COVID-19 Pandemic Committee on April 28th, 2020

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Chair, my first question, through you, is for the Minister of Finance.

There are many businesses in northern Saskatchewan that operate as limited partnerships. Des Nedhe Development, Meadow Lake Tribal Council Industrial Investments, and Athabasca Basin Development are just three examples. There are many more indigenous businesses structured the same way across Canada. Unfortunately, these businesses have been left out of the Canadian emergency wage subsidy program.

Can the minister confirm that he will change eligibility so that first nations limited partnerships are included?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The honourable minister.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to acknowledge the question from the member.

We recognize there are some indigenous businesses that are looking to be included in the wage subsidy and that their structure has prevented them from being included thus far. I'd like to confirm that we are looking at this.

The goal around this wage subsidy is to make sure that as many businesses as possible that meet the criteria are included. We recognize there are some legitimate businesses that have experienced the decline in revenue that are not included, so that's continuing work.

The good news is that we've now seen applications for the Canada emergency wage subsidy in the 40,000 range. It's a very significant take-up. As we expected, it is going to be an important program for businesses to help them get through this time.

I will definitely be following up on that question to make sure the appropriate applicability is there for indigenous-owned businesses.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you.

We'll go back to Mr. Vidal.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Chair, these businesses provide essential funding for services and employment on and off reserves across Canada. I, along with many indigenous business leaders, have been advocating for a month now on this. I just hope this comes soon. I hope this is something that is taken very seriously.

My next question is for the Minister of Indigenous Services.

Currently in northern Saskatchewan, the communities of La Loche, Clearwater River Dene Nation and English River First Nation are experiencing a bad outbreak of COVID-19. These outbreaks in northern and remote places require unique responses due to the lack of health resources and the geographical challenge.

Mr. Chair, through you to Minister Miller, I ask what action ISC has taken to address this particular outbreak in northern Saskatchewan. Does that action include providing these communities with additional health personnel?

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'm going to ask the honourable minister to go ahead.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the member for his questions.

First and foremost, our hearts go out to the family of Elder Sylvester—

[An hon. member]

Point of order, Mr. Chair. I can't hear the response.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We have a point of order on the response.

I'll just ask Minister Miller to—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I don't know if anyone else is having this problem, but I'm having trouble hearing you.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Okay, I'm not sure why that would be, but let me just flip over to the English channel and see if that works. Please stand by.

I don't know if that's any better, but we'll have to go back to Minister Miller for his response. We'll try that again. I couldn't see whether he's wearing a headset, but if he's responding in English, I would ask him to just make sure he's on the English channel.

Go ahead, Minister Miller.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can confirm that I've moved over from interpretation to the English feed. I hope that's better for people listening.

First and foremost, on behalf of the Government of Canada, our hearts go out to the close family and relatives of Elder Sylvester, who passed away in the long-term care home. This is something, obviously, that is devastating our nation. I would like members to know that we are working with the Government of Saskatchewan, and in the case of Indigenous Services Canada, we are ensuring first and foremost that the members of Clearwater River Dene Nation have the resources, not only in personal protective equipment, but in surge capacity for one of these outbreaks.

In the case of the Government of Canada, we are engaging with the community, Clearwater River Dene Nation, to ensure that they have the equipment necessary to deal with and stamp out any outbreak of COVID-19. Again, working in tight communication with the Government of Saskatchewan, we are ensuring that La Loche and nearby indigenous communities do have the resources they need.

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We have time for one short question, perhaps 30 seconds.

We'll go to Mr. Vidal for a wrap-up question.

Go ahead.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Chair, my question is for Minister Miller again.

Minister, you and your government talk about using science, but data on the rates of infection among indigenous Canadians remains very unreliable. In order to ensure that indigenous people are adequately supported, and that those supports are scaled correctly, what specific steps is the government taking in order to gather accurate data and make informed decisions?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Mr. Chair, this is an exceedingly important question. The data that Indigenous Services carries and has directly deals principally with indigenous peoples on reserve and the data that is given to us through the territories as they administer the testing. This is a question that goes across the government in terms of coordinating our response, whether it's with the territories or the provinces, to ensure that those testing, as they identify people, are able to identify what background these people have.

Currently, given the urgency of this situation, that ethnocultural testing has not been done. As a government, we're looking forward to moving forward and getting disaggregated data to ensure that we do have a specific response for indigenous peoples or for people who are, for that matter, more vulnerable to COVID-19, and we—

[The Acting Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Unfortunately, we're out of time now. We'll continue on.

We'll go back to the chair, Mr. Rota.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Thank you, Mr. Acting Chair. Well done.

We'll move on to the honourable member for Calgary Nose Hill, Ms. Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, my questions are directed to the Minister of Industry. What are the specific quantities of critical PPE—masks, gowns, face shields, gloves and hand sanitizer—that Canadian industry is currently producing on a daily basis?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Mr. Chair, can you hear me now? Wonderful.

As I highlighted before, with regard to face shields, we are seeing Canadian companies produce them in the millions. With regard to masks, we've engaged Medicom, which will produce millions of masks, both N95 and surgical masks—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

How many today, Mr. Chair? How many are being produced today by Canadian companies?

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We'll let the minister finish and then we'll come back to the second question.

Minister Bains.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Mr. Chair, as I was saying, with regard to ventilators, over 30,000 have been built by companies like CAE, StarFish, and Ventilators for Canadians. For gowns, more than 18 million were purchased through seven significant contracts, by Canada Goose, Calko Group, Stanfield's, and Mustang Survival. For hand sanitizers, domestic capacity is now at 15 million litres per month, which is the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools. All are produced in Canadian—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair, on Friday the minister of industry was unwilling to answer a question put to him by a CBC reporter on the number of imported masks from China that were actually defective. Instead, he talked about strong domestic capacity. I'm interested in his quantifying what exactly that means, because the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, my colleague Brad Redekopp and others have stated that domestic PPE supply will be needed in order for workers to be protected and the economy to safely reopen.

How much is Canadian industry producing right now? I notice that the minister didn't talk about masks. I'm just wondering what that delta is between importation and domestic supply, and whether Canadian businesses are going to have to be reliant on potentially defective masks from China to reopen their businesses.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Mr. Chair, again, I would like to thank the member for her very thoughtful question.

We are trying to complement our efforts by continuing to purchase at a significant level but also mobilizing domestic industry. We had a call to action, and as I indicated before, 6,000 Canadian companies have stepped up. Each and every single day we are seeing more and more Canadian capacity build up in a range of areas, from gowns to masks, hand sanitizers and ventilators, all the essential personal protective equipment that Canadian front-line health care workers need in the short term.

As the member raised, with regard to reopening the economy and for broader use, we want to make sure that we have strong domestic capacity as well. It's great to see these made-in-Canada solutions—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Chair—