Health Committee on March 18th, 2010

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Rosenberg, I wasn't satisfied with the answer you gave me earlier. So I am going to ask you again, simply to give you an opportunity to clarify.

The Minister said, right here in committee, that her objective was to eliminate the backlog by March 31. The Natural Health Products Directorate itself has an internal objective that it will simply have all of the backlog in the process. There is a very big difference between the political will expressed and what the administrative directorate is saying. Is this a common phenomenon?

[Morris Rosenberg]

I am going to do my best to provide a more satisfactory answer, but it may be that it will not satisfy you, in spite of everything.

As Mr. Butler-Jones said, this area, and I am not talking here only about natural products, but health policy in general, is very complicated. The data change frequently. Objectives are stated, but after some time we recognize that a fundamental change has taken place and we have to proceed differently. It happens. That does not mean that there is a lack of communication between the political level and the public service, but everyone has to be aware that we are working in a context where change happens quickly and the data change every day. That is the only explanation I can give. That will probably apply to a number of other cases where there has been a statement and changes as a result of the need to adapt to changing situations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg.

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask another question on the HIV vaccine facility. Why did the criteria change? When the original applications were requested, it was based on the production of...on a not-for-profit basis. As the government itself said at the time, it was to provide capacity to produce HIV vaccine and to be conducted mostly in and for the benefit of low- and middle-income countries.

Clearly something happened from the initial application process to February of this year, when suddenly it became acceptable for this vaccine to be produced on a private sector basis, since that's the only capacity identified in the Oliver Wyman study.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Thanks very much for the question.

Let's be clear, these are really important issues to be discussed. I'm quite transparent. I'm telling you everything I know. There is nothing about this that is hidden. In fact, the criteria at the outset were financial self-sustainability, governance and management, technical in terms of manufacturing and human resources, and global access. As I said before, all of the bids had limitations.

In terms of when the Government of Canada, with the Gates Foundation, decided a couple of years ago to move ahead with this as one of the aspects of the CHVI, the decision was that if we were to fund this, we would fund it as a not-for-profit thing. It was not that the whole issue can only be addressed by not-for-profit.

Since that time, as I've said—and there was not capacity, there was a challenge of capacity in the world—there is now capacity. The Gates Foundation, as you know, is very much concerned with the least-developed countries and access for low- and middle-income countries. They are confident in this and they have expertise in the international scene that we don't have, and others, and so we look to them, not just to ourselves, in terms of what is necessary.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you.

I do want to refer to the Oliver Wyman study itself, where it says, “An open and transparent process to identify a not-for-profit corporation with the expertise to build and operate the proposed facility was launched in 2007 and is still ongoing.” So it's clear that there was a change from the original criteria given to the bidders, from that point to the present, and I think that's a most unfortunate revelation. Because, in fact, it means that people went to a lot of work to abide by certain criteria and then were told it was over through no fault of their own. I think they need to have full explanations for why their bids weren't accepted.

I want to ask, though, how you will in fact meet the... We now have this report from Dr. Gerson, who says the capacity isn't there, and we have concerns from the Canadian HIV association, which says that you can't test a vaccine without a production facility and this new direction isn't going to provide it.

We now have comments from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, which has said that we've had unprecedented advances: the discovery of two new broadly neutralizing antibodies by a research consortium led by International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, and the results of a clinical trial in Thailand by the Thai ministry of health.

So we have clear developments in the world, and this was all supposed to come together in terms of this not-for-profit facility in Canada, and it is now gone. So Canada has a black mark and we've lost an important leadership role. On top of it all, the world-renowned facility in Winnipeg, which was told by numerous sources that it had won the competition, is now left trying to explain to the world why, with world-class researchers on HIV and AIDS, with a level 4 laboratory, and with a world-class institution, they're suddenly not able to win the bid, for reasons unknown to them.

For the sake of the reputations of scientists, of people have struggled so hard to put together a world-class facility, I think an explanation is owed.

I think, in fact, that you know as well as I do, Dr. Butler-Jones, that Winnipeg won the bid and suddenly new criteria came into play. For reasons that are unknown to any of us, something changed. It was global drug politics, or regional politics, or local petty politics. Something happened, and you've been asked to carry the can on this. You've been asked to try to explain something that is inexplicable.

In fact, I just want to quote from one of the news items on this. It is by Dan Lett, who, as you know, has done enormous in-depth research on this issue. In fact, he has said:

It is also known that the evaluation committee met for three days last May to make its final recommendations. And that following that meeting, several sources told ICID it had been chosen to host the facility.

ICID is the International Centre for Infectious Diseases. No one was surprised about it being chosen, because in fact ICID has a record for doing this kind of work, and its proposal was backed by the largest vaccine production facility in the world, Serum, and by the largest biotech producer in this country, Cangene. It had the backing of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. It had the support of numerous universities, including Manitoba, obviously, and Montreal. It clearly, as they were told, met the criteria and then some.

I think explanations are owed to them. I don't expect I'll get them today, but I will ask this one question. Will this government continue the annual funding of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative or the International Partnership for Microbicides? The lack of any news on these fronts is causing both of these organizations considerable anxiety. I just want to know: will that funding be continued?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Butler-Jones, before you answer that involved question, I just want to say this will be the last question. Following your answer, I will not be taking any more questions from the committee.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Darn. No more?

I think this conversation will continue. I do need to... The last question—I'll start there—is a new question to me. I don't actually have information on it, so we'll have to deal with that later.

But I do need to state again that some of the assumptions really are wrong. The criteria did not change. If we were to build a facility in Canada, our expectation was that it would be not-for-profit. But the generation of this was not the issue of having a not-for-profit. The generation at the time was that it was lack of capacity; that was the issue. Then what the criteria would look like for a plant in Canada was outlined—I read that to you earlier—and the criteria were not met.

I don't know who said it, or where it was said, or to whom it was said, but it was wrong. No one won. I've seen the reviews; I've seen the original proposals. There was one that had potential—that's how it was put, that it had “potential”—but still had a lot of work to do, so it wasn't there. It did not cross the bar to where it would be acceptable for funding. It's not that the criteria changed, it's that nobody crossed the bar.

Looking forward, it really was again the Gates study that identified the capacity. The world had changed. So the terms of the capacity out there...that identifies capacity that sometimes research may not be aware of. One of the things the Gates Foundation and we are interested in is to match researchers with the capacity out there, to have those things addressed, obviously.

Finally, if any of the applicants still have questions—there have been conversations, discussions, and that will continue—it's really important, if they're not satisfied with the answer, that they ask the question, because we're being quite transparent about their proposals and what the issues are. It's unfortunate that none of them crossed the bar. It is fortunate that in Canada we will have international access to new capacity for trial lots, and now we can use that resource for something that will be value-added.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Dr. Butler-Jones.

I want to thank our guests who came today to answer the questions. We appreciate it so very much.

I thank the committee for their insightful questions as well.

We will suspend for a couple of minutes and then go into the voting of the estimates.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Could I please ask committee members to take their seats?

I would like to go on to the voting on the supplementary estimates.

HEALTH

Department

Vote 1c—Operating expenditures..........$32,133,772

Vote 5c—Capital expenditures..........$241,000

Vote 10c—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$5,255,971

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Vote 25c—The grants listed in the Estimates..........$1

Public Health Agency of Canada

Vote 40c—Operating expenditures..........$52,863,518

Vote 45c—Capital expenditures..........$1

Vote 50c—The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions..........$1

(Votes 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, 40c, 45c, and 50c agreed to)

Shall I report the supplementary estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Now we're going to vote on the main estimates.

HEALTH

Department

Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$1,876,073

Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$37,718

Vote 10—Grants and contributions..........$1,382,680

Assisted Human Reproduction Agency of Canada

Vote 15—Program expenditures..........$9,929

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Vote 20—Operating expenditures..........$48,995

Vote 25—Grants..........$926,926

Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission

Vote 30—Program expenditures..........$4,980

Patented Medicine Prices Review Board

Vote 35—Program expenditures..........$11,163

Public Health Agency of Canada

Vote 40—Operating expenditures..........$406,216

Vote 45—Capital expenditures..........$36,774

Vote 50—Grants and contributions..........$203,200

(Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 agreed to)

Shall I report the main estimates to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay, everybody, the committee is adjourned.

Thank you so much.