Evidence of meeting #9 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was answer.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Evans.
Colleagues, we started five minutes late, so I propose that we give Monsieur Thériault and Mr. Davies a turn and then ask for adjournment at that time. I hope that's okay.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
5:30 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you.
Obviously, my refusal was due to the form, and not the substance, of the motion. It may be presented Wednesday, and we will see at that time.
Ms. Evans, going back to the management of the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile, as part of the measures taken to replenish its supplies, do you favour local suppliers?
5:30 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Mr. Chair, what I think has been important in the COVID-19 response, where we've seen a fierce, globally competitive market, is the benefits of having domestic supplies available to the jurisdictions. In a number of areas, we are now well situated, for example, with N95 respirators, with domestic manufacturing in Canada. We saw manufacturers leaning forward with the call from the federal government in terms of supports needed.
5:30 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Mr. Chair, I'm unable to answer that question, with respect.
We would follow the appropriate procurement policies. If there is a more detailed response required, then I would have to defer to my colleagues at PSPC.
Thank you.
5:30 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Mr. Chair, there was no interpretation for the last part of Ms. Evans' answer. I hope my time is not up.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Okay.
Is it working now?
Ms. Evans, could you please repeat your last answer?
5:30 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I'm unable to answer that question as it's posed, but what I can say is that domestic manufacturing capacity is—
5:30 p.m.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you.
Excuse me, but if you are not able to answer that question, I will ask another.
To avoid the recurring problems with expired inventory, what have you put in place to apply proactive management? For instance, do you plan to renew or dispose of it through our health networks or charities, rather than waiting for it to be expired and throwing it away?
Could you at least answer that question?
5:30 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Mr. Chair, the member has raised an important issue with respect to the life-cycle management of products through the national emergency strategic stockpile.
Certainly, our first line of deployment is to the provinces and territories for use within their health care systems, but where we see that stocks may expire before we're able to deploy them, we would follow the policies that are laid out by the Treasury Board in terms of appropriate divestment and deployment. We would, for example, look to transfer to other federal departments, usually through the Government of Canada surplus. We have an ability to sell them at fair market value.
As well, we look to do donations to other levels of government and recognize charitable organizations. That's another opportunity for a broader reach within Canada to make sure the supplies can be effectively used.
Conversion to waste, using the most environmentally sustainable method possible, is the choice that would be made following an attempt to look at all of the other avenues for effective use within Canada.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Evans.
The last round of questions will be from Mr. Davies for the next two and a half minutes.
5:30 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Diogo or Mr. Allison, in January, the WHO director general has noted the following:
No country can boost its way out of the pandemic.
And boosters cannot be seen as a ticket to go ahead with planned celebrations, without the need for other precautions.
Last month, the European Medicines Agency said that there was still no data supporting the need for a fourth COVID vaccine dose. It further stated that even if multiple boosters do prove to be necessary, they would need to be spaced out in the style of annual flu jabs, rather than delivered every several months. Finally, it warned that overly frequent booster doses could potentially lead to—quote—“problems with immune response”.
As Canadians near the end of the third booster program, what is the plan to deal with COVID-19 going forward?
Mr. Allison or Ms. Diogo, if you can't answer, that's fine. I'm not sure if it's beyond your scope.
5:35 p.m.
Christopher Allison
Mr. Chair, as my colleague mentioned earlier, the representatives who are responsible for the vaccination program are not here, so unfortunately we will not be able to respond to that question.
5:35 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
That's fair enough.
Lastly, I'm confused because, unless I heard incorrectly, Ms. Evans stated that a warning was issued by GPHIN on December 30, 2019, yet the Auditor General's March 2021 report found that Canada's GPHIN failed to issue an alert to provide an early warning of the novel coronavirus.
I'm reading from a July 30 article in The Globe and Mail that said:
Canada's Auditor General is planning to investigate what went wrong with the country's once-vaunted early warning system for pandemics after the unit curtailed its surveillance work and ceased issuing alerts more than a year ago, raising questions about whether it failed when it was needed most.
They said that according to 10 years of documents obtained by The Globe and Mail, the system went silent on May 24, 2019, after issuing more than 1,500 alerts.
My question is for the deputy Auditor General. Did you find any alert issued by GPHIN in December 2019 about COVID-19?
5:35 p.m.
Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
No, we did not. We found that they were doing their daily reports, but they did not issue an alert, which is a different kind of warning system.
5:35 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Evans, did I misunderstand you? I want to give you a chance to clarify that.
Did you say that GPHIN did issue an alert on December 30? I know you said it wouldn't have made a difference.
5:35 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
As I stated earlier, and I'm happy to restate the answer, there are a number of different products that come out of the GPHIN program, one of them being the GPHIN daily report.
What I had stated is that the GHPIN daily report did identify the cases of mysterious pneumonia later identified as COVID-19, and that early signal to senior management galvanized the system immediately and this—
5:35 p.m.
NDP
5:35 p.m.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
By December 31, the significance of the event was clear in the public health surveillance community and partners internationally were already aware of the signal. There were other event-based surveillance systems that had issued similar to the GPHIN daily report on that same day, and the external independent panel had identified that there would have been no opportunity for the GPHIN to identify this signal earlier than it had.
Absolutely, in the daily report from the GPHIN on December 31, that signal was identified to senior management within the agency, which immediately galvanized our response from the very beginning of 2020.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Evans, and thank you, Mr. Davies.
That concludes our questioning.
To all the witnesses, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your patient professionalism. We understand that many of the questions that were posed probably should be posed to other officials within your department. We will endeavour to identify them and have them come back so that we can pose the same questions to them, but we absolutely appreciate the work that you do. We appreciate your being here and the professional and patient manner in which you have dealt with the questions.
Thank you so much for being with us.
We are ready for a motion for adjournment. Is it the will of the meeting that we do now adjourn?
5:35 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.