Health Committee on April 14th, 2020

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Excellent.

Staying on the line of businesses and products, Canadian businesses as we know are retooling to create products to assist in the fight against COVID-19. What's the most common retooling you're hearing about?

[Mitch Davies]

I'll give two examples that are quite important. In the area of medical gowns, the bottleneck that we had to solve was the provision of a textile to make the medical gown that would have the level of protection required in the hospital setting.

In this case we worked with Intertape Polymer and Autoliv, two companies that don't provide textiles typically for this kind of product. One is actually used for house wrap and one is used for car airbags. Those companies went through testing to ensure that their product, the textile created, when put in gown form would provide the level of protection required in the hospital setting. Those two products are now allowing us to unlock a huge scale-up of seven million or more gowns, which are being made from Canadian fibres. Therefore, we're solving that supply chain for medical gowns, which was a critical issue, to meet the needs of the front line.

That is also important in terms of sanitizer. We've connected with distillers and alternative support to create sanitizer and we've now been able to procure over 10 million litres of sanitizer from some Canadian sources that were not previously available. It's a very large-scale redirection of productive capacity to the needs of the front line.

I could add masks, surgical masks, to that as well, and also the face shields. We've seen a number of companies that have been able to use a common design, which is approved, and scale this up across their operations. Particularly the automotive suppliers have been very relevant. There's a lot of capability there in terms of plastic and large-scale manufacturing, and they've been able to successfully redirect their efforts to provide this critical PPE.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Excellent. I have one last question.

Can you tell us a little about the research projects that received funding through ISED? I'm really looking at how the research complements the work that CIHR is doing. Can we talk a little about some projects in particular and the interdisciplinary approach to research?

I believe the chief science adviser, Cara Tannenbaum, is somewhat involved, if not involved greatly, in this particular effort to ensure there's an interdisciplinary approach to the research.

[Mitch Davies]

Among the departments—the Public Health Agency, us, CIHR—and also involving the chief science adviser, we're looking overall at strategies to support medical countermeasures, which involves, of course, research, innovation, the industrial response required, biomanufacturing and so on. There is a very interdisciplinary process to bringing in all the different streams of advice that are needed to make critical decisions on what to invest in and what the most promising initiatives are that the government can support.

I'll mention a few examples of the more industrial-scale projects that have been announced. AbCellera is a company in Vancouver that's being supported in working up clinical work on antibody therapy. Also, a company out of Quebec City, Medicago, is working on a vaccine trial but also the technology to scale that up into manufacturing, which needs to be proven out. It's a plant-based approach to scaling up the vaccine, which could hold the promise of being able to achieve scaling in a shorter time period than using some other methodologies that have been used in the past.

Those projects are being reviewed by all the departments and agencies that have equities in the question, to be able to bring to bear the scientific, technical and manufacturing advice needed to make the best possible decisions.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

Let's go now, Mr. Thériault. You have two and a half minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question is for the officials from Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Citizenship and Immigration.

During a pandemic, health relies on food safety. Right now, our agricultural producers are under enormous pressure, as they have to decide whether or not to go ahead with production this year. Some are reluctant to do so because of all the risks involved. If they decide not to produce, it would be quite catastrophic.

My question is twofold. First, the administrative process for foreign workers is cumbersome. Why not issue visas valid for more than a year to facilitate the process and get people into the fields faster?

Second, what do you plan to do and when are you going to announce an AgriStability program that addresses the crisis we're facing and encourage farmers to move forward and produce rather than to skip a year of production?

[Steven Jurgutis]

I can answer the second question, the one about AgriStability.

We are in ongoing discussions with the provinces to find a solution to help farmers during this period. The government has already announced some measures to help them, such as making more funds available for farm finances.

Certainly, agriculture is facing a number of issues, and that's why we are discussing other options, including making changes to various programs to help farmers.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

So you are open to the possibility of compensating them up to 90% and 85%. Compensating farmers at 90%, starting this year, would help them to produce. Otherwise, they may well skip a year of production.

Who is going to answer the question about visas? Every year, we have trouble getting foreign workers into the fields. Are you going to simplify this process and extend the visas to more than one year? Each year, the same workers are always taken on by the same farmers.

I am asking the official from Agriculture and Agri-Food or the official from Citizenship and Immigration to answer my question. I don't know which one is in the best position to answer.

[Steven Jurgutis]

I think there are two parts to your question, and I will let Mr. Massé answer the first part.

We issue work permits quite quickly and we align with the labour market impact assessments. That's the part I think you referred to where you'd like it to be usable year over year.

There is quite a lot flexibility built in, and has been built in, in recent years, around the agricultural group in particular. However, I'll leave that to Monsieur Massé.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Every year, people are late. They don't get there on time. It often takes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Thériault?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Monsieur Thériault, we're wrapping up questions.

We will go now to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, you have two and a half minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Professor Attaran, you mentioned that you submitted an epidemiological model today. In our last two and a half minutes, can you brief the committee on the highlights of your model, specifically with a focus on the extent to which Canada's testing capacity must expand in order to begin the process of reintegration?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Of course. Here is the model, which has been posted on the Internet while we've been speaking. I'll provide a link to the clerk. I'll also provide my personal phone number so that any of you who want to reach me later can do so without going through anyone, but please don't share it too widely. I do feel that you may want to look at the model and discuss some of its implications.

There's good news and there's bad news here. The good news is it appears that as a country—remember, we can't do regional analyses because the data are hidden—we passed the worst of the first wave. We are over the crest, which is wonderful. The other good news in our model is that it appears in Canada the virus is proving a bit less infectious than PHAC has estimated. We find it is on the low end of infection estimates that have been done in different countries and that also means a smaller problem.

The bad news is, as I tried to explain to you, we're all pre-immune. We're all still susceptible, so when we lift self-isolation and go out, many of us could get sick and some of us will die. What we need to do is, as you see here, just a bunch of little wavelets. We need to plan these wavelets, these epidemics that we are going to create on purpose, in a way that minimizes how many people die and proceed on the best schedule that we can so we're not shooting our economy through the foot more than we need to.

What the model ultimately says is that PHAC's model, the one they released last week, is terribly wrong and that the groundwork now needs to begin on sharing data more widely so a range of modellers inside and outside government can help you plan the reopening of this country safely. We all want to contribute to that. I just hope you please help us in our work by getting the data to us.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I have a quick question for Agriculture Canada.

Are workers who are working in meat production facilities required to wear personal protective equipment? How are they practising physical distancing in their work?

[Steven Jurgutis]

Thank you for the question.

It is not directly in my area of expertise, but what I can say is there are rules in place and I know that one of the issues has been making sure that the personal protective equipment does get to them. We're in constant contact with processors, meat packing companies and others to have those discussions and figure out how we can best help them to make sure they're ensuring that their workers are safe.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Is it a requirement, though?

[Steven Jurgutis]

I would have to verify what the specific requirements are. As I said, it's not directly within my area of responsibility—

[Steven Jurgutis]

—in terms of that we can [Inaudible—Editor].

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Fair enough.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Do I have more time, Mr. Chair?

I can't hear you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Sorry, say again?