Government Operations Committee on May 22nd, 2020

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Yes, Mrs. Block. As you know, I always advise the witnesses to please provide the answers that they were not able to provide verbally in writing to our clerk at the very earliest opportunity.

Now we'll go to Mr. Drouin, for six minutes, please.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the minister for coming before this committee, as well as the staff who are here with us today. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all the front-line health care workers and to thank the minister's department and its staff, who have been working 24-7 on this particular issue. We are living in unprecedented times.

We're on the subject of personal protective equipment and discussing other medical supplies. Minister, I'm wondering if you could explain to us what the role of your department is. How are you working with the provinces to ensure that we get personal protective equipment to our front-line health care workers?

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

The department is working full steam on procurement in partnership with Procurement Canada and on supporting, as you heard earlier, licensing for new products developed here or new products that are available in markets elsewhere.

The important piece of work that happened early on was developing a framework for how we would allocate personal protective equipment across the country in a timely way and ensuring that we had a distribution mechanism to get PPE to provinces and territories quickly and fairly, one that allowed us, of course, to hold back the 20% so that we could have emergency supplies if there was a surge in any particular jurisdiction. That formula has worked very well.

I have regular meetings with my provincial counterparts each week, and one of the issues we talk about is PPE. As for the requests that have come forward, we have been able to refill almost all of them. There are some new ones, as always happens, but generally speaking, people are satisfied with how the sharing agreement is unfolding.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for that response.

The other issue we're often hearing in the news is about ramping up testing for COVID-19. What role is your department playing in this to, I'm assuming, help provinces ramp up capacity? Is there any new information you could give to this committee?

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

As the member is fully aware, testing is one of the important and integral components to resuming a new normal. At the federal level, we see ourselves as building capacity for all the provinces and territories to test to their fullest need.

We've been actively engaged with provinces and territories to ensure, first of all, that they have testing approaches that work for them and have the equipment, the reagent and the swabs that go along with the particular approach they've chosen. This includes offering human resources where necessary for the contact tracing that goes along with the testing. We continually have conversations with provinces and territories on additional needs that they might have to meet their own particular targets. Each province and territory has its own testing approach and strategy. We work within the framework of the province that is asking for support.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about two and a half minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's great.

Minister, we know that obviously every country is trying to work on a vaccine, and ramping up research capacity is important. What has Canada done in terms of trying to help ramp up research capacity in Canada?

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

As the member knows, in our last mandate, reinvesting in research and science was one of the pillars of our approach to getting Canada ready for all kinds of things we would face in the future. Thankfully, that investment has allowed us to build. We've invested just over $158 million in COVID-19 research through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Dr. Strong is here with us today, and he has had an active role in ensuring that this money gets out quickly.

I want to thank the research community, the academic community, for coming together to do the peer review necessary to ensure that quality research projects were selected to fund. This work began in early March, so I'm very excited to say the research is ongoing. It's a blend of scientific research on the virus itself, on some of the other impacts on Canadians as a result of living through a pandemic, and on behavioural insights that will help us to support Canadians into the future.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

I believe you said Dr. Strong is with you today.

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

He is, yes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Would Dr. Strong be available to describe the collaboration happening within the research community to ensure we get to that vaccine as quickly as possible?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I know it's a tough one to answer briefly, doctor, but I would appreciate a brief answer if you possibly can.

[Dr. Michael Strong, President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research]

I will be very brief.

There is tremendous collaboration, not only across the various agencies within the government itself—NRC, ourselves, Health Canada and PHAC—as we look at each of these vaccines or approaches, but across Canada. A very integrated network of researchers is bringing together the expertise necessary for this, and very strong international linkages as well, so there's a tremendous effort on all fronts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Madame Vignola.

You have six minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question deals with the study that the Public Health Agency of Canada, the PHAC, conducted to optimize the processes of the national emergency strategic stockpile, the NESS.

Were provincial and territorial stakeholders consulted and, if so, what observations did they have?

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

I will turn to my officials to answer the question.

Dr. Namiesniowski.

[Tina Namiesniowski, President, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not certain which study is being referred to, but we've had a couple of examinations of the NESS, so I was wondering if there could be a bit more precision around which study is being referenced.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

According to the “Public Health Agency of Canada 2018-2019 Departmental Results Report”, the PHAC collaborated with various stakeholders in a study to optimize the national emergency strategic stockpile, by modernizing its processes and contents, including in acquiring antiviral drugs and medical countermeasures.

I want to know which provincial and territorial stakeholders took part in that process optimization study and what their observations were.

[Tina Namiesniowski]

Mr. Chair, we'll have to do some analysis and get back to provide the committee with some additional detail further to the question that is being asked.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

On April 24, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement told the committee that the Public Health Agency of Canada was distributing medical equipment produced in or imported to Canada according to a Health Canada formula negotiated with the provinces and territories, which is based on an 80-20 division.

Briefly, could we please have a few more details about that formula?

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

Thank you.

The formula is as you described. As we receive personal protective equipment in a variety of categories, the equipment is distributed based on an eighty-twenty formula and per capita, meaning that provinces get an allotment based on their population and that 20% of the deliveries are held back by the Public Health Agency of Canada so that we have them in case any other particular region in Canada experiences a sudden surge. In that case, we would have the capacity to support that region.

This was agreed upon by all provinces and territories.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

Let me make sure I fully understand. According to the per capita formula, if there are 100 masks for a province or territory, that province or territory will receive 80 masks and the remaining 20 masks will be kept by the federal government in order to respond to emergencies as they may occur.

Is my understanding correct?

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

You did, sort of. If there were 100 masks received, then 80 masks would be distributed across the country to the provinces and territories, depending on their population. If they had a very small population, they might get five masks. If they had a very large population, they might get more. Then 20 of those masks would be stored in the national emergency stockpile, against the potential of an outbreak in another part of the country.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

I want to go back to the interim order of March 18, which speeds up the approval process and relaxes some regulatory requirements.

As a result of that interim order, are there any concerns about the quality or the safety of the medical supplies we have received?

If so, what are they and what caused them?