Government Operations Committee on June 7th, 2021

[Michael Mills]

I will actually turn to Alain Dorion, who is our director general within the pandemic response sector, to give you a bit of what we're doing to attenuate the risk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Mills.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we're out of time.

If Mr. Dorion could provide a response in writing, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Alain Dorion, Director General, Pandemic Response Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

It will be my pleasure to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

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

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask a series of questions through you to Ms. Evans, and I'm going to ask that the questions be answered in a way that allows me to get on to the next question. If I intervene, it's because I have received the answer that I'm looking for, not because it is personal.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to Ms. Evans, how long have you been the vice-president of the emergency management branch?

[Cindy Evans]

I've been the vice-president since the middle of January 2020.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, how long has Ms. Evans been in the department in the senior roles?

[Cindy Evans]

I joined the Public Health Agency in 2015.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, who is the president of the emergency management branch, or is it just VPs?

[Cindy Evans]

Our president is the president of the Public Health Agency.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Who would that be?

[Cindy Evans]

Our president is Mr. Iain Stewart.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Iain Stewart.

Mr. Chair, I'm wondering if at any time from 2015 and onwards Ms. Evans would have been aware of the calls from her department asking for increased funding from the $3-million annual budget that had been earmarked from the years 2012-13 to the present?

[Cindy Evans]

I'm unable to answer the question as it has been asked.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, through you, Ms. Evans, were you aware in your department in your senior roles from 2015 that your department had repeatedly requested additional funding above and beyond the $3 million a year that was set back in 2012?

[Cindy Evans]

I am able to speak to, certainly, the repeated allocation of funding to the NESS program for specific asks.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Would you have provided, at any point in time, recommendations to the minister to increase funding?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, certainly we would have been part of the recommendations which looked at specific requests that would be required. I couldn't speak to a specific recommendation to the Minister of Health, no.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We've heard time and time again about modernization, service standards and commodities. It's almost as though this department didn't have any benchmarks to work from.

I would like Ms. Evans to comment on the report that was in fact authored by our own chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, back in 2006, entitled “Canada's Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector”, and in it the requirement to have 16 weeks of stockpile, which would have been good enough for two waves.

Through you, Mr. Chair, would Ms. Evans have been involved in any decisions to deviate from those benchmarks, those national standards, in the lead-up in 2019, when the decision was made to shutter three of the nine national emergency strategic stockpiles, including one location in Regina that threw away two-million N95 masks?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, certainly in my capacity at the Public Health Agency at that time, for those periods, I wouldn't be able to speak to the question that is being posed.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, what was Ms. Evans' role prior to being named VP?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, I've held two positions within the Public Health Agency: first as the director general for the centre for biosecurity within the health security infrastructure branch; and second, later, as the director general for the centre for emergency preparedness and response.

Prior to moving—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As the director general, would you not have been apprised of Canada's pandemic influenza plan as written and co-authored by our chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam? Would you have never come across that document and known about the 16-week stockpile benchmark within it?

[Cindy Evans]

Mr. Chair, I believe the document which MP Green is referring to is the 2006 pandemic plan, in which the 16 weeks for the entire system would include our provincial and territorial partners in terms of their level of pandemic readiness. The subsequent revision to that document, in 2011, did not have a specific stockpile target with respect to pandemic preparedness but rather was based on risk assessment.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll ask this last question through you, Mr. Chair.

Based on everything that is known now, understanding that we were only able to deliver 4% of N95 masks to the provinces of the 56 requests, 12% on the gowns and 18% on the ventilators, would Ms. Evans not agree that the national emergency strategic stockpile, under her leadership and her predecessor's leadership, was a catastrophic failure in the lead-up to this pandemic?