Evidence of meeting #14 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vaccines.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Public Health Economics, Western University, As an Individual
There have been lots of suggestions to lead one to conclude in that direction.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Thank you, Mr. Genuis.
Madame Bendayan, go ahead, please, for six minutes.
April 4th, 2022 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Thank you very much, Chair.
My thanks to Ms. Waite and Professor Ali.
Professor Ali, perhaps I'll continue in English, because I would like to pick up on that very last point you made. Obviously, we are in committee and we are on the record, sir, and many countries have acknowledged Canada's leadership in putting together the Ottawa Group. I, along with other colleagues on this committee, was part of the international trade committee's extensive study on the TRIPS waiver discussions, in which many experts weighed in on Canada's role.
If you do not have specific sources that you're willing to share with us, I would ask you to reconsider your comments regarding Canada's role to date. I would also like to point out that the United Kingdom, the EU and Norway have all opposed the TRIPS waiver at the WTO, while Canada has been trying to bring countries together in order to reach agreement. I think you would agree, Professor, that we need the European Union to agree to such a waiver for it to be effective.
Professor, over to you.
12:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Public Health Economics, Western University, As an Individual
I agree. I think the U.S. and the European Union are much bigger players than are some of the other countries. It was good to see that the U.S. last year started actively supporting vaccine waivers, and the European Union certainly has some reservations in this area as well.
While Canada certainly has provided support in different ways, if you look at the documents that have come out, I think you'll say that leadership is something we really need to see from Canada.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
There are many reasons being given by the EU and the U.K. that you have just acknowledged are critical in coming to terms on a waiver at the WTO, including manufacturing capabilities, quality control and the safety of the vaccines.
In that context, and given the fact that these are important players in terms of having manufacturers in their home countries, can you perhaps give us—in a very short response—some of the reasons you are so against using the existing flexibilities in CAMR, not because I think that is necessarily a better route, but given the intransigence of countries that we need in order to reach a waiver? As you pointed out, some of these were used in 2008.
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Canada Research Chair in Public Health Economics, Western University, As an Individual
As I pointed out, the company that used that flexibility in 2008 was extremely frustrated with the process, and the recent experience of Biolyse was not particularly different. Just getting a drug on schedule 1, as I said, takes several months, and the approach of going country to country and drug by drug is not really an efficient mechanism to respond to this crisis.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
I understand, Professor Ali, but now we are blocked in negotiations at the WTO, which I would again insist that Canada is very much trying to unblock.
Dr. Waite, I think I will just turn to you in order to clarify some of the statistics we heard on a previous panel. I think we have very publicly stated on our government website that 14.2 million doses of vaccine have already been donated through COVAX by Canada, but it's actually 100 million doses equivalents that have been donated. Are you familiar with that statistic, Dr. Waite?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
Yes, I am. That's because some of our commitment to the 200 million doses is in dollars committed, which COVAX can then use to purchase vaccines.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
Exactly.
Wouldn't you agree, Dr. Waite, that it is a good thing to provide the flexibility to countries to choose the vaccine that they would like to purchase for their population?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
Yes, and that's exactly why Results Canada has not leaned too heavily on the dose donation advocacy in and of itself, because dollars are the most helpful investment, so that COVAX can have those flexibilities and that purchasing power directly with pharmaceutical companies.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
That's excellent. That's exactly what we are doing as a government.
I would like to point out that this puts Canada approximately in the top ten. Would you agree that we are one of the top ten counties in the world in terms of vaccine donations?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
You mentioned in your introduction, Dr. Waite, that two trillion hours of in-person schooling has been missed by children. I believe you mentioned it was last year. I see you nodding.
Canada is also number one or number two—perhaps you know—in supplying diagnostics like rapid tests to developing countries. Do you feel that is important, given some of the statistics you mentioned in your introduction?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
I couldn't say if we're the top or not. I'm not familiar with that statistic, but I can say that investing equitably across all pillars of the ACT-Accelerator is pretty important. The ACT-Accelerator has vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics pillars, and a health systems-strengthening connector. Canada has invested across all.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Rachel Bendayan Liberal Outremont, QC
The ACT-Accelerator also works in order to raise awareness and fight vaccine hesitancy as well.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
That was very brief.
Thank you very much, Ms. Bendayan.
I will now give the floor to Ms. Normandin for six minutes.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Many thanks to all the witnesses.
We know that since the beginning of the crisis and the minute the vaccines were developed, the pharmaceutical companies' interest was truly a financial one. There was a pharmaceutical lobby. There was a financial interest in distributing the vaccines to countries paying the most, something the COVAX initiative was supposed to temper, in a way, to allow less fortunate countries to get vaccines.
In the meantime, we saw a type of vaccine diplomacy. For example, we saw China ally with Serbia to distribute the Sinopharm vaccines. In exchange, China wanted everyone to kowtow to it. China also intervened a great deal in Africa.
In your opinion, are COVAX and this type of vaccine diplomacy not at odds with each other or does one help the other? Should COVAX not be used to temper this type of vaccine diplomacy, which serves its own interests? On the contrary, does it help COVAX when China unilaterally decides to provide doses to less fortunate countries?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
When COVAX was developed, it had big dreams and big intentions. If we had all played by the COVAX principles from the start, we'd be in a very different position from the one we are in today.
Because high-income countries such as Canada bought in to COVAX but then undermined it at the same time by procuring mass amounts of doses directly from pharmaceutical companies, we ended up with a supply constraint in the end. Ideally, we would have had a globally coordinated response to this pandemic out of the gate. Unfortunately, we're not there.
All hands on deck is pretty welcome right now. If we need to look at COVAX bilateral dose donation or anything we need to do to get to the target of vaccinating 70% of the world, we should do that at this point.
We should definitely learn lessons and try to figure out how to globally coordinate in the future, so we avoid a march of folly on a global scale like this in the future.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
In other words, if COVAX had been better structured from the start, we might have avoided spending so much time on vaccine diplomacy, including by China. Did I understand your answer correctly?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
I'd say it needed to be better supported by G20 countries, not necessarily better structured.
If all countries that were committed to the vision of COVAX had wholeheartedly backed it up by making sure COVAX had priority access to dose donations, then we could be in a different situation from the one we are in today.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
You touched on the structural aspect, but also the aspect of support from G20 countries. What was the biggest thing keeping COVAX from working properly?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Policy and Advocacy, Results Canada
One thing that was missing was dollars and fast investment in COVAX as a mechanism, so that it could then go and purchase vaccine doses quickly. The other thing it was missing was a full commitment to its vision and mission. For example, Canada supported COVAX with investment at the AMC and the self-financing arm of it, but then we also went and procured our own dose donations directly with pharmaceutical companies, which undermined COVAX in and of itself.
