October 1, 2014
Banff, Alberta
Good afternoon everyone and thank you for coming today for the conclusion of the federal provincial territorial Health Ministers meeting. I’m pleased to be joined by Minister Mandel and many of our provincial and territorial colleagues and of course Minister Mandel is new to the portfolio. I welcome him as our host and my co-chair for today’s meetings here in Banff Alberta.
As federal provincial and territorial Ministers of Health we share a common goal of ensuring that Canada’s population remains one of the healthiest in the world. We firmly believe that Canadians deserve access to timely and quality care and better health outcomes.
Today was a very successful meeting. There was a lot of collaboration around the Health Ministers’ table. Terrific work is being done in all provinces and territories and of course at the federal level as well.
Today was a great opportunity to update each other on progress but also to discuss how we can better work together on behalf of all Canadians on a number of really important issues.
We took note of some of the most pressing challenges facing our health systems and discussed what we can do both collectively and individually in response to these challenges. We covered a lot of topics both last night and today and I’ll just highlight a few of those and then turn it over to Minister Mandel.
With respect to Ebola and the current outbreak in Africa as you know it’s the most severe and complex the world has seen in forty years of combating this virus. The impact has been most devastating to West African countries. I was pleased to update the media this morning with Dr. Taylor and update my colleagues earlier today on measures we are taking here at home as well as the assistance we are providing abroad.
The Public Health Agency of Canada still advises that the risk to Canadians remains very low. The Public Health Agency is working with the provinces and territories to build lab capacity and soon there’ll be several jurisdictions in Canada that will have the lab capacity to rule out Ebola. We will continue to monitor developments of the outbreak closely and will keep Canadians informed as the situation is managed and our response evolves.
As well today Ministers all endorsed the multilateral information sharing agreement. This agreement improves our ability to deal with urgent public health events like Ebola and plan for the health and safety of Canadians. This agreement provides the means in which we can all safely share information in a timely manner and privacy considerations will be properly dealt with.
As many of you know, prescription drug abuse is something I have been looking at very closely in the past year. The risks and challenges associated with prescription drug abuse is a concern to all of us. There are too many Canadians who are suffering and too many Canadian families who are dealing with the impacts of prescription drug abuse.
We’re starting to see real understanding among governments, the medical profession and Canadians about the importance of collectively addressing this issue. Today we received an update on the working group on prescription drug abuse. We have made a couple of steps forward. In fact we have made great progress.
We’ve made a commitment to move forward to put in place a national prescription monitoring program network and lay the groundwork for even more collaboration. We’ve also agreed to work closely with regulatory authorities and health professional colleges to enhance training and education for prescribers and to ensure high standards of professional practices among health professionals.
We have also agreed to use a national body to enhance surveillance for prescription drug abuse. We also spoke today on healthcare innovation, something we’re all passionate about. At last fall’s FPT meeting we discussed the need to find new and innovative ways to provide Canadians with access to timely quality care, especially with Canada’s growing aging population.
This year innovation continues to be a key focus for the Ministers of Health. Today the Ministers heard from Dr. Naylor, the Chair of the newly created federal advisory panel on healthcare innovation. The panel has been asked to look at the most promising areas of innovation in the healthcare system in Canada and internationally and advise me on how the federal government can better support those efforts.
As part of this work the advisory panel is consulting with provincial and territorial governments, stakeholders and Canadians to hear from them about healthcare innovation and how it can improve the responsiveness and sustainability of the healthcare system.
Today all Ministers were interested in hearing about how the panel is undertaking its work and some of the early things and ideas that are surfacing on such an important issue. Earlier this month at the Canada France Global Legacy event held in Ottawa we heard from many experts on dementia.
Around the world dementia is widely recognized as one of the most pressing problems facing healthcare systems and an aging population. The number of Canadians who are living with dementia is expected to double by 2031 and sadly there is no cure. That is why we are committed to national and international leadership in dementia research and prevention.
I’m pleased to confirm today that Health Ministers agreed to work together to begin planning on a pan-Canadian dementia strategy which would be presented to FPT Ministers for consideration at a future Health Ministers meeting. This is early stages but it’s good news and will encompass in its first phase the creation of optimizing research and best practices.
We all share a common concern about the necessity of responding to the dementia crisis and I thank the provinces and territories for their good work and collaboration. Finally I’d also like to thank Minister Hoskins from Ontario for his leadership in bringing the idea of a strategy to address the purchasing of pharmaceutical drugs back to the table and look forward to pursuing that discussion with him and with all provinces and territories.
Together we discussed how the governments could work together to be more involved in the broad purchasing plans the provinces are working on. Federally we work already with provinces and territories to bulk purchase the seasonal flu vaccine and this in turn allows for cost savings for all of us.
What we are going to look into doing is something similar to that that would help lower the costs that we all spend on drugs. I thank Ontario for their leadership and as the federal government we look forward to working with them and all provinces on this issue.
That’s just some of the topics we discussed last night and today. It was a very fruitful discussion. I thank all of my colleagues for the great cooperation and collaboration and I’ll turn it over to Minister Mandel who is going to highlight some other areas for us.
