Good afternoon.
I'd like to thank the chair of the committee and the committee members for inviting the Public Health Agency of Canada to speak today. My name is Cindy Evans, and I'm the vice-president of emergency management. In this role I'm responsible for the national emergency strategic stockpile.
Joining me today is Martin Krumins, vice-president and chief financial officer of the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have impacts across multiple sectors. Access to critical personal protective equipment for frontline health care workers and others in the health care system is a top priority for the Public Health Agency of Canada. Provincial, territorial and local governments are responsible for preparing for the most common emergencies and the federal government has a role to provide additional support during exceptional circumstances.
One way we do this is through the national emergency strategic stockpile or the NESS, which is the federal government's stockpile for emergencies with health implications. The NESS plays two important roles. It provides surge capacity to provinces and territories when their existing resources have been exhausted, and it's the sole provider of certain niche assets for rare public health emergencies, for example, costly and rarely used vaccines or antidotes.
To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada mobilized the NESS to support response efforts. The agency worked with Public Services and Procurement Canada as well as provinces and territories to lead the bulk procurement of personal protective equipment or PPE, medical equipment and supplies for Canada. We rapidly activated to accept, assess and allocate donations that came in from domestic and international donors. We increased our internal capacity and created a dedicated team on the procurement of PPE to identify appropriate types and quantities and to direct procurement.
We also added warehousing capacity and increased the footprint of the NESS by approximately one million square feet of dedicated space.
To address early quality issues with PPE, we also worked with the National Research Council to establish capacity to test products to determine if they met the performance and technical specifications required by the health care sector. Steady supplies of PPE and medical equipment continue to arrive daily and 80% are rapidly allocated to the provinces and territories to support health care workers across the country. The other 20% is retained to replenish the inventory of the NESS so it can provide PPE and medical equipment to provinces and territories with urgent needs above and beyond their allocation.
In addition to the original bulk procurement efforts, Innovation, Science and Economic Development and PSPC continue to galvanize Canadian industries to increase domestic manufacturing capacity and reduce dependencies on external supply chains. This includes retooling facilities to produce equipment and supplies, including portable ventilators, surgical masks and rapid testing kits.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented situation and it continues to challenge the Canadian health care sector at all levels. Demand for PPE, medical equipment and supplies created global supply challenges that required a whole-of-government approach to deliver innovative solutions to meet the needs of our health care sector.
As much as we achieved in responding to COVID-19, there remains work to do. Life-cycle management processes are top of mind, and we utilize a first in, first out protocol so that PPE, medical devices and equipment are put to use well before expiry.
We committed to reviewing the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and look forward to receiving the recommendations from the Office of the Auditor General on their COVID-19-related audits. This information will help to shape the future of emergency management at the Public Health Agency of Canada and to better position the NESS for the future.
Thank you.