Government Operations Committee on April 14th, 2021

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Then contracts are being honoured on time? On the things you've spoken of in the media, the commitments you've made in terms of numbers that are coming, has everything gone according to plan?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

There have been delays of Moderna doses by a few days, but other than that, in recent months and weeks the deliveries have been much more stable than they were at the beginning of 2021. That's why I regret your use of the word “blunder”.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Is there a need to prepare for the potential that there could be a significant number of vaccines that come all at once?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

There are targets of receiving vaccines that we have made completely clear and transparent to the provinces, as I'm doing with you today: 17.8 million—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I know, but those targets haven't always been met. That's why I'm asking the question.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

The only instance in which they haven't been met occurred when we exceeded the targets. We exceeded the Q1 targets by 3.5 million. Again, I'm not sure what you're referring to with the word “blunder”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Harder.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's incredibly misleading.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We will now go to Mr. Weiler for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister, and good afternoon, witnesses. Thank you for joining us in committee again today.

Of course, we're all starved for up-to-date information on vaccines, including what's going to arrive from which company, and when, and where they're going to be delivered.

I'd like to pick up where one of my colleagues left off here in speaking about back in February when there were some delays in vaccines arriving. I was hoping that you could speak a bit to what the rationale was for why those delays took place and how that affected the overall delivery schedule.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

The Conservatives like to suggest that those delays were part of our contracting negotiations. In reality, Pfizer made a decision to upgrade its plant in Puurs, Belgium, and as a result we suffered a couple of weeks of delay in vaccine deliveries.

Again, what happened at the end of the quarter was that Pfizer came back and provided even more vaccine than it had originally promised, including1.5 million more doses than it had originally promised for Q1 alone. As I mentioned, we have continued to accelerate doses of Pfizer so that we will end the second quarter with 17.8 million doses of Pfizer. Those deliveries are very stable. Over one million doses per week of Pfizer will be arriving in April and May and over two million doses will be arriving in the month of June. We are making this information completely transparent to the provinces and territories so that they can do their planning now, just as we were making it transparent at the beginning of the year. We have no interest in keeping this information secret. In reality, the reason we have been able to accelerate doses, or at least one of the reasons, is that we have worked co-operatively and collaboratively with the provinces, which we will continue to do.

I believe strongly that this is a national effort and I believe that we are best served if we all work together to get this done. I would hope that would include the opposition parties as well as all people across Canada.

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

Thanks for that.

Going back to vaccine deliveries, you said many times that our procurement portfolio of vaccines is the most diverse in the world. I was hoping you could speak to why that's important in the vaccine procurement process.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

To be clear, I want to reference that we are in the top four in the G20 for overall shots administered. I want to suggest that the reason for having a diversified portfolio of vaccines is that at the time of contracting, of course, prior to the development and discovery of any vaccine, no one knew what the reaction or the effects of any particular vaccine would be. We wanted to make sure that Canadians had access to multiple potential vaccines, given the lack of knowledge that existed across the world about which vaccines would be the most efficacious. As a result of this diversified portfolio of vaccines, and despite vaccine nationalism that is taking hold in various jurisdictions around the world, Canada has been able to maintain a stable supply of vaccines.

Yes, we all want more vaccines coming into this country. That's what lights my fire every single day, but suffice it to say that a diversified portfolio of vaccines has served Canada well and will continue to serve Canada well.

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

Thank you, Minister.

To go back to a question that came up previously, of course we've seen a huge influx of vaccines arriving over the last few weeks and the job of the federal government is to get it to the provincial governments, but with this extra amount of vaccine coming in, what has our government proposed in order to aid the provinces within the matters of their jurisdiction to make sure we can get those shots into arms as quickly as possible?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Let's just take an example of what actually happens regarding individual vaccines.

Pfizer delivers vaccines directly to the provinces, so there's no pit stop at the federal government when Pfizer vaccines are coming into this country. They are expeditious and effective about getting vaccines to the point of use.

In addition, despite the couple of days of delay of the Moderna doses, those doses arrived yesterday and are being delivered out to the provinces. They're 90% complete, for example, as of right now. We don't hang on to any doses. As soon as they come into this country, whether it's Moderna or AstraZeneca, they are shipped right out to the provinces and territories. Pfizer takes them directly to the provinces and territories themselves. It is as expeditious as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Minister, we talked about the COVAX initiative. For the benefit of those listening who have little or no knowledge of this initiative, could you remind us why and for whom it was created? Why is it important for the Government of Canada to contribute to this initiative?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Most definitely.

The COVAX facility is a pooled procurement mechanism. What that means is that it is a group of countries that have come together to ensure that vaccines can be accessible and be made accessible to the developing world.

There were two aspects of the COVAX facility, one for developing countries and one for developed countries. Canada is a contributor to both parts of that facility.

I will say that the number of doses that developing countries can procure from the COVAX facility is limited. Canada also has a limited number of doses that it can procure, and it is most important to us as a country that we are supporting multilateralism, sharing with other countries, and providing the funding necessary to produce doses for the developing world.

We've provided over $300 million to the COVAX facility in total and we will continue to support multilateralism in vaccine sharing. That's why our Minister of International Development, Karina Gould, is part of the governance structure of the COVAX facility. That's why we have said we will share any extra doses with the developing world and that's why we will continue to support multilateralism in vaccine procurement.

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

Canada has in fact had a reputation for helping developing countries for decades, and that's fantastic.

But I am wondering why Canada is the only G7 country to have dipped into the COVAX bank. Canada is receiving extraordinary amounts of vaccine, and on top of that, it is dipping into the COVAX bank. Yes, there is a share for developed countries, but it seems to me that we are dipping into two pools. Canada is neither a developing country nor a country in difficulty.

Why is Canada dipping into the COVAX bank when it receives so many vaccines directly? That undermines our reputation.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you for the question.

I must clarify that the program is working as planned. South Korea and New Zealand's Labour government, among others, also have access to doses from COVAX.

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

They are not G7 countries.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Either the opposition is not very familiar with how the COVAX mechanism works or they are trying to feed misinformation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

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

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You'll recall that last week when I appealed to your humanity on the TRIPS waiver, you suggested that waiving intellectual property would not actually materially impact the supply chain, and yet you talk about how developed countries are taking responsibility for producing doses for the global south.

We know that AstraZeneca is manufactured in India and we know that India is calling for a TRIPS waiver on intellectual property to be able to produce more vaccines globally. How do you reconcile the decision by your cabinet and your government to continue to draw from COVAX and the global south, acknowledging that Canada is not a developing country, while simultaneously blocking the access to the World Health Organization's own recommendations to waive intellectual property on critical life-saving vaccines?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

To begin, Mr. Chair, I hope that everybody around the table understands that the COVAX facility does have two arms, and it was deliberately set up to allow developing countries to procure a limited number of doses.

The doses that we are procuring from COVAX are part of the way in which this was established. At the same time, we are basically providing subsidies to ensure that there is manufacturing that is able to occur for doses to go to the developing world—