Evidence of meeting #12 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was masks.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
We are the Public Health Agency of Canada, but Health Canada issues the actual medical device licences.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, but we can endeavour to get that to you.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay.
If he endeavours to get that to us, Mr. Chair, I would appreciate if we could get that information back by next week. I don't want it to be an open-ended request.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
The request has been noted, and it'll be up to the Health Canada officials to respond as quickly as possible. We'll certainly encourage them to do so.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay.
Then, you have no other information with regard to the medical device establishment licences, is that correct?
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
We're not the entity that issues them, so the questions are better directed to Health Canada.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay, thank you very much.
In one of the reports by the media, there was an observation that when these masks were tested, they did not meet...the risks outweighed the benefits. I'm wondering if you could answer for me what the acceptable risks are when you determine that while a mask does not meet the standards, there are still benefits. Can you tell us what those acceptable risks are, and are they written down anywhere?
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
The efficiency of KN95 masks has to be 95% or above, period. If it's not, we assess to see if they're used as surgical masks in other settings.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
What are the acceptable risks when you weight the benefits versus the risks?
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
If you're talking about their being used as N95s, 95% efficiency is the threshold. We're not taking a risk. If it's not 95%, they're not being used as N95s.
11:25 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
When you determine that they cannot be used as N95s but that they can be used elsewhere, what are the acceptable risks that you weigh when you determine that they can be used elsewhere?
11:25 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
If we decide to use these masks that failed the efficiency test of 95%, we look at the efficiency that they achieved. They're often achieving efficiencies of 70%, 80% and sometimes 90%, which in many cases is better than a surgical mask.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Do you have a metric that you use when determining an acceptable risk?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
There's no metric at this point.
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Public Health Agency of Canada
There's no written metric at this point.
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Okay, thank you.
Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?
11:30 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
You're completely out of time.
We'll go on to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes, please.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to welcome the officials from both departments. Thank you very much for the great work that you have been doing, given the challenges we are facing.
Let me start with Ms. Thornton and PHAC.
Ms. Thornton, in your opening remarks, you talked about how the agency has evolved, how the NESS has evolved over the past while, and where the focus is. With regard to PHAC's mandate, two of the core mandates stood out to me. One was “prevent and control infectious diseases”, and the other was “prepare for and respond to public health emergencies”.
Can you quickly shed light on how you monitor these infectious diseases that are being spread internationally, as well as domestically?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Health Security Infrastructure Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada
There is a range of monitoring techniques. We have a global public health information network. We also work very closely with our international partners in identifying early signals where something might be going awry, and then ongoing monitoring with a number of partners though the global health security initiative through the WHO.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
I was hoping that you would say that.
Madam Thornton, when did COVID-19 show up on our radar?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Health Security Infrastructure Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada
The very first ping was late December 31, and it wasn't about COVID-19, but about an unusual viral pneumonia in Wuhan.
11:30 a.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
How did your department go about probing it and preparing other organizations such as NESS? You were very clear in restating what you had stated when you were meeting with the health committee back on April 22 when you said that NESS plays two key roles. One is around providing surge of capacity to provinces and territories, and in the other one you specifically mentioned that NESS is the sole provider of certain assets. Then you were kind enough to explain how that asset model has changed. When did you get any assets engaged to start assessing whether the supplies you had were sufficient to meet our need in case a pandemic broke out?
11:30 a.m.
Vice-President, Health Security Infrastructure Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada
Again, on December 31-January 1, we had no idea where it was going to go, but we did know that this is how a pandemic starts, although it could easily not be a pandemic. We frequently get those type of alerts. It was probably the end of January when we started to take a look at our own stockpiles. Within the federal government, the national emergency strategic stockpile, we do not focus on PPE. That wouldn't be a major element because we count on our provinces to maintain their stockpiles within their respective authorities as well. We did some small orders within our budget and mandate starting at the end of January and into February, and in February started our collaboration, our early discussions, with provinces and territories about their stockpiles—again still having no idea of what we might need at that point. Nonetheless, that's when the informal discussions started. The collaborative bulk procurement—and I should have a date, but I think the discussions started in March and I think the first order on behalf of the provinces and territories went out the first or second week of March.