Government Operations Committee on Nov. 16th, 2020

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Is it fair to say that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Jowhari, you have 30 seconds for a question and an answer. I'm just giving you a heads-up.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, is it fair to say that even if we have not finalized the strategy, the key building blocks of that strategy, whether it be for the fleet or the buildings, or the retrofits on some of the key government buildings, are already going on? You've already put requests in the main estimates for those.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Exactly. It's going on, and it's going to continue to occur, because you cannot green government buildings overnight.

You may have noticed the renovations that are taking place at the Cliff power plant between the Supreme Court and Library and Archives Canada. This is another facility we're working on that will help us reduce our GHG emissions from electricity across the national capital region, but there will be additional buildings, right? We own 32,000 buildings across the country, so this is a long-term process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Ms. Vignola, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Madam Minister, let me quickly come back to the subject of the Davie shipyard. One of the next contracts that will be awarded is for building the polar icebreaker.

Will Davie finally get this much-touted contract, yes or no?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I want to thank the honourable member for her continued commitment to the shipyards and to these questions. Thank you so much.

As is the case with every competition, we cannot make guesses prior to the competition occurring regarding who the winner will be. Our role as PSPC is to be the guardians of process. That is, we need to ensure for the benefit of all shipyards, Davie included, that the process is run in a fair and equitable manner, meaning that it would be very imprudent for the minister to sit here and make predictions about who is going to win a particular contract.

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

Thank you very much, Minister.

I would like to talk about the Future Fighter Capability Project.

First, could you tell me where this project is at?

Second, this summer there was a request for proposals for the design and construction of hangars at Bagotville and other air bases. How is it possible to design and build hangars when we don't yet know what aircraft could be stored there, or even how many aircraft?

So what stage is the project at and how can hangars be built if we don't know what the needs are?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I'll say just quickly that the initial evaluation of proposals regarding the future fighters is anticipated to be completed by the spring of 2021. Canada will finalize the contract terms with the preferred bidder prior to contract award, anticipated in 2022, with the first aircraft delivery expected in 2025. I'll ask my deputy minister to add context regarding the hangars and anything else.

Thank you.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Minister. I'll be very quick.

We do know how many planes will be coming, so that is a constant, regardless of which bid is successful in the competition.

You would have to begin the planning for that sort of thing as well, so some of the hangars that would be constructed are not plane specific. I think for more details on exact requirements for the hangars, you're probably better off to check with National Defence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you.

Now we will go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I was very heartened to hear about about explorations in the public production of the vaccines, or perhaps the end production and distribution of the vaccines.

Understanding our significant contribution to the foundation of scientific research, which led a lot of the developments of vaccines through the National Research Council and investments in Mount Royal, can the minister now commit to those vaccines being made free and publicly available to everybody? I've only ever heard Liberals use the term “available”, but I haven't heard them say “free”.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I appreciate the interest in vaccines.

I believe that our Prime Minister, in response to a question from your leader, Mr. Jagmeet Singh, who also asked this question in the House of Commons, responded that, yes, the federal government would be covering the cost of vaccines for Canadians. That's what we mean when we use the terms “equitable access to vaccines”. We have to ensure that, if Canadians want this vaccine, they can have access to it.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

As it relates to our significant investments in the foundational work, the science that went into this, going back to the original SARS, we know that some countries are negotiating the right to share the intellectual property with the vaccine developers. Has Canada? If not, why not?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

It is a good question, and I really appreciate the importance of zoning in on intellectual property. You can imagine that suppliers of vaccines and any other bespoke product would be concerned about their intellectual property. As IP relates to vaccines, that is something we are focused on.

Again, we are not the supplier, so we don't own that IP. I'll ask the deputy minister if he could speak further on this topic.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

To redirect this, but I know that we'll have your staff with us in the second hour, and we only have limited time with you.

Notwithstanding the investments we made in the foundational science, has it been your prerogative in negotiations...? Again, I'm happy to send you the AstraZeneca contract that Brazil has. It's publicly available. They're negotiating IP. Given our foundational research on vaccines globally, has Canada also secured some of the IP on the vaccine development?

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Minister, please answer that question quickly.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I will just say that IP is a very sensitive topic in the negotiations, and we are still in negotiations with some of these suppliers. It's not the case that we don't want the IP, but you can imagine that it is the golden ticket for some suppliers, and it's not easily won over.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister.

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

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you, Minister, and welcome back.

I want to get to the topic of PPE and forced labour. We asked you and your department in one of our previous meetings about how we can be sure that we're not buying PPE and other items made with forced labour.

The New York Times has reported that the number of companies in the Uighur territory making PPE has gone from five to 50. They have reported that PPE made with forced labour is being shipped to North America.

We asked your department, and the comment that came back back was that you have a two-step process. One, the companies self-attest that they're not using forced labour. The second one is that you ask them to certify that their first-tier suppliers comply, and also that they haven't faced criminal charges in that country.

The Liberal government's recent appointment to the UN, Bob Rae, called China out on its treatment of Uighurs as genocidal. In light of that, are you comfortable with your department's answer regarding the word of a genocidal country that they're not using forced labour to make PPE to sell to Canada? Do you find that acceptable?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I share the concern about forced labour. It's not the case at all that I don't think it's a serious case. I appreciated Bob Rae's comments, which I reviewed in detail.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Minister, the question is do you find your government's—

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I want to also say that we are committed to ensuring high ethical standards.