Government Operations Committee on May 22nd, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Again, if possible, give a very brief answer, please.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

The short answer is no. In terms of personal protective equipment, unless it's coming from an approved vendor we have worked with before, all items are tested, and Health Canada works very carefully to ensure the safety of all equipment and reviews the approvals of other countries.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for six minutes, please.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Is Dr. Tam in that room?

[A voice]

Yes, she is.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I am going to put some very direct comments to this committee, but before I begin my remarks, I want to make a personal statement to Dr. Tam. The public comments that were made to you that cast negative aspersions on your professionalism and loyalty were racist in both their intent and their impact, and I believe they contributed to xenophobic attacks across the country. For that, I wanted to make sure that I went on the public record today to say how deeply sorry I am that you had to experience all of that.

Now on to the direct questions. I will ask that there also be a direct response.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to the honourable minister, did the Public Health Agency of Canada warn the federal cabinet at any time in the last decade that the national emergency strategic stockpile was not funded or mandated to amass sufficient levels of medical supplies and equipment to respond to a pandemic like COVID-19?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Through the chair, I will say that before the outbreak, I had been the minister for a month and a half, so I was just in the process of learning about all the agencies for which I would then have responsibility.

I will say that the agency has been extremely responsive in terms of indicating its needs to multiple governments. In fact, the agency was actually working on renewing and looking at its—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Honourable Minister, were you a minister prior to becoming the Minister of Health?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Yes, I was.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Were you ever briefed in the federal cabinet at any time in the last decade that the national emergency strategic stockpile was not funded or mandated to amass sufficient levels of medical supplies or equipment to respond to a pandemic like COVID-19?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I can't speak to the five years prior to our government. Under the Harper Conservatives, the agencies experienced significant cuts. However, I can tell you that during the five years we were in government we increased funding to the Public Health Agency of Canada. In 2014-15, the funding was $637 million. We increased that funding by 6% in 2018-19, when the funding was $675.4 million.

I say this because that's the nature of how these conversations happen at cabinet. It is rare that a minister would come forward with a specific request about a specific line item. Rather, they would submit those budget proposals to the finance minister and work directly with the finance minister, unless it was changing a program in its specific nature.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I may refresh your memory, on April 1, 2020, at a news conference, you admitted that the federal government likely did not have enough protective equipment in the national emergency strategic stockpile to meet the needs of this pandemic, by saying, “we likely did not have enough. I think federal governments for decades have been under-funding things like public health preparedness”.

In your view, has the national emergency stockpile been underfunded for decades?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I'll refer to my quote. I believe that public health has been underfunded for decades. I believe we don't spend enough money on prevention, and that would include preparedness. I stand by that statement, but I also understand that the national emergency stockpile was never meant to accumulate personal protective equipment but rather other kinds of treatments for all kinds of biological events.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Unfortunately, I'm still unwilling to accept that as an answer, but I will go on.

Public Health Agency of Canada whistle-blowers recently informed The Globe and Mail that PHAC did not have a target for the levels of personal protective equipment it should maintain in the emergency stockpile. It didn't know the levels of stockpile the provinces and territories had, and it did not advise other levels of government about how much should be stockpiled.

Dr. Tam, as the chief public health officer, were you aware of this situation prior to COVID-19, and if not, why not?

[Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada]

In terms of personal protective equipment, that wasn't the main focus of the stockpile. It was to look at some unique countermeasures like smallpox vaccines, anthrax and other aspects.

In the pandemic preparedness construct, the provinces and territories also have their own stockpiles, and they have their own personal protective equipment, because they use that all the time. It was definitely a small amount; it wasn't a lot. That can potentially help in a very specific situation, but that was not the main focus of NESS. I'm sure we'll learn lessons and people can decide what should be in NESS going forward.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Dr. Tam, when I asked Ms. Thornton to provide this committee with the current state of the NESS, given the news reports of the closure of the Regina warehouse and the discarding of millions of items of critical PPE going into COVID, she responded that she didn't have the critical information available, despite having previously asserted in her testimony before this committee that her department had sound logical systems in place for.... That information gap worries me.

As Canada's chief public health officer, are you aware of how much PPE was discarded in the shutdown of three of our previous 11 emergency stockpile locations?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Unfortunately, Dr. Tam, we're completely out of time. I will ask you, as I have with other witnesses, to provide directly to our clerk a very fulsome answer to Mr. Green's question in writing as soon as possible.

We'll now go to our next round of five-minute interventions, starting with Mr. Aboultaif.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Good morning and welcome, Minister and your team.

Many of the KN95 masks on Canada's recall list were tested by the CDC as early as April 13 and had filtration rates as low as 20%, which is significantly lower than Canada's 95% requirement. Why did we okay these suppliers?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

We became aware of the USFDA's revised guidance on May 7 and acted rapidly to assess that. On May 10, we contacted the medical device establishment licence- holders to indicate that the labelling needed to be changed, and we issued a public advisory on May 11. On May 9, we cancelled the authorization to one company in regard to the KN95 masks.

That's the chronology of our work.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Three of the suppliers were found to be counterfeit by CDC. Can you name those three suppliers?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

I don't have the specific supplier names here. When information comes to us on false [Technical difficulty—Editor] claims or counterfeit materials, our compliance and enforcement officers work on it immediately and take appropriate action, including referral to law enforcement officers.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

If I understand correctly from your answer, basically you don't know the names of these three suppliers and there could be more out there. How are you tracking the counterfeit PPE?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

That's not what I said. I said that as information comes to our knowledge, be it information in Canada or from another country, we act on it immediately in terms of identifying the supplier and issuing the appropriate compliance and enforcement action. If there's non-compliance, it's referred to law enforcement officers.

In terms of specific company names, I will follow up with our compliance and enforcement organization to provide that information if it's in the public domain.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

What is the difference between not approving PPE and recalling it? Can you explain that process, please?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

We authorize medical devices, including personal protective equipment, based on our assessment or in reference to an evaluation of assessments granted by other regulatory authorities in whom we have confidence.

Certainly, in the Government of Canada's procurement, we test the materials to ensure that they meet standards. If information comes to our attention of products for which a medical device establishment licence has been issued, we act on it immediately, as was done in the case following the USFDA's revised guidance provided on May 7.