Evidence of meeting #35 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Karen Hogan  Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Milan Duvnjak  Director, Office of the Auditor General
Michael Mills  Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Cindy Evans  Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada
Alain Dorion  Director General, Pandemic Response Sector, Department of Public Works and Government Services

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

For the one held in reserve....

4:50 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services

Michael Mills

—as well as equipment and supplies—

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Wow. For the one held in reserve....

Let me ask you this. In your opening statement, you said that you've returned to competitive bidding where appropriate.

4:50 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Can you give us some examples of where you haven't returned to competitive bidding? What are you still sole-sourcing or using an NSE on to purchase something where it's not appropriate to go competitive?

4:55 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services

Michael Mills

Very few things.... One that I could give an example of is that in certain cases for testing, provinces and territories will have proprietary testing equipment. In those cases, there are only certain types of test kits that can be used with the proprietary test equipment, so those would have to be sole-sourced contracts.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Okay, but very little else?

4:55 p.m.

Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Procurement, Department of Public Works and Government Services

Michael Mills

Very little else, yes.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Okay.

PHAC, thanks for joining us. I appreciate some of your comments about the NESS. I think there have been about roughly a billion pieces of PPE distributed, which leaves about a billion pieces back in the warehouses. Is that approximately correct? Is that the new par we're setting in the NESS, or do we have commitments to get x amount of that billion sent out right away?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

Mr. Chair, the specific amounts in the national emergency strategic stockpile will continue to fluctuate. We have the bulk procurement that's coming in, where 80% is allocated out, as well as the replenishment of the national emergency strategic stockpile.

We're targeted to have in the order of an eight-week supply across six of the primary commodities, and that's gowns, gloves, surgical masks—

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Okay. If we have a billion in supply, how many weeks is that? If you want to have an eight-week supply, how many weeks is that one billion going to cover, approximately? Even ballpark is fine.

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

I'd have to get back to you with the specifics. It would differ across the different commodities.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

How far are we from actually resetting in our baseline or our par stock for the emergency stockpile?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

Mr. Chair, the amounts we have in the national emergency strategic stockpile will continue to fluctuate, and we will continue to prioritize pushing out the products to the provinces—

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Okay. We don't know. When will we actually reset a total so we're not caught in the situation that we were this time? It's not always going to be in flux. We'll eventually have to set a standard of what we're actually going to carry. When will we know that?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

Mr. Chair, as I've said, we've targeted to have an eight-week supply across the six primary commodities that are important in a respiratory infection situation. When we have achieved that for the majority of those commodities, with the exception of gloves, which continue to be in higher demand from the provinces and we continue to prioritize those requests, so that's the reason there's a fluctuation....

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

In your response to the Auditor General's report, you stated that a year after the pandemic ends you'll have a better plan put out. Is that a year after the WHO says the pandemic is done? Is it a year after Canada has reached a more steady state? Why does it take an entire year to put this together, a proper response to the AG's report?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

Mr. Chair, as I said in my opening remarks, we continue to be in active response mode, so we will continue to prioritize our efforts to move products to the provinces—

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

The question is about who's deciding when the pandemic is over. Is that our government or—

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. McCauley and Ms. Evans.

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

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Evans, I have a question for you.

With regard to the $7.4 billion that the federal government paid for purchasing the 2.7 billion items of PPE—it's just mind-boggling when I think about that number—how much of that is cost-shared with the provinces and the territories?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

Mr. Chair, the Government of Canada has provided significant funding and resources to support the response to COVID-19. We have invested more than $19 billion to help the provinces and territories through the safe restart agreement. This also includes $4.5 billion to purchase PPE for national use and an additional $3 billion to province and territories for their own PPE investments. It was federally funded.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

It was totally federally funded.

5 p.m.

Vice-President, Emergency Management, Public Health Agency of Canada

Cindy Evans

That's correct.

June 7th, 2021 / 5 p.m.

Liberal

Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Okay.

Today we talked about the 2.7 billion items of PPE that were purchased, and about 1.5 billion of those have been delivered to date. On March 24, the minister explained that Canada has a lot of PPE and space at its warehouses and that its long-term contracts afford it readiness for any eventuality.

Looking forward, as demand for PPE winds down, are there any concerns about PPE expiring before it is used?