHAC since Canada achieved elimination status in 1998.
• A number of factors including the global rise in mistrust in government and science is leading to increasing rates of vaccine hesitancy thus creating declines in vaccine coverage. As a result, we are seeing a re-emergence of certain vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) in Canada and around the world, such as measles.
• In October 2022, the Ministers of Health and of Innovation, Science and Industry (ISI) launched the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System to provide advice on modernizing the federal support system with a specific focus on the relationship between the granting agencies (the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC)) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
• The Report of the Advisory Panel (i.e., Bouchard Report) was released in March 2023 and identified a series of issues within the existing federal research support system (e.g., lagging investment levels in research and talent, difficulties in supporting interdisciplinary/ multidisciplinary, collaborative and international research, lack of independent science advisory functions and a common vision for the ecosystem, and outdated approach to supporting Major Research Facilities). The Bouchard Report also provided a series of 21 recommendations to address these issues.
• In response, the Government developed a comprehensive plan to modernize the federal support system for scientific research and talent with complementary investments sought through Budget 2024.