Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2021

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Ms. Evans and Mr. Dorion and all the witnesses for your testimony here today.

I offer a big thank you to all the staff at PSPC and PHAC for your heroic efforts during the pandemic to keep Canadians safe under incredibly difficult and historic situations.

Ms. Evans, the federal government has been a partner with the provinces and territories since the beginning of COVID. We've heard about the extensive funding that the federal government has provided directly to the provinces and territories. Of note, the fall economic statement allocates about $7.6 billion to rapidly procure more than two billion pieces of personal protective equipment, and an additional $1.5 billion to provide warehousing and logistic support to rapidly deliver critical PPE and medical supplies to provinces, territories and indigenous communities, as well as maintaining the readiness of the NESS.

Can you tell us more about how this funding will be used when Bill C-14 is passed?

[Cindy Evans]

I'm going to turn to my colleague, Martin Krumins to initiate the answer to that question.

Thank you.

[Martin Krumins, Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Certainly.

Through the estimates this year, the national emergency stockpile has received a significant influx in funding. The total this year has been $7.4 billion. As you will note, to date the department has spent approximately $3.9 billion of this funding for a variety of commodities, including personal protective equipment, testing, supplies, warehousing, logistics and other services as well as supplies to support the vaccine deployment.

As this funding will continue, so will the response for next year. Funds will be reserved in the next fiscal year as well to continue the use and purchase of these commodities.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

In your previous response, Ms. Evans, I believe you touched on the auxiliary supplies that will be provided as the vaccination efforts are ramping up right now.

As we ramp up those vaccinations and vaccine clinics across the country, can you tell us a little about what role PPE and the NESS will play in that process?

Are we ready for that demand, whether it's syringes or disposable gowns or just supporting the efforts on the ground? I would like to get a better understanding of that, please.

[Cindy Evans]

The vaccine rollout and the specifics of that work are outside my purview. What I can say is that, on personal protective equipment, we continue to work closely in collaboration with the provinces and territories.

Supplies that would be needed for vaccinations such as gloves, gowns and other pieces of PPE would form part of the demand and the burn rate [Technical difficulty—Editor] rollout, we have provided supplies in rollout like adhesive bandages, alcohol swabs, safety needles, sharps containers, syringes, fridges and freezers.

Certainly there are ongoing dialogue and discussions with the provinces in terms of their individual vaccine rollout plans within their jurisdictions. Certainly if the committee would like additional information on those plans, other officials could come to the table to share that information.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Does that stockpile include the so-called dead space syringes as well? Is that something we are going to be leaned upon to deliver to provincial and local partners, who are responsible for the rollout? They might come knocking on our door.

[Cindy Evans]

The Public Health Agency of Canada, with our partners at PSPC, have been procuring low dead-volume syringes as part of the Government of Canada's vaccine rollout plan. As of March 18, we have procured over 115 million of those low dead-volume syringes, and those have been actively distributed to provinces and territories as they have been received.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That is absolutely fantastic news. Thank you very much again for being on the ball here.

I have one last question. I know I am running out of time, but can you tell us a little bit about what lessons or what insights we have learned right now throughout this pandemic? Are there one or two key insights or lessons we have learned from this experience? That's in terms of the NESS itself.

[Cindy Evans]

In terms of the NESS, I would say two things. Certainly the efforts that have been made to galvanize the Canadian industry and allow us to pull from domestic supply have been quite critical in our response and something that we'll be looking at in terms of how we sustain those efforts going forward to bring some domestic self-sufficiency to Canada.

Second I would say that the data sharing with the provinces and territories and, quite frankly, the robustness of their systems to be able to look at their own stocks, burn rates, life-cycle management and the manner in which distribution occurs for the scope of their health care sectors has been quite critical in making sure that we're getting supplies through the provinces and territories to critical frontline health care workers.

I would say in summary that it's domestic self-sufficiency of supply and active and collaborative data sharing with the provinces and territories of their PPE situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Evans and Mr. Kusmierczyk.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for two and a half minutes.

Ms. Vignola, are you...?

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

Good afternoon.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Once you start asking the question, I'll start your clock.

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

Thank you very much.

On May 15, 2020, a representative of the Public Health Agency of Canada stated that the national emergency strategic stockpile, the NESS, had an operating budget of $3 million per year and 18 full-time employees. Ten or so years ago, the budget was almost double and there were 27 employees.

What has been the impact of those budget cuts on the performance, the actions and the response of the NESS?

[Cindy Evans]

I'd like to turn to my colleague Martin Krumins to speak to the specifics of the budget for the national emergency strategic stockpile.

[Martin Krumins]

What I can say is that, as you noted, the budget for operating the NESS was significantly less than it is this year, so annual-based funding for the NESS operations has ranged between $3 million to $5 million.

In the most recent year, that operating budget has grown significantly to almost double and is now sitting at approximately $6 million for operations and FTEs. In the past I can say that specific investments for the purchases of equipment have been time limited or through internal reallocation, and some of that time-limited funding was, for example, a four-year investment for medical countermeasures against smallpox and anthrax that was made in 2015-16.

With the onset of the pandemic, those time-limited investments have grown significantly and are close to $7.4 billion. The operating budget of the NESS has grown and is there.

In terms of the operations and how effective they are, I believe my colleague Cindy Evans would be able to speak to the effectiveness of that.

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

Thank you, Mr. Krumins, but my question was this: what has been the impact of the cuts you have experienced in the last 10 years?

I am pleased to learn that the budget has increased and that you now have more employees. However, what was the impact of the budget cuts on the NESS and on how the NESS organized its planning in terms of responding to the pandemic?

[Cindy Evans]

Emergency management in Canada and the model for the national emergency strategic stockpile are built on the assumption that provinces, territories and local governments are prepared to handle the most common emergencies, so it was designed to provide health emergency assets when local, provincial and territorial resources were exhausted and to be the sole provider of certain niche assets.

It had not had a focus primarily on PPE historically in the past, but despite that, we worked quickly with the provinces and territories to deploy a multipronged approach, including our bulk procurement, to quickly bolster in Canada the supplies of the PPE and other medical equipment, in addition to galvanizing Canadian industry to help us gain additional sources of supply.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Evans and Ms. Vignola.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

To reframe the question, what is the service standard per warehouse for the stockpile of N95 masks?

[Cindy Evans]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure I understand the question.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

How many N95 masks are, by standard, stockpiled per warehouse?

[Cindy Evans]

I'm unable to provide a specific number of N95 masks. What I can tell you is that in terms of what we've procured overall—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry. That's not what I'm looking for. We have warehouses across the country. I would assume those responsible for the warehouses would know how much each warehouse is supposed to have on hand at any given time.

If we don't have that information, Mr. Chair, I'm going to go ahead and move a motion that Ms. Evans and her department report back to this committee on the number of N95 masks and critical PPE that were disposed of in 2018 and 2019—and we'll put 2020 in there—and what the standard is for the stockpiling of N95 masks across the country, as well as segregated by warehouse.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green, for that motion.

We have a motion on the floor.

Mr. Green, do you have that in writing or can you...?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No. It's an at-hand motion.

Mr. Chair, I've been unable to ascertain the answers to the questions I've been looking for.