Government Operations Committee on May 5th, 2021

[The Chair (Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)), Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

I call this meeting to order.

It is 1:50 by my time in Saskatchewan, so it would be 3:50 in Ontario, and we will now start the meeting.

I welcome you all to the 29th meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The committee is meeting today to from the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force as part of the committee's study of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After that, we'll consider our report on the Nuctech security equipment contract.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants at this meeting that taking screen shots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like at a regular committee meeting. You have a choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French. If you are speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

To raise a point of order during the meeting, committee members should ensure that their microphone is unmuted and say, “Point of order,” to get the chair's attention.

The clerk and the analysts are participating in the meeting virtually today. If you need to speak with them during the meeting, please email them through the committee email addresses. The clerk can also be reached on his mobile phone.

For those people who are participating in the committee room, please note that masks are required unless seated and when physical distancing is not possible.

I will now invite the witnesses to make their opening statements.

Ms. Langley, please, you have the floor.

[Dr. Joanne Langley, Co-Chair, COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. I'm honoured to be speaking with you today as one of the co-chairs of the COVID-19 vaccine task force. I know that I speak for my colleague, Mark Lievonen, and all members of the task force when I say that we've been very privileged to be able to serve in this way during this pandemic.

We were also honoured to speak with your colleagues on the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on February 18, and I also presented at the Standing Committee on Health on February 26.

I'll start off by speaking briefly about our work on vaccines before turning the floor over to my co-chair, Mark, who will talk about the work we've been doing on biomanufacturing.

The task force includes 10 external-to-government members and four ex-officio members who are senior public servants. We are from various fields, including immunology, vaccinology, vaccine development, biomanufacturing and commercialization. We all serve as volunteers, of course. Our overarching mission is to provide the best scientific advice, based on available evidence, to government, with the goal of securing safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians as quickly as possible. This has been our overarching mission.

While each of us has taken on a substantial commitment to serve the government in this way, we do not make decisions. This is the purview of ministers, notably the Minister of Health, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to whom we report and send our advice, and the Minister of Public Services and Procurement.

Overall, the task force recommended a portfolio approach to procure vaccines, balancing different technology platforms to increase our chances of securing a safe and effective vaccine, and to mitigate the risk of some candidates not making it through to commercialization or the risk of supply chain disruptions—which we anticipated from the very beginning—which might result in production or delivery delays.

When we started our work in June of last year, we felt, after a review of all the evidence, that the international vaccine candidates were significantly more advanced in their development and that they presented the most viable option for meeting this overarching goal of getting safe and effective vaccines into Canada as quickly as possible. This is reflected in Canada's procurement strategy.

We were also impressed with several of the domestic vaccine candidates being developed and were able to recommend different options for support, 10 of which have been announced by the government.

Currently, the government has entered into advanced purchase agreements with seven firms. Of these vaccine candidates, four have received authorization from Health Canada for use in Canada, and three are currently in use.

I'll now turn the floor over to Mark, who will speak about our work related to biomanufacturing advice.

[Mark Lievonen, Co-Chair, COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force]

Thank you, Joanne.

Let me start by echoing the remarks of my co-chair. It is indeed a pleasure to be with you this afternoon.

When the joint vaccine task force started looking at biomanufacturing, we undertook that work by forming a joint biomanufacturing subcommittee consisting of members from both the vaccine task force and the therapeutics task force. The subcommittee was tasked with providing advice to the government in three different areas. Number one was to assess biomanufacturing projects proposed to the government under the strategic innovation fund, or SIF. So far, four of these projects have been announced, along with the NRC's Royalmount facility. Number two was to develop an overall strategy to increase Canada's biomanufacturing capability. Number three was to advise the government on other biomanufacturing matters related to securing COVID vaccines and therapeutics, including efforts to attract international vaccine candidates to manufacture some of their vaccines in Canada. So far, one of these projects has been announced.

The joint biomanufacturing subcommittee believes that strengthening Canada's biomanufacturing capacity is a key element of our COVID-19 response. This includes mobilizing and finding innovative uses for existing capacity, procuring needed equipment and inputs, expanding the existing capacity in a strategic and coordinated manner, putting in place the needed biologics capacity to meet Canada's longer-term needs, and pursuing international partnerships for longer-term sustainability of the sector.

In closing, I would say that it's truly been a privilege for us on the vaccine task force to apply our knowledge and experience to serve Canadians. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have related to the work of the vaccine task force.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Dr. Langley and Mr. Lievonen.

We will now start our first round of six minutes with Mr. Paul-Hus.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning to our witnesses.

Ms. Langley, we know that your group does not release minutes of its meetings and that the conflict of interest log was last updated in October 2020.

Has your group met since October?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Yes. The vaccine task force has met on an ongoing basis and has had meetings since October.

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

What did you talk about?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Our original overarching mission is still our main task, which is safe and effective vaccines for Canadians. The way in which we execute that mission changes over time. As you know, new concerns have arisen over time. That happens with every public health immunization program. Thinking longer-term than 2021, we have been involved in that kind of planning and in recommendations to government about how we will protect Canadians as the pandemic continues, in whatever trajectory it takes.

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

The European Union appears ready to consider the Sputnik V and Sinopharm vaccines.

Are these vaccines on your list of candidates for consideration?

Have these companies approached you, or have you approached them?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

The original portfolio had seven candidates in it. When we came up with those, we looked at all of the vaccines we were aware of and distilled it down to those. On an ongoing basis, we are open to new scientific evidence about the efficacy of vaccines. When those companies come to meet with us, that is usually, or I guess always, under a confidential business approach where we can't disclose what the information is.

Mr. Scott-Douglas may be able to speak to that better.

[Roger Scott-Douglas, Secretary, COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force]

I might just add very briefly, Chair, that neither Sputnik nor Sinopharm have come before the committee. The seven advance purchase agreements do include two adenovirus platforms, so the committee feels it's in good shape with a diversified platform.

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

Thank you.

Why didn't your group issue a report in the midst of the crisis, as the U.K. vaccine task force did?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Is that directed to me?

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

Yes.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Okay, thank you.

Our mandate is to advise ministers, and we have been doing that since late last spring and early summer. That has continued to be the case. Because it's advice to ministers, my understanding—not as a public servant—is that that is not in the public realm.

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

All right.

For the first time, Canada will start receiving vaccines from Pfizer's U.S. plant instead of from the plant in Belgium. As we know, the vaccines currently arrive by air.

Did you recommend that Canada take steps to source as much as possible from the U.S. side rather than the European side?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

The considerations we worked with in regard to the procurement team was always with regard to security of supply. That varied over time. The specifics of that would be very dependent on the particular supply problems at any point. Again, I would ask Mr. Scott-Douglas to fill in.

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

I will clarify my question, Ms. Langley.

Initially, did you ask the government to look at the U.S. side first, since Pfizer produces vaccines a few hundred miles from Canada?

Was that the first option your committee proposed to the government, or was that not possible because you knew the Americans had already taken control?

How did things unfold, at that time?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

We were very aware of some of the concerns about vaccine nationalism that arose from the beginning of the pandemic, so that would have played into our recommendations, the ultimate decision being, of course, from the government.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I would very briefly add that the Defence Production Act and the restrictions it was putting on some of the exports from America biomanufacturing producers were known to us. As Joanne said, the early negotiations had always been to ensure the highest probability that we would get access in Canada, and the Pfizer negotiations were initially with Europe for that reason.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by thanking Dr. Langley, Mr. Lievonen and Mr. Scott-Douglas for joining our committee meeting today and for their incredible service to our country by volunteering to be part of this critically important vaccine task force. We really appreciate the work you've been doing over the course of the last year plus, and going forward.

Dr. Langley, what are the factors that the vaccine task force utilized to help the government decide on which vaccine suppliers to pursue?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

We looked at the domains of technical merit, scientific merit and the supply chain.

In terms of scientific merit, there were subclassifications. We kind of had a rubric with all of those three domains. Some of the vaccine platforms that arose during the COVID pandemic were very novel. We wanted to know all of the background evidence that would support platforms like them. We looked at the ones that used platforms we were aware of and the safety and efficacy with similar platforms for other vaccines.

In terms of technical merit, we looked at the companies' proposals for clinical development and for good manufacturing practice in the whole process before you can first inject an investigational product into a human.

Then lastly, there's the whole process for scale-up and delivery. For that, I would turn to my colleague Mark Lievonen to describe our rubric.

[Mark Lievonen]

I think you summarized it well, Joanne.

There are a number of factors that come into consideration in some of the earlier points that were raised: a manufacturer's credibility and their ability to supply and comply with challenges with supply chains. Vaccines are extremely difficult to make, even the routine vaccines. With one that was so new, it was inevitable there would be some supply chain issues along the way. We took all of that into consideration in formulating our advice and providing it to the ministers.

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

Thank you very much for that.

Touching on something that Ms. Langley brought up earlier in her introduction, did you discuss the possibility of producing more of these vaccines in Canada?

Could you speak a little bit more to the challenges we have with that?