Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2021

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Chair, the reason I wanted a moment is because the honourable member is presenting a number of hypotheticals to me as though I would have the answers to hypothetical situations that he is pointing out, including whether we would utilize only Pfizer and Moderna depending on where we're at in September.

I am the procurement minister. I'm procuring vaccines, and I'll continue to do that until every Canadian has access to a vaccine.

Thank you.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I understand your answer. However, I'm just asking whether, according to your understanding, all Canadians will have received the two doses necessary to be considered vaccinated by the end of the year or before.

Let's move on to another topic.

Can you tell us whether the Davie shipyard in the Quebec City area will be included in the national shipbuilding strategy? We are coming to the end of March and we have heard nothing yet.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Yes, of course.

It's a very important question, because the Davie shipyard is a great partner, helping our government get results for Canadians. First, the process is ongoing, and we are currently planning to make a decision this fall. We continue to work collaboratively with the shipyard. Recently, the Davie shipyard requested and received an extension to the application process and we look forward to reviewing their proposal.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

My last question is about the polar icebreaker. This is becoming an urgent situation in terms of Canada's national security. We have to depend on our American colleagues.

Will the contract for the polar icebreaker be awarded soon, yes or no?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much.

As you know, all Canadian shipyards were able to respond to the request for information, which closed on March 13, 2020. We are now reviewing the responses. No decision has been made yet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

Now we'll go to Mr. Jowhari for six minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to also thank the minister and the department, not only for appearing in front of us once again, but also for the amazing work you've been doing.

Minister, my colleague, MP Drouin, wanted to focus on the first quarter, and vaccine procurement and the great work you've done. Just for the sake of Canadians—so many of them are watching—and making sure that you have an opportunity to send the message to Canadians, can you share with us what our plan was for Q2 and Q3 and what efforts you have made to increase those numbers? Also, what is our situation right now for Q2 and Q3?

That's for the initial estimates that you provided, with the now updated estimates, and the efforts that you and your department have made, whether through diplomatic efforts or direct conversations that you've had with the manufacturers.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We are leaving no stone unturned in this race for vaccines for Canadians.

As you can see, and as I've mentioned, we were able to accelerate 3.5 million doses from later quarters into this quarter to accelerate the pace of vaccinations for Canadians. In addition, we've moved up 17 million additional doses from Q3 to Q2 or Q1 to ensure that 36.5 million Canadians will be inoculated should they want a vaccine prior to the end of June, and then 118 million prior to the end of September, and that's just from approved suppliers alone.

We are continuing to ensure that the vaccine suppliers and other organizations such as the Serum Institute of India, as well as governments—including the United States government, with whom we negotiated successfully for 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca arriving very shortly—are keenly aware that Canada is willing and able and aggressively looking for the acceleration of doses on a day by day or week by week basis.

That's why, Mr. Chair, I am continually in touch with our suppliers not just weekly but daily, to ensure that we have the earliest possible delivery of vaccines into this country. Despite vaccine nationalism that we are seeing throughout this world, Canada has continued to receive shipments of vaccines from Europe and from India because of the commitment we have every single day to ensure that vaccines are arriving on this country's soil, and it's a task that we will not stop at until it is accomplished.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

You didn't get a chance to respond about the supplies that your department is also procuring in support of the vaccinations, such as the needles. Can you start again and go through the efforts that you and your department are putting into making sure that we have not only the vaccines, but also the support such as needles and gowns and the other supplies we need?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I certainly will.

I want to start by saying that early on in the pandemic we were heavily criticized by the opposition for not having testing and rapid testing kits available, yet, Mr. Chair, we procured 40.5 million rapid tests. We delivered over 20 million of those rapid tests to the provinces alone, and we are continuing to engage in procurements of rapid tests. That's just an example of what we are doing to support Canadians in this pandemic.

Whether it's rapid tests or syringes, alcohol swabs, sharps containers, gauze, vials, deep refrigerators or ultra-deep refrigerators, we have been procuring and procuring a continual supply of items to support the provinces and territories in their response to this pandemic.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

I only have about a minute left and I really want to talk about the $200 million in the supplementary estimates (C) that's being transferred to vote 1 that you mentioned in your opening remarks. Can you expand on why that took place and what you are planning to use that for? How is that going to support the provinces and us, as Canadians, to make sure we are in a safe place?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I assume, Mr. Chair, that the member is referring to the $380 million in unspent funding. Is that correct?

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Yes, Minister.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We have continued to support the provinces and territories with the purchase of supplies. We will continue to purchase all of those supplies I just mentioned and any others that come up on a rapid state of affairs. For example, with those low dead-volume syringes, we needed to move very quickly to compete in this global environment. We were able [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Anand, and thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Anand, in the Supplementary Estimates (C), Public Services and Procurement Canada is requesting $9.2 million for office accommodation costs for pension administration. This is in addition to the $8.1 million requested in Supplementary Estimates (B). Were these costs not foreseeable? Normally, office accommodation costs are fixed by a lease signed at a certain time of the year.

Why is an additional $17.3 million being requested in Supplementary Estimates (B) and (C)?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm not sure if you can hear me. My screen is going blank here. Can you hear me?

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

Yes, we can hear you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Ms. Vignola, we'll pause for a second.

I just want to check, Minister, that everything is correct.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I'm having trouble with my connection, but if you can hear me, hopefully it will come back online. Everyone is frozen on my screen.

Shall I keep going?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

You are frozen on ours, but we can hear you quite clearly. If you can continue to answer, we'll continue on with the questioning.

Thank you.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Just to respond to the member's question, is she referring to the $9.2 million or the $1.4 million relating to office accommodations? I'm just asking for clarification in terms of her question.

[Bill Matthews]

It's $9.2 million, Minister.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

That $9.2 million is to be reimbursed from the armed forces and the RCMP pension plan for their share of the accommodation costs. I will ask my deputy minister to supplement my response.

Thank you.

[Bill Matthews]

I thank the member for her question.

I would like to add a few comments. The member asked if these costs were foreseeable. Yes, they were, but there were some revisions, after determining exactly how many people were working on the pension files. There is a formula to reimburse the department for the funds used to pay for the office accommodation costs.

It's an end-of-year adjustment that gets based on the salary cost. I believe it's 13%. It's an end-of-year formula that we calculate.

Sometimes, even though these numbers are forecastable, we have to wait until the Treasury Board approvals come through to include these numbers in the estimates. That is often why they show up in supplementary estimates (B) or (C).