Health Minister Rona Ambrose tours the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in November, as Ottawa announced new spending to help with Canada’s Ebola preparedness.Lyle Stafford/The Canadian Press
After a year in which Ebola dominated the health headlines, The Globe and Mail spoke to Health Minister Rona Ambrose about Canada's contributions to fighting the virus in West Africa and to fighting opioid abuse and obesity at home.
Ebola was really the big story of this year. Looking back, do you wish the Canadian government had done anything differently on that file?
No. I felt that our approach and our response was very effective and progressive. We were one of the first countries to respond early on this spring. I think the reason for that is we have been at the forefront of this issue for a decade.
It's not surprising that we were involved early because we have the top researchers in the world working on this issue at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg.
How is the recruitment campaign for Ebola workers going?
It's going really well. We know there was exponential growth in the amount of applications [the Canadian Red Cross] received once the government of Canada was on board and able to secure medical evacuation.
So we've got a number of Public Health Agency of Canada and other government employees who have stepped up, which is great to see.
But beyond that, they've received more applications than they need to fill spaces.
There have been some concerns this year about how funding is allocated through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and that the new method may drive away some health scientists. How do you defend the changes?
The changes are made by CIHR themselves and their governing body.
Alain Beaudet, who is the president of CIHR, is a highly respected researcher and clinician himself. I think he has a vision for the agency and I think he's doing a phenomenal job.
I think when you look at research funding, there's always a debate between the balance of applied versus basic research and what he's trying to do is find that balance.
But that change in balance was something that came from within CIHR, it didn't come from anywhere in government?
No, I didn't even know they were undertaking any kind of a process change or review or whatever they call it, so no. [Dr. Beaudet] has a very strong vision.
He works very collaboratively with the research community and he's very well-respected … I know he's given a lot of information to the researchers on why he's done this.
You have been involved in stopping prescription drug abuse and proposed earlier in the year making all opioids tamper-proof. What is happening on that front?
We received some push-back from pharmaceutical companies that believed it might be impossible to do, but we know it's not because it's being done. So what we said to them instead was, let's open this up to innovative ideas beyond just one company and see what comes out. The response has been a positive one. I think that companies recognize that there's abuse. They recognize that tamper-resistance is just one tool in our tool box, but I believe it's an important one.
The second round of consultations on changes to food labels ended in September. What did you hear from the industry and where are things on that issue?
We consulted with parents, but, frankly, it was moms, because they do 85 per cent of the shopping. That's who turned up for all the consultations. What we heard from them is they want the label to be easy to read. Even though it's complex information, they actually understand most of it, but they wanted certain things, [such as] calories, highlighted. The idea of grouping all the sugars together in the ingredients so you actually know how much sugar is in there, we did that and that was very popular amongst shoppers.
So are you anticipating changes to the label you proposed earlier in the year, or to the [100-gram] per day sugar limit?
I don't know yet. We're still trying to figure out what's the best way to capture what people want as information but still be evidence-based. … I'm sure we'll get there. But I think it's a big step forward just even to have the grouping of the sugars and have the information about sugar available. Obesity is at record highs. Diabetes is at record highs. I really, really worry when I see studies coming out saying the cost of obesity to our health-care system is in the trillions over the next number of decades. It's alarming, but it's not surprising when you see the kind of food that kids are eating.
You started, with the Prime Minister's wife, a Twitter campaign on organ donation. You said at the time you had some pretty lofty goals. Anything concrete you're planning to get the organ-donation rate up?
We funded recently a national network with Canadian Blood Services. What I'd like to do is not have anyone on that list. There are way too many Canadians waiting for organ donations. We have a national registry but not every province is linked into it. Not every province has its own registry. … We've been trying to work with provinces on that at the Public Health Agency. But as [Laureen] Harper says all the time, and I think it's a really important message, even if you're donor, even if you've signed the back of your driver's licence or your donor card, if you don't tell your family that you want to be a donor, that's moot.
This interview has been edited and condensed