Evidence of meeting #2 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was products.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Is it possible to table the dates on which the scientific review committee met?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I just don't have them.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you.
I am going to ask the same thing: was there ever a recommendation made by the scientific committee, and if so, by whom?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
The scientific committee did the scientific review and then made their recommendations based on that. Then there was the internal review in terms of sustainability, administrative capacity, and so on that was also part of the criteria. Overall, when that was put together, none of them passed the bar.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Did the scientific expert review put forward any recommendations?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, they had a ranked order.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
That is, ranked in terms of “preferred”. But at the end of the day, no one passed the bar for the total proposal.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
So was it the steering committee that made the decision that this not go forward?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
No, that ultimately is an agency decision and recommendation, based on the scientific factors. But also, there's more than scientific merit in actually building the facility and maintaining it.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
As part of the criteria when they were submitting their bids, did those groups know that this was part of the requirements?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, it was all listed.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay.
In the Gates study, the focus appears to be on the quantity rather than the quality of facilities and GMP standards. How do you respond to that?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Again, we're talking about a facility for doing trial lots, and there's been a dramatic.... Recognizing, as we did and as the Gates Foundation did a few years ago, that at the time there was not capacity for doing trial lots for research purposes, which is one of the steps in terms of developing a new vaccine.... Since that time, academic institutions and others have come to the fore, and this has made that requirement substantially less. There are many other things that require some investment to move this agenda forward, so we will apply it there.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay, thank you.
What was the publishing date of the Gates study?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
That I don't have handy, but we can....
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I'm sorry, I don't recall. It was over a period of time in the past year, but I don't have the—
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Could we table it? It's my understanding that it was published in July of 2009.
What I can't figure out, and perhaps you could explain it to me, is why, two years into the process, with millions of dollars invested—for example, ICID spent $750,000, and I know others spent $250,000—a due diligence study was undertaken, two years into the process.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
It's because there was a due diligence; capacity was looked at. The Gates Foundation, we ourselves, and others working in the field recognized when the process started that there was a capacity issue. The capacity issue was addressed.
That capacity issue was not addressed two years ago or three years ago; it was addressed in the past year and a half. You can only assess the capacity at the time, and the capacity at the time had changed. So that review identified that the capacity had changed.
In the meantime, we had found that none of the proposals crossed the bar. That then requires a decision: do we do another proposal? But given what the Gates Foundation review found, there was not much point in going to another proposal or expanding on the existing....
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay.
Can you please tell me why, if the study was indeed published in July, cancellation of the facility did not occur until February?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
There are several things to look at. One is the proposals themselves and understanding the implications for them. The government obviously always wants to have the best investments possible, and to review its options with the Gates Foundation as a key partner in the facility and in the initiative moving forward, and all of that. Those discussions take time. That's where we are.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay. I'm going to now move to listeriosis, if I may.
Is it possible to get a tabled report of each of the 57 recommendations and what action has been taken to date on each of those?
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I can speak to that.
There are obviously the recommendations from the Weatherill report. There are also the recommendations that came from the joint committee, which many of the members here were part of. Those are all being worked on in terms of being addressed. Many have already been addressed, and others are being worked on. I think there's a process in place to make sure those responses are all clear. I'm just not sure what stage it has reached.