SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
2014 Legislative Session: Third Session, 40th Parliament
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH
SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH | |
Thursday, October 9, 2014
10:30 a.m.
Douglas Fir Committee Room
Parliament Buildings, Victoria, B.C.
Present: Linda Larson, MLA (Chair); Judy Darcy, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Dr. Doug Bing, MLA; Sue Hammell, MLA; Richard T. Lee, MLA
Unavoidably Absent: Jennifer Rice, MLA; Bill Routley, MLA; Michelle Stilwell, MLA; Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA
1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 10:32 a.m. by the Committee Clerk.
2. Resolved, that Linda Larson, MLA, be elected Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Health. (Donna Barnett, MLA)
3. Resolved, that Judy Darcy, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Health. (Sue Hammell, MLA)
4. The Committee discussed and considered its Terms of Reference.
5. The Committee adjourned to the call of the Chair at 10:39 a.m.
| Linda Larson, MLA Chair | Susan Sourial |
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2014
Issue No. 9
ISSN 1499-4224 (Print)
ISSN 1499-4232 (Online)
CONTENTS | |
Page | |
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair | 159 |
Committee Terms of Reference | 159 |
Committee Documents | 160 |
Chair: | * Linda Larson (Boundary-Similkameen BC Liberal) |
Deputy Chair: | * Judy Darcy (New Westminster NDP) |
Members: | * Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal) |
* Dr. Doug Bing (Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows BC Liberal) | |
* Sue Hammell (Surrey–Green Timbers NDP) | |
* Richard T. Lee (Burnaby North BC Liberal) | |
Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP) | |
Bill Routley (Cowichan Valley NDP) | |
Michelle Stilwell (Parksville-Qualicum BC Liberal) | |
Dr. Moira Stilwell (Vancouver-Langara BC Liberal) | |
* denotes member present | |
Clerk: | Susan Sourial |
Committee Staff: | Gordon Robinson (Committee Researcher) |
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2014
The committee met at 10:32 a.m.
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair
S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): Good morning, Members, and thank you for coming on such short notice. I apologize for the back and forth regarding the meeting. We were told it was happening, not happening, so my apologies.
Our first order of business, as this is the first meeting of the committee during the third session, is the election of a Chair.
Are there any nominations?
D. Barnett: I nominate Linda Larson.
S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): Donna has nominated Linda.
Any further nominations? Any further nominations? Asking a third time, any further nominations?
Seeing none, Linda, do you accept?
L. Larson: I do, thank you.
[L. Larson in the chair.]
L. Larson (Chair): All right. My first order of business is to elect a Deputy Chair, so nominations from the floor, please.
S. Hammell: Judy Darcy.
L. Larson (Chair): So Judy has been nominated. Are there any further nominations? Any further nominations? One more time, any further nominations?
Therefore, I declare Judy vice-Chair.
Thank you so much. You guys are so efficient.
Committee Terms of Reference
L. Larson (Chair): Terms of reference — we need to take a quick look at this. It has been changed slightly. I’ll maybe ask Susan to highlight the change that may or may not make our life easier or more difficult.
S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): Good morning, again. The addition to the terms of reference was point 4, which comes directly from the letter that committee members received from Treasury Board: “Consider health capital funding options.”
It is up to the committee to determine how they want to interpret the terms of reference. There are no timelines, so if the committee wants to split the terms of reference and deal with the issue that we’ve currently got underway first and then come back to health capital funding, or you can consider them at the same time.
It’s not a decision you need to make today, but there are options.
L. Larson (Chair): Thank you very much.
Judy, comment?
J. Darcy (Deputy Chair): Well, I think, as we discussed in our in-person committee meeting in Vancouver a number of weeks ago, it’s an issue we clearly need to consider. But it would make a whole lot more sense there.
It’s really different groups of people who are going to have things to say about that, so I think it makes a whole lot more sense for us to do it in a separate consultation than these ones, which are the ones we identified — the four issues which are very much about front-line care that matters to people.
The other thing we’re going to…. We will have consultants. We’ll have academics. We’ll have who-knows-who who have opinions on that issue — city councils. But we also said we wanted to continue sort of our health 101 orientation session on it so that we all understood the issue and understood the options before we embarked on consultations.
I do think, for the committee, that needs to be the first order of business for that area of funding for capital projects.
L. Larson (Chair): Any other comments on this?
I believe, as Judy does, that we should finish what we’re doing. We have a request out there for proposals. They are coming in. We are going to look at some documentation that will maybe clarify things for people and get us some more input coming in. We only have till December to work on what we’ve got out there. Then, I would assume, as we are sent home again….
When we come back again in February, will it be a continuation of the current sitting, or will we again be doing another sitting and have to go through this process again? I just wanted to clarify that.
S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): Well, traditionally the House does prorogue in February and start a new session, but at this point in time, we don’t know. If it does, then yes, we would be in a fourth session, and the committee would have to be restruck — membership, etc.
L. Larson (Chair): Okay, thank you very much for the clarification.
In that case, I agree with Judy. I think we should finish what we’re doing and then in February take a look at this new mandate and decide at that point, after we receive
[ Page 160 ]
more information internally as to what exactly they’re looking for or would like us to look for. Then at that point, we can go out and consult if we need to or bring in some experts — whatever is needed.
Does anyone have any other comments on that?
I believe we probably have to adopt the terms of reference. Do we? No, we’re okay.
S. Sourial (Committee Clerk): The House did that.
L. Larson (Chair): The House did that, so we’re good. All right, even better.
I’m gathering, as there’s no further discussion on that, that we have a general consensus on that.
Committee Documents
L. Larson (Chair): We do have a bunch of literature that we thought of at our last meetings and asked to be brought forward so that we could get it distributed as quickly as possible. I hope you’ve had a chance to look at it. If there’s anything there you have a big red flag about, say so now. Otherwise, we’d like to get this popped out within the next day or two.
J. Darcy (Deputy Chair): Looks good.
L. Larson (Chair): It looks good. No red flags, everything okay. Simple enough and clear enough, we hope, for the different front-line people we’re trying to connect with in this case. All right, thank you.
If you have no objection to that, then we will get that out right away to our lists. If you have anyone else you want to add to our lists as you look at this new type of literature we’re putting out, please let Susan know as quickly as possible so that we can get it out to them.
Any other comments from the committee?
This could be one of the shortest meetings in history.
D. Barnett: I move we adjourn.
L. Larson (Chair): Thank you so much, Donna. We are adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 10:39 a.m.
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