Health Committee on April 14th, 2020

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

You just mentioned that this is to help with costs. Are any of your departments, whether it be Agriculture or ESDC, concerned that right now we have millions of Canadians who are unemployed? I have young people who are coming into the workforce and there are no jobs for them, yet we are essentially giving a $1,500 subsidy that lowers the cost for someone to utilize a seasonal agricultural worker, a temporary foreign worker, versus a Canadian who is without work.

Are you concerned about what signal that is sending to the Canadian people who are without a job at this time?

[Steven Jurgutis]

I can start with a response to that, as well.

Within the domain of agriculture, it has been proven necessary over quite a number of years that temporary foreign workers are required. This year, even with these additional provisions in place, it's certainly not going to be possible to get in all the temporary foreign workers who would be required within agriculture.

Therefore, we are looking at other initiatives, as well, and working with provinces and territories—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I raise this, sir, because the reality is that we have millions of Canadians who are without work. In your specific testimony earlier, in your opening statement, you started bringing up last year's numbers. When it comes to labour markets, last year and this year are like night and day.

I would go back to Mr. Massé.

Mr. Massé, you said that you're still processing LMIAs right now. Why would we be processing LMIAs right now that are based on information that is completely out of date? We have millions of Canadians without jobs. Why would your department continue to process those at this time?

[Philippe Massé]

As I mentioned, the travel ban did not restrict foreign workers entering the country to only agriculture. It's open to everyone. Of course, the labour market has changed. Our assessment process includes checks for the labour market situations. Employers must demonstrate that there's a genuine need, that they can genuinely fill that need.

In some occupations, there are specialized skills that Canada does not have, even in the context of—

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Instead of processing these applications, why is your department not immediately phoning employers who right now need cash and saying, “The labour force survey we just did and the unemployment numbers have made this LMIA moot. Do you still need this position? Can we connect you with a Canadian who has recently applied for EI to be able to fill these positions?”

Why are you not doing that?

[Philippe Massé]

As I said, we're adjusting to the current situation and responding to a number of pressures. This is something we're looking into in terms of how we manage intake into the program going forward.

As I mentioned, the decision didn't restrain employers from applying. We're assessing how we can better address those situations, and I take your pointed suggestion about more proactively reaching out to connect to Canadians as well. It's already part of our assessment. The employers must demonstrate how they connected with, in particular, under-represented groups.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

I believe that most people—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

—are going to work very hard to be able to meet quarantine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Albas.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Sir, could I just finish this question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You're already a minute and a half over. Be very quick.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Okay.

We have ESDC guidelines for quarantine. Let's say the workers have gone through quarantine and are happily working on the farm, but when they go to get groceries, they contract the virus. Who is responsible now for overseeing that particular issue if there is a community outbreak, such as what has happened in West Kelowna? Will it be the provincial government or the federal government that will have to take responsibility for the situation?

[Philippe Massé]

The federal responsibility for health requirements as it applies to foreign workers or foreign nationals covers the two-week quarantine period. After the two-week period, it's the responsibility of local public health officials.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

So in terms of people getting sick—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Albas, no more questions, please. You're already three and a half minutes over.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Albas.

We will go now to Ms. Sidhu.

Ms. Sidhu, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, panel, for providing all this important information.

I just want to let you know that this is the first government that has had the Prime Minister give a mandate letter to the ministers to set out their responsibilities. According to the mandate letter to the health minister, which I was just reading, the responsibility is to “lead the Government’s work to strengthen public health care”. I know this is a very tough time. We all know that we have to work together, and the Prime Minister said in the mandate letter to the Minister of Health to work with all the ministers.

Before I go there, I just want to tell Mr. Attaran that I was pleased to see our chief science adviser on CBC earlier this month. Dr. Mona Nemer has been instrumental in developing the COVID-19 expert panel on the COVID-19 problems we are all going through.

I want to ask CIHR a question. On March 6, $25 million was given to research, and $275 million in addition. How far are we advancing the vaccine, and how are our scientists, our researchers working with the international community? Are they participating and collaborating with the international community?

I just want to ask Dr. Strong or ISED or anyone to give me an update.

[Dr. Michael Strong]

Thank you very much to the honourable member. That is an excellent question.

Right off the top, one of the initiatives that we've been doing throughout the course of all this has been a highly integrated approach across various ministries to deal with this, specifically in working very closely with ISED as well as NRC in the area of vaccine development. Canada has world-leading expertise within the National Research Council on the development of vaccines and scaling up, so much of the $275 million in funding that you saw released by the government was really toward developing the industrial response so that Canada would have the capacity to provide therapeutics when and if they are available, specifically in the area of vaccines. I'll come back to that in just a second.

With respect to the funding that went out into the rapid response program, it was across a broad range of research approaches that were informed by our international colleagues. We continue to be aware and interlinked on the international front with initiatives being brought forward. For instance, to return to the core of your question on the vaccines, there are a number of different vaccines and different approaches that are available worldwide and are being looked at, at this moment. As we begin to look at scaling up for the ones that are the most promising in trials, we will be part of international consortia on those, with the ability to actually produce them in Canada.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

Over the weekend—

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Sorry, since a remark was addressed to me, could I please answer, Mr. Chair?

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Just after that.... I just want to ask this question. Over the weekend, Spartan Bioscience's portable test kit, Spartan Cube, was approved by Health Canada. How do you think this rapid testing will help flatten the curve?

[Dr. Michael Strong]

That's an initiative that received considerable funding over the course of years to develop that technique, and they were able to rapidly tool it forward. Particularly as we start to talk about this issue of how to reopen the communities after we come through this first wave, there's no doubt that direct testing in rapid timelines is going to be critical so that we know what the load is within the environment as we begin to release the social-distancing component. It's a very important advance for us to be able to do that in the half-hour that this testing comes forward with.

There are several other initiatives also being funded to do exactly the same thing but by different avenues, so that we have it covered.

It's a very important advance that will be of assistance to us, particularly as we start to come out of this.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.