Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Thank you, Minister.

I'm going to try to stay right on time so that we can get finished on time.

We'll now go to Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for sticking around with us here, especially in light of some of the IT difficulties.

Minister, throughout this whole committee meeting, you've discussed at length the amount of PPE and vaccines we've procured for the provinces and territories. I'm wondering at what cost to the provinces and territories this procurement was done by your department.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

That's an interesting question. Thank you for asking it.

At the current time, the federal government has continued to provide the PPE, the rapid test kits, the vaccines and the supplies relating to vaccines to the provinces without charge. That's in addition to the safe restart agreement of $19 billion.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you.

Earlier we touched a little bit on the number of rapid tests that your department has procured for the provinces and territories. Was this done in response to requests for rapid tests by the provinces and territories?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Yes.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Many of these rapid tests have in turn been left unused by the provinces and territories right across the country, and a significant portion of them are now at risk of expiring. In my riding, I know there are many businesses that have an interest in being able to utilize them in order to protect their workers, prevent the spread of the virus and mitigate the third wave.

I'm wondering, is there any recourse from the federal government's point of view to regain access to these tests to be able to distribute them to an entity that would put them to use?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

The point I would really like to stress is that we procured these tests on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada, which heard from the provinces that they would need these tests.

We procured 40.5 million rapid tests. We delivered 23.4 million rapid tests to the provinces and territories, as well as federal entities. We are going to continue to support the provinces and territories to ensure that Canadians can get through to the end of this pandemic with vaccines, rapid tests and supplies. This is an across-the-board effort that our government is very committed to.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Great.

I think we all know that we're not going to be able to fully defeat this virus until it's defeated everywhere, and that kind of informs our participation in programs like COVAX. In response to an earlier question, you mentioned that the doses we have in addition to what will be needed by Canadians will then be distributed to the developing world.

I was hoping you could expand on what that process will look like, whether there is some type of formula or criteria for which country we would seek to send those doses to and if that relates at all to the work we're already undergoing as part of the COVAX program.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I just want to clarify that my role is to bring the doses into the country, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. Decisions about sharing of doses will be made across government, with our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marc Garneau, and with our Minister of International Development, Karina Gould.

However, we are all on the same page with the need to exercise and advocate for multilateralism in the donation of doses to less developed countries. We believe that unless everyone is safe, no one is safe. So while we will be bringing millions of doses into this country, we will by the same token share those doses. That's why we are part of the COVAX facility. That's why our Minister of International Development has a leading governance role in the COVAX facility. We've provided $220 million to the part of the facility that is funding vaccines for the developing world. We will share extra doses, but at the same time, we're committed to the multilateral pool procurement mechanisms of the COVAX facility.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you for that.

To switch gears here, we have an indigenous entrepreneurship strategy, and as part of the departmental results from last year, I know there was a commitment to better include and better leverage federal procurement opportunities for indigenous businesses.

I'm hoping you could speak a little bit to how the federal government will be able to connect with indigenous businesses and how the federal government will be able to understand what types of businesses or opportunities there might be with indigenous-owned businesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Weiler.

Minister, we want to be respectful of your time and the fact that you're with us. If you could provide that answer in writing to the committee, I'd really appreciate that.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Madam Minister, under statutory appropriations, I saw that there was a decrease of $380 million, but you requested that amount in Vote 1.

What accounts for that change?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We have made these requests because the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act ended on December 31, 2020. Funds still remain in that envelope to support COVID-19 efforts in PSPC. Those funds are currently under statutory appropriations under the act. It would fall under vote 1 funding and allow the department to use the funding. It's essentially emergency funding.

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

All right. Since the deadline had passed, you had to request those funds under Vote 1.

On the other hand, you have purchased a great deal of equipment, and I don't know how full the warehouses are.

Does Public Services and Procurement Canada anticipate another shortage like the one we experienced, should there be a third or fourth wave, or should another virus emerge?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much for your question.

First of all, we have a lot of personal protective equipment right now. We have lots of gowns, gloves, surgical masks and N95 masks. We also have a lot of space in the warehouses.

So thanks to our procurement efforts and our long-term contracts, we are prepared for any eventuality, and we are not going to find ourselves in that situation again.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Vignola. Two and a half minutes go by very quickly.

Mr. Green, you have two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to ask this question. She can answer it through you, Mr. Chair, as the minister, or maybe just as a regular parliamentarian.

Does the honourable minister support the waiver of TRIPS to allow for a greater distribution of vaccines globally, given the allegations that perhaps Canada is hoarding some critical vaccines?

Would you support a TRIPS waiver? Canada hasn't been very clear on this yet.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We are a very strong proponent of rules-based trade with the WTO at its core. We're committed to strong, resilient supply chains, and we've reached out to waiver proponents such as South Africa and India.

As the member knows, TRIPS governs IP matters, but currently vaccine access is about production, distribution and supply chains, not about IP rights. The decisions that would be made at the WTO would not be mine at all. They are made by another minister.

Therefore, I want to go back to my point that I'm in charge of vaccine procurement, and I'm going to do whatever I can to get vaccines—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to pitch this for the world. You're going to sit at cabinet. You're going to have these critical discussions. I'm going to implore you, as a parliamentarian and a human being, to push your cabinet to do the right thing to waive TRIPS to allow the intellectual property of vaccine technologies to be distributed throughout the world.

We're in our third wave without any end in sight. We are simultaneously taking from the supply chain, which would help the global south through COVAX, while hoarding tens of millions of vaccines and standing in the way of the TRIPS.

I want to ask one more question, which was talked about—

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Can I respond to that?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It was a statement. It wasn't a question.

Through you, Mr. Chair, let me say this. You talked about your tough negotiations with Pfizer. Pfizer, as we know, at the time of these tough negotiations was pitching the federal government to bring in new tax breaks, which included lowering corporate tax and providing tax measures such as manufacturing and processing credits.

Is it safe to say that this government did not take that into consideration? Is it safe to say that we're not going to see this type of quid pro quo in the upcoming budget?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Minister, you have 15 seconds, please.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I would just indicate to the honourable member that in a number of instances during this session he has asked questions that don't relate to my portfolio—this question included. This is a question for our finance minister. I'm not making this budget up; it's not in my portfolio. I am procuring vaccines and PPE and taking care of a number of very difficult files in PSPC and will continue to do that to the best of my ability.

That's what I have to say about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll now go to Ms. Harder for five minutes.