Foreign Affairs Committee on April 4th, 2022

[Dr. Robyn Waite]

Yes. Results Canada has engaged Minister Ng's office, both directly and working in coalition with allied civil society organizations that want to see Canada step up and explicitly support the TRIPS waiver proposal.

I can say that most of what we're hearing or feeling is that there's a commitment to the process but no real, clear indication of whether there's a commitment to support the actual proposals from India or South Africa. It's a commitment to process negotiation, and that's pretty much the end of the conversation.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Just to sharpen that point a bit, at the end of the day you feel that you don't really know what the government's position is. It hasn't been clear about what its position is with respect to the waiver one way or the other.

[Dr. Robyn Waite]

Yes. I would say that's accurate. If not much discussion is happening, it's hard to understand.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

If there's time left, you could also clarify why the transfer of money is preferable, as opposed to the transfer of vaccines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Give a super quick answer, please.

[Dr. Robyn Waite]

It's about COVAX being able to use the resources how they most need to use them. It's also about removing as much friction as possible from the process of getting vaccines into other countries.

When you start doing three-way negotiations between the Government of Canada, COVAX and a pharmaceutical company, for example, there's a whole set of logistics behind that, which is way more cumbersome than if we were investing dollars directly in COVAX.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Genuis.

Mr. Ehsassi, you have three minutes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our two witnesses today.

I will start with Professor Ali.

In your remarks you indicated that approximately 70% of vaccines distributed so far have been to advanced economies or wealthy countries.

Given that there is such a shortfall, if things do not change—given that we're concerned about the scale of this challenge and that it's incumbent upon members of this committee to understand the dimensions of this—how long would it take before we could see sufficient production by the big pharmaceutical companies to cover all countries?

[Dr. Shehzad Ali]

A number of companies have recently made announcements that they will be developing new plants based in Africa. This whole process may take a year or longer, but I think we really have an opportunity here, with the technology help that has been established by the WHO. They have the expertise.

There is significant demand. There are local producers who are willing to make the vaccine, and they have produced initial doses. They obviously now need to go through clinical trials, because they have used the sequence that was made available by Moderna—or the same formula that Moderna is using was available—but without help from the industry.

I think that if we want to make an impact in the short run in addition to COVAX, a significant major step will be to engage the pharmaceutical industry and get it to help this hub, because the technology transfer in the short term is the real solution. I think that is the process that will speed things up a lot.

We need about 10 billion doses in low-income countries. From what I understand, COVAX has committed to about a billion doses. There is a massive gap, and to meet that gap by the end of this year—70% coverage in low-income countries— seems like an impossible task given the current mechanisms that we have.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

To date, have any of these big vaccine companies contributed at all to the hub? Has there been any assistance?

[Dr. Shehzad Ali]

I'm not privy to that information, sir. I don't know if Dr. Waite has anything to add here.

[Dr. Robyn Waite]

That's a great question. Can I circle back? We have the information, but unfortunately I don't have it in my spread of notes. If I can circle back with that information, I'd love to, because our allies have done some analysis as to which pharmaceutical companies are good players in COVAX and which ones aren't such great players.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you ever so much, Dr. Waite.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Mr. Ehsassi.

Ms. Normandin, you have 90 seconds.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

We know that a hundred or so countries will not meet the target of 70% vaccination coverage that we hoped to achieve by July 2022. We often hear people say that instead of providing a fourth dose here, we should be giving these doses to countries that have not met this vaccination target.

I would like to know whether the issue we should be focusing on is simply the vaccine supply aspect or if there is also a more complex problem of distribution and the administration of the vaccine. Is it a combination of the two? Is the supply dynamic changing a bit, in other words is it no longer just about providing vaccine doses, but also about a need for capacity on the ground to administer them?

[Dr. Robyn Waite]

I can take that.

Absolutely, it's not just about supply: We need vaccines to be turned into vaccinations. That requires strong, resilient health systems and people who are equipped and ready to administer those vaccinations. Last year, I guess, at the beginning of the pandemic, supply was the big, critical issue in getting the world vaccinated.

Now, it's more about the delivery of those doses. We have a lot of doses: How do we get them into arms as fast as is absolutely possible? That really comes down to strengthening health systems and investing in people.

We've seen that community-led responses are absolutely critical to getting things out the door quickly and to building trust with communities. I would recommend an investment in the frontline health heroes who are doing this critical work for us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Your time is almost up, Ms. Normandin. Do you have another very brief question?

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I do not have enough time to ask another question, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We have Ms. McPherson, please, for one and a half minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to our witnesses.

I was going to ask my last question of Dr. Ali, if I could, on CAMR.

You spoke about how CAMR is not a process that is working right now, and I don't think it should be to the exclusion of other tools, but I would hope that you would agree this is still a tool that we should be using.

Further to that, right now, knowing where we are, knowing how long it has taken us to get to this point and knowing the pandemic is not done around the world, what are the top three things you would like to see the Canadian government do immediately to address vaccine equity?

[Dr. Shehzad Ali]

In my view of the top three things, the first is to support the TRIPS waiver and to take a very active role in that. Currently, I think we're waiting to see what the draft will look like. I think taking an active leadership role would be desirable.

The second thing is supporting the WHO hub, which requires significant resources and technical expertise.

The third one is to look again at CAMR and see how we can make that process efficient.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, that was my question, and I'm sufficiently informed, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. McPherson.

Mr. Morantz is next, please, for three minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This question is for Dr. Ali, initially.

I don't know if you had a chance to listen in on the first hour of our meeting, but I'm particularly interested in the matter of a grant from the Government of Canada to the Medicago vaccine manufacturer, and Ms. Waite, either of you are welcome to weigh in on this in the short time we have.

This grant was given to make sure Canada had domestic production capacity but also to ensure that we could meet our COVAX obligations. In the last meeting, I asked public officials about this, and they said that the fact that the WHO had disallowed the Covifenz vaccine for international emergency use would not affect the Government of Canada's contribution to COVAX.

Subsequent to that, media reports said that the minister had confirmed that in fact it would affect our contribution to COVAX.

I see this as a failure of due diligence on the part of the Government of Canada to ensure that when it is providing a grant to a company that is partially owned by a tobacco company—in this case, Philip Morris—it does its due diligence to ensure that the product is available for emergency use outside our borders. I'm wondering if you could comment on that situation.

[Dr. Shehzad Ali]

I can't comment on the specifics and what process was followed, but I think we are in a crisis situation due to the pandemic globally.

I understand the stance that WHO has taken, given Philip Morris's 21% stake in the company, but I was asking myself, if this had been the first vaccine coming out in 2020-21, what would our position have been then?

I, for one, am someone who has been actively working in the space of smoking and tobacco, and I would not support anything that is tobacco industry-funded. However, WHO has in the past, in 2014, approved treatments for Ebola that had tobacco ties.

I don't know how things will go in this particular case, but I think we need to look at things through a different lens from the one we would use in non-pandemic situations.