Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Certainly. Can you repeat it again so the clerk has everything down properly, please?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes. The motion is that the department responsible for the national emergency strategic stockpile report back to this committee on the disposal of all PPE, including N95 masks, for the calendar years of 2018, 2019 and 2020, and what is the national standard for stockpiling these items nationally, as well as per warehouse.

Could I speak to that motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Just hold on for a second, Mr. Green. I want to make sure the clerk has that down in case we're asked to repeat it.

All right, Mr. Green. Would you like to speak to the motion, please?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It's clear that there was a [Technical difficulty—Editor] stockpile. To follow their own reports that go as far back as 2012, they knew that they were going to have issues with respect to the expiry and the maintenance of the standards for our stockpiles. This is something that has been reported on time and time again. In 2012, they knew that the assets stored within the NESS were no longer in good quality due to long-term storage, yet this government still failed to address the system management failures, resulting in the shuttering and disposal of millions of critical PPE on the eve of a global pandemic.

I still have not heard a rationalization for how this abject failure was acted on. This is something that has been known for almost a decade. I asked Ms. Thornton. I moved a motion hoping to get this information. I'm finding that, in all the materials that have been given to us, this information has either been redacted or not submitted.

There must be a national standard on how many N95 masks the national emergency strategic stockpile was supposed to have. We heard today that two million were thrown away in one location. We knew, and I have been on this now for the better part of a year, that two other locations were also shuttered. It is left to me to believe that those responsible, in the past it would have been Ms. Thornton and we have Ms. Evans here today.... Again, it's not personal. They're just staffers on this file. If there were two million thrown out in Regina, there could have been two million thrown out at each of the other locations.

We started off this pandemic woefully behind the rest of the world as it related to having access to these. I have documents in which they're just unwilling to share what the stock levels looked like. I've asked questions in multiple different ways and iterations, trying to get to the information on who's accountable for the disposal of critical PPE.

This is all without it being said that, on the procurement side, even when we tried to catch up—you recall from the work of this committee—11 million masks were procured and nine million of them were deemed to be unfit for use and not to the standards of the N95.

It's my position that there was an abject failure. I think this is a scandal, quite frankly. I've been saying this now for the better part of a year. There are now internal documents that support that the requests from the provinces—this is March 18, 2020—far exceeded our stockpile, yet nobody within government wants to take responsibility.

Therefore, I'm moving this motion. I want to make sure that this committee is clear about what transpired in the shuttering of the national emergency strategic stockpile. How many were thrown out, and were they replenished? How was Canada situated on the eve of a global pandemic—which we knew to be coming going back 10 years now, this pandemic coming after SARS—to be in a position to address it?

Those are my comments, and I think you can hear my frustration. I just want to reiterate that it's not directed at any individual person. It's just that I've been after this now for the better part of a year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

I have Mr. McCauley, and then I have Mr. Drouin.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Green, I think you bring up a lot of excellent points. I think we certainly do support this, especially when you consider that in September 2019, just three months, if not less, before what Ms. Evans said was the warning given on December 31 to Dr. Tam and others about this problem coming out of China, PHAC was bragging about how well prepared they were, yet we know different.

Just to clarify, Mr. Green, when you talk about the standard in your motion, you're referring to set inventory numbers for N95 and other items.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's correct, the real numbers.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I just want to make that clear so that people are not working around that.

Thanks very much, Mr. Green.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

We'll now go to Mr. Drouin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to correct a few points that my friend, Mr. Green, has mentioned. Obviously, everybody was trying to procure PPE in the midst of this pandemic. I remind him that there's a reason why Mr. Trump tried to block some exports to Canada at the time for N95 masks. It wasn't just that Canada had an issue of procuring PPE when the whole world was trying.

He's asking for information with regard to the national standard, so would he be willing to change the wording of the national standard? I, too, get confused by what he means by that. If I'm getting confused, and we're going to be perhaps adopting a motion and sending it to the department, I'd hate to see the department reporting back and giving us the national standard wording.

Can he clarify that in his motion, just so everyone understands around this table what he wants?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I think this—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, I'm going to ask you to hold on that. We'll get you to respond once we get to the end, if that's okay with you. There might be other questions.

Mr. Kusmierczyk.

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

I'm sorry, but wasn't Mr. MacKinnon before me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. MacKinnon doesn't have his hand up.

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

My apologies.

I guess I'm trying to get some clarification of the reasoning behind the motion. You're looking at the fact that literally $7.4 billion of PPE was procured. That's PPE and medical equipment. For nitrile and vinyl glove pairs alone you're looking at 781 million, and 60 million face shields were received. I'm seeing 130 million medical gowns. This is as of February 26, 2021. If you're looking at N95 and KN95 respirators, 115 million were received, along with 10 million cloth masks, 63 million face coverings and 25,000 medical ventilators.

I guess I'm trying to understand this. It seems the supplies that were procured over this time have met the demand that was generated locally. It's up to the provinces and the local health units to indicate that they require additional assistance. PSPC and PHAC knocked it out of the park, providing, again, tens and hundreds of millions of pieces of PPE to help supply and fill the breach. Even earlier in testimony today, we heard one of our colleagues at the committee say that we've ordered so much of this stuff that we should consider potentially nullifying some of the orders because we have too much of it.

I'm looking at this situation and I see PSPC and PHAC really accelerating purchases and really stepping up to the plate in such a difficult situation, knowing that there is such tremendous demand globally in such a competitive situation. Again, they are hitting the ball out of the park in making sure that we procure an enormous amount of PPE to make sure that we have double, triple and quadruple the coverage of what is required.

I'm trying to understand this. I'm always open to discussion. It's the way that I approach committee and approach the work here. However, I'm trying to understand exactly what my colleague Mr. Green is trying to get at with this motion and what the purpose of the motion is. Again, I'm looking at this information and PHAC and PSPC, as I said, really ramped up the procurement process. They got to work quickly and created a PPE stockpile that I would say other countries probably wish they had.

Even looking forward right now, PSPC and PHAC are—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Go ahead, Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

To the Liberals, are you planning on filibustering this and blocking it from the public? Are you going to get to the end of your question? This is vital information for the Canadian public. Just let us know if the Liberals are planning on filibustering this so that we can move on.

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

Not at all. I'm actually really curious to get the answer here. I'm just trying to provide the context in terms of some of the questions I have.

Again, from the picture we received from the testimony here, which was excellent testimony, I have to say, we were actually quite nimble. We responded very quickly to the pandemic. We provided more than enough PPE for local and provincial partners to protect us during this pandemic. We responded very quickly in securing all of these countless pieces of personal equipment—and not only for the current crisis or the current demand. Looking forward, for example, the provinces and the local health units may possibly need support in order to roll out.... As we accelerate vaccinations and as more and more clinics are up and running, we'll need additional supports that way. PSPC and PHAC were looking not only at the challenge right in front of them but also very much forward to the future challenges that would come out of the vaccination efforts.

Again, I'm just trying to understand this, because that's the picture I heard from the testimony from Ms. Evans and Mr. Dorion. I want to put the ball back into my colleagues' court, because I want to understand exactly what we're looking for with this motion that's being put forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

I see no other hands up, so I will ask Mr. Green if he would respond to any of the comments and questions that were directed....

Hang on a second. I do see Mr. Drouin's hand up.

Mr. Green, I will ask you to hold on until we hear from Mr. Drouin.

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

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I just want Mr. Green to answer some of the questions. I don't want to talk about this all day, so I'll let him answer.

I'm just curious about the amendment, if he's going to be making that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I appreciate the intervention from my friend seeking that clarity, because it would be very disappointing to receive information back that didn't meet the spirit of the motion.

I'll speak in plain terms. I would just like to get the stockpile supply levels and quantities, in real quantities, per item throughout all of our national emergency strategic warehouses. I would also like to get the levels in quantity that were disposed of in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Is that helpful?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Drouin, is the—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I called it a national standard, Mr. Chair.

I called it a national standard because, having read the national emergency documents, I understood that there were recommendations that came out of SARS. I would imagine that in a program as important as this, there would be standards for what the levels and quantities of supply should look like. Perhaps “national standards” is an inaccurate thing for me to say, given the flexibility of this particular program. Maybe that will be a recommendation and an outcome from this motion.

To be very clear, Mr. Chair, there were recommendations on this that go back 10 years. Post-SARS, we saw fit to have national emergency strategic stockpile warehouses across the country. Somebody, somewhere along the line, made the decision to close them down—to close three of them down.

I'll reiterate. We knew that two million were thrown out in Regina. I'm seeking to find out how many more of these units were thrown out and whether or not they were ever replenished.

If I can answer the second point in terms of context and this language of knocking it “out of the park”, 20,000 Canadians are dead. You want to talk about procurement that took months to get online, to where we actually had real domestic products here, shipped, on the ground, that were qualified for distribution. Of the first 11 million N95 masks to hit the ground, the soil here in Canada, nine million were deemed unfit for use as N95 masks. We throw away millions, we bring in millions and all the while Canadians are contracting COVID.

As for the mental gymnastics of the contortionist, Mr. Chair, of patting ourselves on the back on this file when we failed to live up to the recommendations of our own reports that go back a decade, it's just simply something that I can't fathom. We know that their budget got slashed almost in half. Their staffing got slashed. This government is again failing to meet their own recommendations, and I would like to get to the heart of the matter, which is how we started off this pandemic.

We now know that masks are critical. We know, through some of the things that I was able to obtain, that provinces, right off the hop.... From the moment we started, we were behind. We responded to China and other places and sent this abroad, but then, as soon as Newfoundland, B.C. and medevac in the north were seeking N95 masks, staff said that it far exceeded their current stockpile.... I would wager that if we had had a system in place with the kind of management logistics that would have replenished the two million in Regina, that if we had kept those warehouses, we could have filled those requests right off the bat.

We're in our third wave right now, so on hitting it out of the park, which park are you in? We're modelling scenarios that are worse than anything we've ever seen before. We now know it to be true that this is airborne. N95 masks are going to be critical. The fact that we want to spend this committee patting ourselves on the back a year into this game negates the accountability this government has on the failure of having adequate supplies in the NESS to begin with.

I would love to be proven wrong. I would love for these documents to come back and say, “We threw out six million and we got six million, so it was a net-zero loss—no big deal—and we are ready to go.” However, that's just simply not the case. There have been cuts to this program. They were cutting their own corners. They're not listening to their own recommendations. Dr. Tam was on the record 10 years ago in talking about post-SARS and what we needed to do. They knew, yet they failed to act on the national emergency strategic stockpile.

When you ask me what I'm getting at.... We shouldn't be in this third wave. That's what I'm getting at. We should have a program where we have domestic supplies taken care of. I would love to see it nationalized. I happen to think that the government should be producing critical PPE and vaccines, quite frankly, yet here we are, scrambling to this very day.

Again, it was Ms. Thornton before. It's Ms. Evans today. It's not about the individual people. It's not even about Mr. Kusmierczyk. I'm fired up because it has been a year in the making for me to get these documents. They filibustered the last time. You'll recall that I passed the motion, Parliament got prorogued and I brought it back. I got superheated. In fact, I even had suggestions from members on the other side that I needed to chill out on this.

I'm not chilling out on this, because 20,000 people have died. That's where we are. I want to find out if this national emergency strategic stockpile is under a better management system where it can deal with its own logistics in a way that doesn't result in millions of critical PPE being thrown into dumpsters on the eve of a global pandemic. It's quite simple.

I hope that the clarification on the amendment in terms of the numbers and getting clear about what those supply levels were.... I predict we're going to see a drastic decline without a replenishment, and I predict we're going to see that we came into this pandemic vastly unprepared despite our own recommendations. That's what I'm predicting, and I would love to be proven wrong.