Government Operations Committee on June 2nd, 2021

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

The World Health Organization's director-general reiterated the long-running concerns that western nations are vaccinating their people at really high rates. He said, “Of the 1.8 billion vaccines administered globally, just 0.4% have been administered in low-income countries.” He stated, “This is ethically, epidemiologically and economically unacceptable.”

You'll note that there's been an ongoing conversation exchanged through you, Mr. Chair, with the honourable minister on TRIPS, and, of course, I continue to talk about what I believe to be the value of having a patent waiver on vaccines. That also goes to other critical elements of PPE and medical supports as they relate to our response internationally.

Through you, Mr. Chair, I wonder if the honourable minister can tell us, notwithstanding all of the shifts within the Biden administration, whether there has been a shift in the cabinet's position to at some point come out and provide the TRIPS waiver for not just vaccines but for all critical medical related to COVID.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I will say that Canada is ready to discuss waiving intellectual property protections, particularly with respect to COVID-19 vaccines under the WTO agreement on TRIPS. Our government continues to be a leader in the global effort to ensure that there's equitable access to vaccines and critical medical supplies around the world.

You'll recall that we have sent supplies, ventilators and oxygenators to India already, and we are a strong proponent of multilateral, rules-based trade with the WTO at its core. I've spoken with my colleague Minister Ng about this issue, as she is leading it at the WTO. She, too, is committed to equitable access to vaccines in that forum.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, I sat in on the trade committee last Friday when they had the ambassador present. They had many delegates, including a particular witness from Médecins Sans Frontières. They were very clear that we're not leading in this regard. While there has been, retroactively I'll say, a restoration into COVAX in terms of our take from that particular program, there's still a significant need for vaccines. I'm wondering, even for our own possible production of PPE and vaccines, if the minister has made future plans for Canada to become a producer under a TRIPS scenario of PPE and vaccines.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

One of the advantages of pursuing a diversified approach, not only to vaccine procurement but PPE procurement also, was that we built up Canada's supply chains, and now 40% of our PPE contracts by dollar value are with Canadian manufacturers. In other words, we do have the capacity to be a global leader in the sharing of PPE and eventually vaccines, when we do have more vaccines in this country, and they are continuing to come in by the millions.

Through our leadership in the WTO and the the Ottawa Group, we're going to continue to be a strong advocate for equitable access.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We will now go to our second round, starting with Mr. Paul-Hus for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Madam Minister. My first question is with respect to the Auditor General's report number 10, where we learn that contracts for personal protective equipment were signed and significant advance payments were made to these companies, which were not checked out at all.

Can you explain that?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I most definitely will. At the beginning of the pandemic, our government worked quickly and decisively to ensure that we procured PPE that our front-line health care workers needed. It was a seller's market. We needed to act very quickly and to some extent take on additional risk, as the Auditor General mentioned. We were able, as a result of taking that risk, to procure 2.7 billion items of PPE for Canadians, for front-line health care workers, which the Auditor General sanctioned.

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

Thank you, Madam Minister.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We have now switched to a more regular process of contracting.

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

Thank you, Minister.

I asked you a question before, at another meeting, concerning Frank Baylis, about another dossier regarding ventilators. You told us then that you did not know Frank Baylis. It's possible, you were elected in 2019. I'll give you another name.

Does the name Michel Octeau mean anything to you?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Not at all; I've never heard that name before.

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

All right.

I'm talking about Michel Octeau, who owns Tango Communication Marketing, as well as Alexandre Brault, who is the son of Jean Brault. These names, if you do a little Google search, Madam Minister, will take you back some 20 years in time, to the time of the sponsorship scandal. These were people who were very involved in the Liberal Party of Canada, in a scandalous program that almost wiped out the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2006 election.

Now, what I want to understand is how a company owned by individuals connected to the sponsorship scandal was able to so easily gain access to a contract and receive $81 million in advance from the Government of Canada for masks and equipment that were completely unusable because of their poor quality. I already know that the Government of Canada has filed a lawsuit. It's mind-boggling to see the details of this case and how Canadian taxpayers have been had by this organization.

Did anyone give you a briefing when the names of Michel Octeau and Alexandre Brault, son of Jean Brault, came up for consideration?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

My first and foremost priority has been to procure PPE and vaccines for Canadians. We are delivering on that, having procured 2.7 billion items of PPE and being first in the world in terms of the percentage of the population who have been given at least one dose of vaccine—

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

Madam Minister, with all due respect, don't read your lines to me. I don't want to hear about vaccine contracts, I'm not talking to you about that.

We're talking about an equipment purchase file and an $81-million cash advance, which Canada will likely lose. First, the Government of Canada took a year to file a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court. I have an email here from the Prime Minister's office, from an employee, a middle manager, indicating that there was a problem. This email is from May 2020, which is over a year ago. It was already known that there was a problem.

I know you were coming into the position in November 2019 and the pandemic happened shortly thereafter.

Did anyone tell you about Mr. Octeau or Mr. Brault? Did no one warn you to be careful?

Jean Brault went to jail back in the day for wheeling and dealing in government contracts. Someone should have sounded the alarm.

Did anyone sound the alarm?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I would like to refer you first of all to my priority, which is procurement for Canadians, and second of all to the statement of claim where the government has filed all relevant facts in this matter. I encourage all members to review it, because we will fight for taxpayers and their dollars. We will not pay for defective masks. We have only been clear from the outset that we will hold suppliers to their contractual obligations, regardless of who they are.

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

I have one last question for you.

Are there other companies like this that the government needs to take action against? Are there other companies that have not delivered the goods and have received advances?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Of the hundreds of contracts that we executed in order to support Canadians in this pandemic, there has been one supplier, whom you have named, that did not provide supplies that were meeting specifications in the contract. We have therefore sued that company. We will seek recompense for the Canadian taxpayer. That's my priority. We will not pay for defective product.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

We will now go to Mr. Zuberi.

Welcome to the committee, Mr. Zuberi. You have five minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for being here.

I want to start off by saying that I loved hearing the great news that Canada is leading the G20 countries with respect to first doses. For me, that was new information, and I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you to you and your team for protecting us all across the country.

I want to touch upon vaccines and PPE, but vaccines in particular. We know that this is a preoccupation of Canadians. With respect to those that have been distributed to the provinces and territories, can you tell us how many have been distributed and any milestones in relation to that?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you so much for welcoming me and for the question.

I want to say that we are about to hit a very important milestone of 30 million vaccines distributed to provinces and territories. We're at 28.4 million doses at the current time, and we are expecting 2.4 million doses of vaccine next week from Pfizer. The week after, we will receive 2.4 million vaccines from Pfizer and at least 1.5 million doses from Moderna.

In addition to the very important milestone that we reached today, which is two-thirds of all eligible Canadians receiving at least one dose and being first in the G20 for the percentage of the population with at least one dose, we are on our way to hitting 30 million doses distributed to provinces and territories. As I said, well over 40 million doses will be distributed to the provinces and territories before the end of June.

We are accelerating our deliveries into Canada every single week. That is the reason we are first in the G20 for the percentage of the population with at least one dose. It is my priority. It is our government's priority, and we will not stop until all Canadians have access to vaccines.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to touch upon rapid tests. Can you tell us how many have been procured and distributed throughout the country?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Most definitely. We have procured 43.5 million rapid tests; 41.8 million of those tests have been received, and over 26 million of those rapid tests have been distributed to provinces and territories. Of that number, only 3.1 million tests have been used to date, so we very much wish to encourage the provinces and territories to utilize the rapid tests that they asked for and that we procured.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to shift gears for a moment to touch upon some points that were brought up at the top of this committee by a member of the committee.

I'm co-president of the Canada-Uyghur Parliamentary Friendship Group. At the top you mentioned how we are conforming to measures that were introduced by our government at the beginning of this year, in January. Those measures require that we communicate with companies when importing goods into Canada.

You spoke about PPE. Can you reiterate what we are doing with respect to PPE to ensure that we're not unwittingly consuming forced-labour products?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I want to say right off the top that I personally am leading a department and reiterating at all points of contact with them that we are committed to ensuring the highest ethical standards for government procurement, including preventing human rights abuses and forced labour in federal supply chains.

When awarding contracts, therefore, PSPC requires suppliers to agree to terms and conditions prohibiting these labour practices. We conduct integrity checks into suppliers' backgrounds. We recently launched a request for proposal to conduct a risk assessment to determine which products are at higher risk of being produced using human trafficking, forced labour or child labour. The results of this assessment will enable us in turn to further improve our procurement supply chains and protect them in terms of their being affected by labour exploitation.

Again, I am committed to ethical supply chain management and I will continue to work to ensure that we are following the rigorous standards that Canadians expect. That's why I have written to certain suppliers already to make sure that they are not sending us product that has been produced by forced labour.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

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