Government Operations Committee on May 15th, 2020

[Bill Matthews]

We would actually have a few more standards, Mr. Chair, in terms of being exactly specific. There are various kinds of N95s, so you'd be quite specific on that.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

So you refer to them on a purchase order as respirators. Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

I don't have the purchase order in front of me, Mr. Chair. Maybe my colleagues could answer, but it's very specific in terms of understanding what the standard is.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I would like some feedback, please, to the committee at some point. An answer to that would be great.

There is some information that $100 million was prepaid to a supplier in China. Are you aware of that?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I think I spoke about this the last time I was here. In general, I'd say that, with the competitive markets, the market did change from being one in which initially you had to make some prepayments to being one in which it went to 50%. Then there were companies that you could not get a contract with unless you were flowing money in advance, so there were a variety of things at play, but that was actually, and still is, the circumstance on the ground for certain types of product in China.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

So the $100 million prepaid is—

[Bill Matthews]

I'm not confirming the dollar amount, Mr. Chair, but I'm saying there were prepayments—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We would appreciate if you could confirm that number also for the committee, please, as soon as possible.

You mentioned that about 30 flights came back. We know that some flights came back empty. To date, how many flights came back empty out of the 30?

[Bill Matthews]

It turns out, Mr. Chair, there were actually no empty flights. We thought there was one that was empty, but it turns out that Air Canada was able to load some other cargo onto it. It was not Canadian government cargo, but it came back with some other cargo on it. That was the only Government of Canada flight that was rumoured to be empty. It turns out that it did indeed have no Government of Canada cargo, but it did have some other cargo on it.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

For that purpose, I would request also the manifests for all these flights, the 30 flights. If you could submit those to us that would be great. Is that possible?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I'll have to get back to you, but in theory we can come up with something that would show the product that was on the flights, I'm sure.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

We would like a copy of the manifests, if that's okay.

[Bill Matthews]

I will do my best, Mr. Chair.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

How many cancellations have you gone through due to not being able to find supplies in China available for pickup? Can you advise us on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Please give us a very, very, very brief answer.

[Bill Matthews]

I can be brief, Mr. Chair.

Early on, we had one or two cancellations due to uncertainty of cargo availability, so we took some precautions. Since then, we've had a cancellation or two because of congestion at the airports, not because of cargo issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. MacKinnon for four minutes, please.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all of the witnesses.

I know first-hand, it must be said, what an incredible effort at organization has been made by the folks at PSPC, and I know, second-hand, by the folks at the Public Health Agency of Canada.

I think that Canadians are and will continue to be well served by those teams and those public servants. That is worth mentioning. I thank you all for your hard work. I know that it is a 24/7 job, so I thank you very much.

Mr. Matthews, let me ask, pursuant to the questions of Mr. McCauley and just to clean something up really quickly, are we still actively searching for sources of the N95 supply?

[Bill Matthews]

We are absolutely searching for a N95 supply, Mr. Chair.

My colleagues from PHAC can share on this that it's probably the most important piece of equipment of PPE we can purchase, so it is an active engagement.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Does anyone from PHAC want to comment on that? If not, I'll move on.

Let me segue from that because Mr. McCauley was also interested in domestic sources. I think one of the emerging success stories in the absolutely sombre nature of this pandemic has been the efforts to stand up a domestic supply of PPE and other innovations.

Mr. Matthews, I want to ask you about working with departments like ISED and with the Public Health Agency. We've been able to secure LOIs and, in some cases, contracts with many domestic suppliers.

Can you tell me about how that process works? How would we go about identifying potential domestic suppliers of PPE, for example, and what are the procurement steps that would ultimately be involved in getting material?

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly, Mr. Chair.

The question did highlight that we are indeed working with colleagues at ISED to identify potential domestic capacity. That could be either a new stand-up facility, or retooling of an existing factory to manufacture something different. ISED beats the bushes to basically identify potential companies that are interested and capable of delivering to the Government of Canada.

To date we have issued about 44 or 45 LOIs with ISED, and they have turned into 24 contracts. In some cases you can issue an LOI and that's as far as it goes, but you enter into discussions with the intent of hopefully reaching a contract. There are still about seven in active discussions of those 44 LOIs.

First up, you would have seen domestic supplies start in hand sanitizers. There are some great success stories there. Face shields followed very quickly after that. What's coming next are gowns, and they've started to arrive. Ventilators and masks will be next up, with some swabs as well. It's been evolving, and certainly there are early successes, as I mentioned, on face shields and hand sanitizers, and on the gowns that are now starting to arrive as well.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

We made it clear to our government that we must not be caught off guard by another crisis and that we need to be able to get supplies in Canada—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I can't hear over the interpretation.

If he could switch it, thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I've got to stop this and I'm not docking you any time, Mr. MacKinnon.

What I mentioned in my opening remarks, and you may not have been on the line at that time, is that if you start a question in one official language, try to complete the entire question without switching back and forth. It makes our technical capabilities much more efficient.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Old habits die hard, Mr. Chair. I ask you to please excuse me and bear with me.

Our government clearly understood the need to be able to get supplies in Canada during a pandemic and even under normal circumstances. It acted promptly in that regard. Mr. Matthews talked about many opportunities, but it is important to—