Health Committee on Nov. 6th, 2023

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

On a point of order, Chair, can I ask my colleague Mr. Doherty not to bang on the table? The interpreters are going to have a problem.

I know you're passionate about everything, and I would just ask you—

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'll wave at the interpreters and apologize to them for that.

Mr. Chair, it is so frustrating for me. How many beds for recovery could that money have built? For three weeks, four weeks, we've been pushing to do something about the opioid epidemic in this country. The hundreds of millions of dollars that this government has wastefully spent.... How many vaccines were created? Not one, and where is this company now? It closed the doors...sunnier climes.

It's crazy that you'd give $173 million or more to a company that you get squat out of. What else did they get out of this? They must have gotten something. Was that a payoff or something? Again, it's close enough to be listed in the Liberal Party's 2021 platform—page 8, for those who are looking.

This government is just not worth the cost. This Prime Minister is not worth the cost. Canadians have to wake up to this. It's not their money. I bet that, if you do a quick search, this was in some Liberal minister's riding. Well, I did the search. It was in the former health minister's riding, Minister Duclos's riding.

It's $173 million that we know of—probably more—to a business that is no longer.... The doors are shuttered—doors, windows. Everybody's gone. They're off to sunnier climes, to billionaire island, probably. It's $173 million.

Billions of dollars.... The former health minister gets it. He is the former minister of treasury, too—Mr. Treasury, the guy who controls the purse strings. This is crazy. You can't write this stuff. You couldn't make this stuff up. It's like a Hollywood movie. It's unbelievable.

I campaigned in 2015, probably one of the most divisive things I've ever gone through—that and the nomination, of course. However, in 2015, I remember that this young guy who had great hair rolled up his sleeves and went all around our country saying that he promised to do government differently. I believe his term was the “sunny way”. He said that he was going to let the sun shine in because sunshine is the best form of disinfectant. He promised not to use dilatory motions, omnibus bills, closure—well, we know how that is. He promised to do things a lot differently. He was going to be.... They were going to be different.

They absolutely have been different. Our colleagues across the way.... I say this all the time: I know there are good people across the way. This has to be tough. I see the look in their eyes when they sit in the backbenches, and they just shake their heads when another scandal comes out—WE Charity, SNC-Lavalin, Jody Wilson-Raybould, “elbowgate”, billionaire island, dividing Canadians, asking Canadians whether we should even tolerate these people. I look at my colleagues across the way and I ask, “Is this leadership?” When the going gets tough and it's time to stand up and be counted, where is he?

As you can see, I'm deeply frustrated, Mr. Chair. I'm going to go over the list again: “elbowgate”, cash for access, Aga Khan, cultural appropriation, SNC-Lavalin, SNC-Lavalin election donations, blackface, WE Charity, interfering in RCMP investigations, the ArriveCAN app and Chinese interference. I'll bring you back to one that I worked on, the “clam scam”. Another minister took millions upon millions of dollars and redirected it to his own family, his wife's cousin and former Liberal colleagues. It's absolutely shameful.

I hope my colleagues will see it fit to vote in favour of this motion, so that we can once and for all get to the bottom of this wasteful spending. The scandals are unbelievable, Mr. Chair.

With that, I'll cede the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Doherty.

Mr. Jowhari is next, please.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good that the election is in 2025, so that my colleagues have a long runway to be able to get on the soapbox.

Let's get back to the facts.

I have fundamental issues with this Standing Order 106(4) motion for a study, starting with the fact that the motion says, “given recent media reports that the Public Health Agency of Canada lost over $300 million”. I'll stop there.

Our colleagues are constantly referring to the media. I'm going to go back to the media report that was out on November 3:

In a statement to National Post Friday, the press secretary for Health Minister Mark Holland, Chris Aoun, said the government made a $150 million non-refundable advance payment to Quebec-based Medicago early in the pandemic to fund development and reserve a number of doses of its eventual COVID-19 vaccine.

Then it says:

The “advance purchase agreement” was one of seven the government signed early in the pandemic with vaccine manufacturers to secure vaccine doses as soon as they were ready. At the time, it was not known which, if any, of the vaccines would pass Health Canada' approval process (most of them did).

I also want to refer back to the note that was sent to the committee, signed by five of our colleagues across, stating that the “Government's Public Health Agency is unable to explain how the agency lost $150 million”. The fact is that the explanation is there. It was not $150 million lost, but invested into research and development. It was not for an unfulfilled contract, because when you look at it, what was delivered was....

Again, since our colleagues refer to the media, I'd like to bring to the attention of our colleagues an article dated February 24, 2022. It says, “Medicago's plant-based COVID-19 vaccine is now approved by Health Canada, which will soon give Canadians the option of getting a homegrown shot against SARS-CoV-2.”

Now, my colleague across the aisle was bringing up the Auditor General. I'd like to acknowledge that the Auditor General reviewed all of the contracts and confirmed that there was no issue with any of those contracts being executed.

It was not $300 million. It was two investments. One was for $150 million for research and development, which resulted....

Dr. Ellis, would you like me to do exactly the same thing to you when you have the floor, laugh at you?

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

If it's funny, you can.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

It's not funny. It's fact.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Are you saying it's okay to lose $150 million on this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Dr. Ellis, Mr. Jowhari has the floor.

Everyone listened patiently and attentively when you had the floor. Please offer the same courtesy.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

He's addressing me.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

The $150 million is not lost. It resulted in a vaccine approved by Health Canada.

What happened subsequently is of interest. Again, since my colleagues like to refer to the media reports, I'd like to quote a February 2, 2023, report from CBC. It reads:

Then in March, the World Health Organization decided not to accept Medicago's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, citing the company's ties to big tobacco. Marlboro cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International was once a shareholder of Medicago, but divested all of its shares in late 2022.

Can the $150 million be accounted for? Yes. What was it invested in? It was invested in R and D. Did the R and D result in a vaccine being developed that was approved by Health Canada? Yes. Did the business go forward? No. Why? The World Health Organization didn't approve it because of ties to a tobacco organization, which meant that the vaccine that was manufactured was available domestically, but not internationally. That's therefore a business decision by Medicago and Mitsubishi, which is probably worthy of a study.

Now we come to the other part of this. There was $173 million also invested in Medicago for the site expansion, after the approval of the vaccine by Health Canada. It is worthy of study to see whether the $173 million actually went to the site expansion and what the status of that site expansion is.

When we look at this motion and see it's talking about “lost” rather than a business loss, it raises questions. When we see unfulfilled contracts, there are grounds for us to look and see whether the contract was fulfilled or not. The AG has done that. Whether it's $300 million.... It's not.

Also, the public accounts committee is actually doing this study. The notion of this study as it is in the motion is not acceptable to our side. Based on referring to the media, there are areas that the media has not had the opportunity to explore and that may potentially lead to misinformation.

I'm not going to make any comments on the other.... My colleagues talked about many other items, which we will deal with in the election in 2025.

I want to close by saying that I believe this is another tactic by our Conservative colleagues to delay the study of women's health. Today we were supposed to start the study of women's health. We have the children's health report that is not completed. We have the breast implant report that is due for its second version, with some very good recommendations, which we need to finalize. We have the PMPRB study, which is now going to get pushed back. We have the PPE study, and we know the fate of Bill C-293.

Mr. Chair, there are areas of concern in this motion. I'd like to look at a modified or amended version of this motion for us to be able to bring total clarity to the issue of where the $150 million was spent—we know who spent it and what it was spent on—and the state of the $170-million site expansion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

Dr. Hanley, go ahead, please.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Delay, delay, delay. That's what I'm hearing from our Conservative colleagues across the way.

Just one meeting ago, we were hearing how urgent it was that we speak to the opioid crisis in Canada, with several hastily constructed motions in that regard. Suddenly, it appears that's no longer urgent; that's no longer an urgent issue.

In my mind, this is where we wanted to bring this committee: to look at the study that is already in the queue on women's health, a study of deep concern to all of us and to Canadians, and then to proceed to the opioid crisis study, which was moved by me some time ago. We have been waiting to proceed to that study so that we can make some new and informed recommendations for how much more we need to do to address the crisis that is killing 20 Canadians a day.

Here we are now, with a Conservative revisionist history, delay and smoke and mirrors, pushing for accountability on a non-issue.

I have two important points to make. I know that my colleague, Mr. Jowhari, has made those points, but I think they are worth reiterating. There is no lost money. The $150 million is money that was part of Canada's vaccine acquisition strategy in advance purchase agreements. There has already been full transparency with these contracts, with the Auditor General and with the public accounts committee. Parliamentarians from all parties have reviewed these contracts. The money spent, the $150 million, was part of a highly successful strategy to actually lead us to deliver vaccines and save thousands of Canadian lives, a strategy that led to Canada's vaccine rollout being one of the most successful on the planet.

What happened in the end is that we did not see a vaccine produced and ready to go from the company in question, Medicago. Yes, that's unfortunate, but $150 million, as my colleague said, was spent on research and development and infrastructure development in Canada. More importantly, at the time, of course nobody had the ability to know in advance which contracts were going to result in vaccines ultimately being delivered to people. Obviously, if we had the ability to predict the future, we would be in a much better place from all kinds of points of view. You make decisions at the time based on best estimates of success. Advance purchase agreements were made with vetted companies through vetted contracts.

In my previous role as the chief medical officer of health in the Yukon during the pandemic, seeing Canada come through with vaccines was literally a lifesaver for my citizens in the Yukon and also for Canadians around the country. It was welcome relief.

Accountability is fully there, to the point where the Auditor General has reported on and approved the process. I can quote the Auditor General's finding:

We found that, although a non-competitive approach was taken, Public Services and Procurement Canada exercised due diligence on the 7 vaccine companies by conducting assessments to examine the companies’ financial capability to meet requirements and by conducting integrity checks to mitigate the risk of unethical business practices. We found no issue with the delegation of authority because the Minister of Public Services and Procurement signed the 7 advance purchase agreements.

Mr. Chair, if we reflect back to the time not that long ago, just over a couple of years ago, when this very committee was meeting in February 2021, what were our Conservatives colleagues saying then? There was statement after statement urging the government to step up in vaccine acquisition. There were statements such as, “That is a question the government cannot answer. It has not received enough supply to deal with this question. This is why it is so imperative for the government to get us more vaccines.” There was statement after statement urging Canada to step up and acquire vaccines.

Again, as outlined by the Auditor General, this was Canada's role, and it was verified through the Auditor General's approval that this was one of the seven vaccine companies selected based on financial capability, integrity checks and the viability of the company. Once again, we are using committee time to address issues that are spurious and delaying the earnest work that we are all waiting to proceed with on behalf of Canadians.

Now, given that there is a need for information as to some of the details of the contract, which are not at the moment at the disposition of this committee, I would be willing to support, and I think my colleagues would be willing to support, some amendments to this motion.

I therefore propose an amendment. The wording of the amendment would be that we delete everything after the first “the committee”, which is in the third line, and replace it with the following: “hold four hours of meetings on the government's advance purchase agreement for vaccines with Medicago and invite officials from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Auditor General and Medicago.”

I think that would fulfill some of the unanswered questions that members have brought forward, and it would allow us to proceed with the most efficiency possible in order to get on to some of the urgent committee business that my colleagues have also expressed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

The amendment is in order.

The debate is now on the amendment.

Mr. Davies, go ahead, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

A lot has been said. I do have, I suppose, the privilege and the advantage of having served on this committee since 2015. I was on this committee when we first heard the word “COVID-19” back in the early days of 2020, so I want to put a little bit of context to the motion and the history. At that time, as an NDP health critic, I worked very closely with the Conservative health critic, Michelle Rempel Garner. We worked very closely, both parties in tandem, and very strongly on the concepts of transparency and accountability.

I think Dr. Kitchen was there with us at that time on the Conservative side, so he would remember that. I think Monsieur Thériault was there as well. The Bloc, I think, participated—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I'm sorry. I have point of order, Chair, if I may.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead on your point of order, Dr. Ellis.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Maybe it just needs clarification. I was actually part of the PACP committee that looked at these documents. There were significant non-disclosure agreements around it. I'm wondering if that's going to play into the utility of Dr. Hanley's motion. Are we actually going to be able to examine these contracts? Are we going to have in camera meetings, or will they be in public?

I certainly think this is an issue that the public wants to know the answer to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Dr. Ellis, that isn't a point of order, but it is something that would be entirely appropriate for you to raise when you get the floor three speakers from now. It is relevant to the discussion, but it certainly isn't relevant as a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

At that time, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, and the Conservatives joined together to demand transparency and accountability from the government in all aspects of the way it handled the COVID-19 issue. That included demanding all documents, including contracts with vaccine manufacturers at that time.

We were successful, actually—partially, I should say. We got a procedure. A motion was passed by this committee that required the government to send all documents to the law clerk of the House of Commons, who would then vet those documents for a couple of key factors, including national security interests and legitimate commercial confidentiality issues, and then provide those documents to the committee. We did get a number of documents coming here.

I want to remind all committee members, including those speaking today who weren't here at the time and who may have forgotten that the NDP played a key role in that transparency and accountability.

We believe that Canadians have a right to know how their government is spending their money. Frankly, given that it was the biggest pandemic of the century, we felt it was important that Canadians have a first-hand look at how their government was responding to the pandemic. Even though there may have been some small reservations for true commercial confidentiality considerations and maybe some national security, we felt the government was not anywhere close to being as forthright as it ought to have been, and that's the record of the NDP on this issue.

I'm going to get to this in a moment, because there have been a few inaccuracies stated this morning in that regard that really need to be cleared up at this committee.

We know that the government did contract with a number of potential vaccine manufacturers, and one of them was Medicago. We knew—before the meeting today and before this motion—that the reason the contract with Medicago never panned out and was cancelled before it even got off the ground was that the World Health Organization refused to accept its vaccine for emergency use in 2022 because it was partly owned by tobacco giant Philip Morris International.

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, of which Canada is a signatory, contains clear direction, stating that signatories should avoid all operations that would, in effect, give a positive impression of big tobacco in the public health. Second, it contains guidelines for implementing the treaty, stating that government “should not accept, support or endorse partnerships...with the tobacco industry or any entity or person working to further its interests.” That's the crux of the matter here.

There are some very important questions that arise from that, and that's why I very much support—as I've said publicly, and as I will say here today—the sentiment behind this motion today.

Was the fact that Medicago had commercial relations and an ownership relationship with Philip Morris International disclosed to the Canadian government? Was it known? If it was known, why was the contract signed by this government? Why would the government go ahead and sign a contract with a company it knew had associations with big tobacco, when it was also a signatory to a convention where it agreed to do precisely the opposite of that?

If they did know and they signed a contract, why was there no escape clause in the contract with Medicago that would indicate that if it turned out that Medicago, or any other commercial vendor for that matter, was in breach of a significant policy or issue, the government would have the ability to cancel the contract on those grounds? Was there such a clause? If not, why wasn't there such a clause? If the government did not know that Medicago was involved with Philip Morris, how was that missed?

These are all extremely important questions, because the NDP very much agrees that giving $150 million away to a corporation and getting nothing in return is bad governance. It cannot happen and we need to get to the bottom of it.

Even worse, what ended up happening here, if you think about it, was that the taxpayers of this country and the Government of Canada gave $150 million to a company that's associated with big tobacco for nothing. That is a gross violation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. I'm very much in favour of getting to the bottom of it.

I've already mentioned that the government was very reluctant to be wholly transparent on accountability throughout the COVID pandemic. It resisted the opposition's attempt to have it disclose documents. We had to bring motions to force it to do that and, frankly, even when it produced documents, most of the documents that were presented came slowly, and most of the documents were of a very standard form, like press releases, speaking notes and such. It took a long time to get any real documents of any value, and even then, we got very few.

That's why, by the way, the NDP moved an amendment at this committee just weeks ago to have a full, public, independent COVID inquiry that would look at every issue of the way this government handled COVID. I want to point out that only two parties supported that: the Bloc Québécois and the NDP. The Conservatives, who now claim to want to get to the bottom of this matter, sat on their hands. They abstained on a motion, but if they had voted for it, we would have had a majority and we would be well on our way to amending legislation that would be tabled in the House of Commons to create an independent, public COVID inquiry under the Inquiries Act, led by a judge with powers of subpoena and the power to compel the attendance of witnesses and documents, to be conducted in public on every issue, including mandates, masking and vaccine contracts—everything.

The Conservatives, at the height of hypocrisy, did not support that. Here they are, two weeks later, waxing eloquent—at least in their minds—and pretending they want to get to the bottom of this matter. They're grandstanding on a contract to which, by the way, we already have the answers now.

I want to stop and say that the response of the Public Health Agency of Canada when the National Post began asking questions of it about this $150-million loss to an “unfulfilled contract by a vendor” is absolutely unacceptable in a modern democracy. What did the Public Health Agency say? It refused to disclose any information whatsoever on the loss, such as the identity of the vendor, the nature of the deal or even the product or service that wasn't received.

That is shocking. It's unacceptable. That's not protecting commercial confidentiality. That's avoiding public accountability. Surely, Canadians have a right to know, and PHAC easily could have said it was the Medicago contract and it had to do with vaccines. They could have said that the nature of the deal was to procure vaccines from Medicago and we never received the vaccines. They could even have given the reason why. What commercial confidentiality is involved there? There's nothing. We knew Medicago had a contract. We knew the contract was cancelled. We knew it was because of its affiliation with Philip Morris, yet here was the Public Health Agency of Canada, last week, not telling a reporter, or journalists, or this committee anything at all about the $150 million.

I agree with my Conservative colleagues and Dr. Kitchen. Frankly, I think that for most Canadians $150 is a lot of money, so $150 million is a substantial amount of money.

I want to pause and say a few things now about.... I very much support this motion and having meetings to call the Public Health Agency to the carpet here and have them explain the details of how this happened. Clearly, someone made decisions that were wrong and bad and resulted in a significant loss to taxpayers, and we have an obligation as parliamentarians to get to the bottom of it.

Someone told me a long time ago, when I was first elected—and I don't know if this is true or not—that the number one duty of parliamentarians, the reason why we're elected here, our first duty, is to serve as a scrutineer of executive spending. That is actually the duty of parliamentarians of all parties, and this is a classic example of that, so I support the motion.

By the way, I would have signed it had I been offered it, but I was in the air at the time. When I landed in Vancouver on Thursday night, I saw this motion come forward.

Now, there are a few things. Accountability and transparency are based on truth. I see Conservatives nodding, so let's start telling some truths here too, though, because grandstanding, political myth-making and spreading misinformation, especially by people on the health committee in this time of health.... Well, frankly, it's appalling. Saying “the NDP-Liberal”—

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

I have a point of order.

The title of the section is “Losses of public money”. That's not misinformation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

That's not a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'll very carefully detail the misinformation.

Throughout Dr. Ellis's comments, and I think they were repeated by Dr. Kitchen.... Frankly, Dr. Kitchen was at this committee, so he should know better. At the time these contracts were let, the NDP was not in any kind of agreement with the government whatsoever. The NDP signed a confidence and supply agreement in March 2022, so when Dr. Ellis repeatedly states that “the NDP-Liberal coalition” was in any way responsible for losing $150 million, that is just simply false.

By the way, it's also not a “coalition”, but I'm prepared to let that go. I mean, you'd think that as parliamentarians they'd understand basic terms like what a coalition is and isn't, but I guess it makes better sound bites for Conservatives to say “NDP-Liberal coalition”, even though there isn't one. It's a confidence and supply agreement, and the NDP has no ability to influence government decisions or government spending in any way, other than within the confines of the confidence and supply agreement. Even then, it is a government decision, but the Conservatives know that—they just don't care.

I do think, though, that while it may suit their temporal political benefits for the moment, I just want them to be aware of the long-term damage they do to democracy in this country by spreading misinformation at this committee and confusing Canadians about the way politics works.

Back in 2021, when this government was letting these contracts, the NDP had zero to do with this government, and that needs to be clear. I would hope and ask my Conservative colleagues to at least have enough respect—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

—so that they can discontinue that kind of misinformation to Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Davies, please wait a second. We have a point of order from Dr. Ellis.