Government Operations Committee on March 1st, 2022

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'd appreciate that, Minister. Obviously we're all sensing the urgency right now.

In the funding for wildfire and flood preparedness and response capacity, I see that there was funding rightly going to supporting initiatives like flood mapping, as well as scientific studies, in order to improve the capacity to respond to fires in national parks. In my riding, we have volunteer firefighters who've answered the call and helped their communities, especially last summer with the wildfires raging. They've been there for us throughout the whole pandemic. They get a tax credit of up to $3,000. They get a benefit. I've tabled a bill to raise that to $10,000. The PBO said it would cost $40 million.

How much of the funding here went to support these firefighters who risked their lives for their communities as volunteers? Also, are you considering our proposal?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you for your question and sharing the fact that we do have to make sure we help communities that go through these very difficult times.

Again, I don't have the specific answer. If you would let me look into it with the officials, we could respond to your question by letter.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you very much.

That's the time right there.

We'll now go to our last two questioners. We'll go to Mr. Lobb for five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, all.

In the last fiscal year that you looked at, how many hacks has the Government of Canada had on its different departments? Do you track that?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I don't have the specific number, but maybe one of the officials does.

Paul, would you have an idea of how many situations we've had?

[Paul Wagner]

For individual situations, we do have the number of hacks. The infrastructure and our environment are attacked daily, hourly and every minute. We have systems deployed to mitigate those situations. There are more situations that are mitigated than we actually have to deal with as incidents in departments.

In terms of the total number, I don't have that number with me, but I'd be happy to get back to you.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How many did you have to report to the Privacy Commissioner?

[Paul Wagner]

Again, I can include that number, but departmental heads and their officials are responsible for reporting those. That's not a Treasury Board Secretariat responsibility; it's a departmental responsibility as those hacks happen.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

In supplementary estimates (C), I read that there was an allocation for therapeutics as well. Do you recall that? It looked like a billion dollars.

What do you classify as a therapeutic?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

As I said earlier, we had rapid tests, therapeutics approved by Health Canada, which will be used to support people who have COVID, and also vaccines, so that's—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Specifically, though, there is a line item in there that says “therapeutics” at $1 billion. What is it? What products are you buying for $1 billion?

[Annie Boudreau]

Several potential treatments for COVID-19, including oral antivirals, are undergoing various stages of development and study as global demand is competitive. Access to effective treatments for infected individuals could reduce the severity of COVID-19 for individuals and reduce the strain on the health care system.

As you said, the supplementary estimates (C) include new funding of $1 billion to serve as a contingency fund that may be used for the purchase of additional treatments. More specifically, procurement of pharmaceutical products in short supply, such as Paxlovid, is done by the Government of Canada under the authority of the Minister of Health, and treatments procured will support provincial and territorial health care systems as well.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay.

Now, I know that all the individual health units across this country track shots administered, and they also track the number of shots that were not used and were thrown out. Do you have a number that is reported to you folks? It's part of your due diligence. If you're asked to spend $4 billion on a number of different things, you've been asked to spend a lot of money, so do you go back to the health department and say, “By the way, how many are you throwing out here?” It's a significant number, I think, in this latest round, so what's that number?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Our role as the federal government was to provide provinces and territories with vaccines and therapeutics, and when they go into the provinces and territories, that's when the provinces and territories have the responsibility of making sure they use what they receive.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Is there a way to report all that back so that, as taxpayers, we know that, okay, we've just thrown out two billion dollars' worth of vaccines? Is that a number that we would be able to get in this committee?

[Annie Boudreau]

That number should be provided by the Department of Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada. They would be able to provide that number.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I know. It would be nice if they reported it to you as well, I think.

Another question I have—I know my time is running out here—is in regard to this climate support for agriculture. It has been mentioned a couple of times. It's approximately $650 million. I'll admit that I raised a bit of a Spockian eyebrow when I saw that number, because I see that and I say to myself, in Bill C-12 they allocate $100 million to Canadian farmers in rebates for climate change, not knowing how much it is, and then I see this in here, with $650 million to go to farmers and other people around the world.

Tell me a little more about this situation. It doesn't seem right to me.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Again, the—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's a lot of money for farmers around the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

The time is up.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Would you like me to send you a letter with the information, MP Lobb? I'll work also with GAC, of course, which has the submission that comes with understanding what they do with the amount.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister. I'd appreciate it if you can provide that to us.

Just to be clear, when I mentioned earlier that there were two more questioners, that was out of respect for the minister's time. We will still have the officials here after that for further questions, for another half-hour, but the minister said she would stay for the hour.

We have Ms. Thompson, our last questioner, for five minutes.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister.

Could you explain how the supplementaries and Bill C-10 both fund rapid tests?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Well, as we explained earlier, our priority is to make sure that Canadians have access to rapid tests. In this case, we had to find paths to get there, and we found two paths: one through a supplementary estimates (C) request, and the other one through legislation. Now, as we said earlier, the path that goes faster will give us the opportunity to move faster on this, and afterwards the other path will lapse.

That is what we're doing to make sure Canadians have access to rapid tests.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] in my riding, small craft harbours are incredibly significant.

I'm wondering if you could speak generally on the importance of small craft harbours to the government and if this is something that you see would be funded through the supplementary estimates.