Evidence of meeting #29 for Canada-China Relations in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Guillaume Poliquin  Acting Vice-President, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada
Iain Stewart  President, Public Health Agency of Canada

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Again, the work on ensuring that Canada had a vaccine supply began early, and we turned over every stone to examine potential vaccine developments around the world. The vaccine task force was critically important in helping guide those early deals and, indeed, out of the seven that they selected for us—

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Right.

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

—we have four approved and one very viable. Therefore, it's very exciting.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

That's fine, thank you.

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

I should also mention Medicago, our Canadian candidate from Quebec, which is doing very well and that we're very excited about.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Minister. Excuse me for interrupting you, but I only have five minutes. You know how it works.

I congratulate Medicago, a company that is not far from here, just over from where I am.

I want to come back to the Winnipeg situation. In 2018, American officials warned Washington about weaknesses at the Wuhan laboratory in relation to security and management. Were you informed about the Americans' concerns at that time?

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Again, I have stayed focused on making sure that I can help our domestic response to COVID-19 continue to unfold. As the Prime Minister and many other ministers have been very clear, we too are very interested in the origins of COVID-19. Indeed, the world needs to know the origins of COVID-19 so we can prevent an epidemic, a pandemic like this, from happening ever again.

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

You are not answering my question.

My apologies to the interpreters.

My question is this, Minister. In 2018, American security officials informed Washington that there was a problem with the Wuhan laboratory. Were you, or the previous Minister of Health, here in Canada, informed of the security issues at the Wuhan laboratory when we were working with them? Was that information communicated to you?

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

I was not the Minister of Health in 2018 and did not receive any briefing like that, but I can also say that again our focus has been—

7:50 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Right. You did not receive any briefing on our security level four laboratory when you took up your position.

I'm sorry, Mrs. Hajdu, but nobody told you at that time that the—

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

I can tell you that my focus has been, throughout this pandemic, to make sure that Canada has what it needs to respond to COVID-19 and that provinces and territories are well placed to deliver on their health care responsibilities.

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Now we'll go to Ms. Zann for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

June 14th, 2021 / 7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Lenore Zann Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I want to say thank you to our Minister of Health.

Thank you, Minister Hajdu, for all of your extremely hard work. I don't know how you've managed to do it this past year and a half. I haven't seen you since we were in Ottawa together at the very beginning of the outbreak, and I just have to say that every day that I hear you and see you I'm so grateful that you are there and that you have the best interests of Canadians at heart. I truly believe that, and you prove it day after day after day.

I find it very interesting that the opposition seems to harp on and obsess about the Chinese military and the Chinese army, when in fact we've actually had our army help us roll out the vaccines here in Canada, and also look after our long-term care seniors when they were in desperation.

What would you like to say about that? I'd like to hear your thoughts about that.

7:50 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

It's so nice to see you too, MP Zann. When I saw your little square, I realized that we hadn't seen each other in a long, long time. I hope you're doing well.

Thank you for asking about the Canadian military. Truly, they have been heroes throughout this pandemic. In fact, we called on them early, as you know, to help out in long-term care. Indeed, not only did they help but they also discovered some atrocities that were occurring due to lack of capacity in those homes to care for elders. We will be forever grateful. I think all Canadians will be for the incredible compassionate care they provided seniors at a time of particular need.

We also heavily leaned on the Canadian Armed Forces to help with the logistics and planning with regard to how to move millions and millions of doses of vaccines to provinces and territories. In the early days we did a lot of role-playing and tabletop exercises with provinces and territories to make sure that people were ready to deliver and manage and store them appropriately.

The military continues to be there for us whenever we need them during this pandemic response. Indeed, they've helped out. For example, Canadian rangers in northern Ontario and other parts of the country have helped with immunizing remote indigenous communities, something that is not easy in this country of ours, which presents such a geographical barrier.

We will be forever grateful to the Canadian military for helping in such a time of need, and I think it's what Canadians think of when they think of the Canadian military service—the men and women and their selflessness in stepping up in these times.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

Lenore Zann Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS

Thank you so much for that answer.

Before the pandemic, most Canadians had never really even heard of the National Microbiology Lab or did not know that it existed. Most of us don't know much about the work that the lab does or how important it is for Canada, especially during COVID-19. In what ways has the National Microbiology Lab contributed to Canada's COVID-19 response?

Anybody can answer that.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Perhaps I can start, and then I know Dr. Poliquin has a lot of things he'd like to highlight about the great success of the lab. I think he mentioned one that I think is very pivotal, and that was being one of the first on the scene, perhaps “the first” on the scene. I'm always afraid to say “the first”, but I think we were one of the first labs to create a functional PCR test using the genetic sequencing that was provided by China in the early days of COVID-19, which allowed us to start to set up our testing regime very quickly here in Canada.

The National Microbiology Lab since then has been conducting research but also filling in the gaps for so many things. I'll never forget their work in making sure that provinces and territories had, for example, swabs to take samples with in early spring, April or so, of 2020.

Dr. Poliquin, maybe you can talk about some of the sort of quick hits or successes of the lab.

7:55 p.m.

Acting Vice-President, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada

Dr. Guillaume Poliquin

Yes. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's a lot to be proud of, but in the early days of the COVID-19 response, testing supply reagents were scarce and difficult to come by. Scientists at the laboratory attacked the problem in a number of different ways, including by working with provinces, territories and industry to find solutions, to bring in reagents, swabs, test kits and PCR. We also developed our very own reagent when we could not buy any on the open market so that provinces and territories could continue to do testing.

We went from capacity being 10,000 to well over 200,000 PCR tests per day in that time. We have built sequencing capacity and wastewater testing and have brought diagnostic technologies to our northern regions.

7:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

Thank you very much, Dr. Poliquin. Thank you, Ms. Zann.

We'll now pause for a five-minute health break and then resume.

The meeting is suspended for five minutes.

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Geoff Regan

I call the meeting back to order.

We'll go to the first round of our second half.

Mr. Genuis, you have six minutes.

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, you've implied that questions about co-operation between the Wuhan lab and the Winnipeg lab are local decisions better directed to lab officials.

I just want to ask you the following. Do you have an expectation, or do other members of cabinet have an expectation, that you would be briefed and consulted about research co-operation with foreign militaries, or would you see those questions of research co-operation with foreign militaries as being ones to be made at the local level?

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Again, the lab plays a very important role in co-operating with research across the world, and of course it has strict protocols by which to do so and a number of policies in place to protect the intellectual property and national security interests. The lab undergoes a thorough process, as Dr. Poliquin has said—

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

I'm sorry, Minister. I will sharpen the question because it was a very specific question.

If research at a lab is being undertaken with a foreign military, would you expect that you and/or some colleagues of yours in cabinet would be consulted and given an opportunity to weigh in on that, or would you say that it's carte blanche for those co-operations to be negotiated and determined at the local level?

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Again, on the specifics of how the proposed research collaborations are screened, I will turn to Dr. Poliquin—

8:05 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

No, Minister. It is a question of government policy. I want to know your expectation. Do you expect to be consulted, as the Minister of Health, if a high security lab in Canada is considering co-operation with a foreign military?

8:05 p.m.

Liberal

Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON

Indeed, high-security labs co-operate with each other on a regular basis so that they can further their research on the number of study areas they pursue. Perhaps Dr. Poliquin can speak about some of the processes.