Government Operations Committee on March 22nd, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Mr. Drouin, just before I let you have the mike, are you comfortable with his definition of the national standard, or do you wish to make an amendment? The amendment would need to be made by you. Otherwise, if Mr. Green is making an amendment, it would need unanimous consent.

Go ahead, Mr. Drouin.

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

We can certainly make a friendly amendment, but I would probably ask the clerk to reread the motion so we're all clear because it was given verbally. I get where Mr. Green is coming from, but he also knows that we have an hour of committee business to deal with, so he chose television over production.

That's your call, Mr. Green, but I wasn't born yesterday. I see this all the time.

I'd just ask the clerk to read the motion, and then we can propose a friendly amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

I will ask the clerk if he would read the motion, please.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Paul Cardegna]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The text of the motion I have 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, in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and what is the national standard for stockpiling PPE across the country nationally, as well as per warehouse.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The clarified amendment, Mr. Chair, was it that “national standard” would be replaced with “supply levels in real quantities per item”?

[The Clerk]

Could you repeat that, please, Mr. Green?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As per Mr. Drouin's intervention, in that friendly amendment, describe it as the “supply levels in real quantities per item”—how much we had and how many we threw out.

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

Just so you know, you certainly have unanimous consent for Mr. Green to present the wording of that on our side. I can't speak on behalf of my other colleagues though.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

I'm seeing around the room that we have unanimous consent for....

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

Mr. Chair, I have just one question. Again, I appreciate my colleague's response to my original question as well. I wanted to ask whether that is just focused on N95s. Is that the motion? I wanted clarity what PPE that entailed.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It entails the PPE that is designated to the national emergency strategic stockpile.

I just gave special attention to the specificity around N95s [Technical difficulty—Editor] that there were millions of other PPE also thrown out and then reacquired, as we've heard today in this testimony. It was for all quantities per item.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. McCauley, do you have a question?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll be quick, gentlemen.

Thank you again, Mr. Green and Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Mr. Green, is it clear to you in the new motion that we are looking for what I believe you're saying is the set standard for the inventory pre-pandemic?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

At this point, I'm satisfied just to get the data, and then, from the data, we can determine later on through testimony if there were standards, because it might be the case there weren't.

We'll determine once we get the data whether or not those standards were met or not, but the most important part of this intervention is to get the data of the supply levels and the disposals.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Did you have a question, Ms. Vignola? No. Okay. Thank you.

I'm going to read the question one more time and then I will ask if we have unanimous consent for this.

Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.

[The Clerk]

My understanding of the amendment is that the term “national standard for stockpiling PPE” be replaced with “supply levels in real quantities per item”.

Have I understood that correctly?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Is that correct, Mr. Green? Yes. Thank you.

Is there any further debate on the amendment? Seeing none, I will ask for consent on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to)

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Green.

Thank you to the witnesses for bearing with us as we move forward.

We will go to Mr. McCauley for five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Evans, we were talking earlier about ventilators. Were any ventilators, whether mechanical ventilators or N95-type ventilators, sent overseas whether sold, given or donated?

[Cindy Evans]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To clarify, are we talking about N95 respirators or ventilators?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Ventilators.

[Cindy Evans]

Thank you for the question.

To my knowledge, none have been distributed overseas.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

When you say to the best of your knowledge, could another department have done it without PHAC being aware, or is that a definitive “no”?

[Cindy Evans]

To my knowledge, the ventilators that we purchased have not been distributed overseas.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Thanks.

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. I should have brought it up earlier. At the beginning of the meeting, on the response from TBS to our March 17 report, traditionally we go to the committee and we ask if we want those made public. Can we bring that up now and have that decision?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I'm sorry. Just for clarification, on the TBS, we asked for that to be made public.