Health Committee on April 14th, 2020

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, I'm not familiar personally with any specific information related to the question raised by the honourable member. It could also be a question posed to the Public Health Agency of Canada or Health Canada in respect of health data of Canadians, which is not a matter under our direct responsibility.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Your department actually has responsibility for managing PIPEDA, and as such, oversight of the Privacy Commissioner, so I'll ask. Has the government or any official internal to your department directed your department to prepare advice to the government on how to mitigate potential privacy issues related to using cellphone location data as part of a COVID-19 contact tracing system?

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, I would take the question of the honourable member on advisement and return with information to the committee to answer the question. It's not an area in my responsibility, working in charge of the industry sector, that I have a direct awareness of, or information.

I could provide the information and follow up with the committee.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Okay, you are the member who has been provided by the industry committee to answer our questions, and there is a lot of concern in the public about this right now.

Has the government or any official internal to your department directed your department to work with any private sector technology providers to assist in developing COVID-19 contact tracing systems. If so, has the department directed you or anyone else to begin negotiating the terms of individual data usage with these companies?

[Mitch Davies]

I am aware of a number of companies and offers from the private sector, from the non-profit sector, to assist the government, particularly in the area of supporting the use of data in contact tracing. There are actually offers that are already available through the private sector with anonymized data in that regard. That is my awareness of the question.

If there were specifics on any legal or other policy work that relates to the question raised by the member, we'd be pleased to provide that information. I apologize that I don't have that at hand.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm just wondering how you can be aware that the government is working with private sector entities to develop contact tracing methodology that uses individual data, yet not be prepared to come to committee to answer whether the government has directed you to start to address privacy issues or come up with mitigation strategies related to privacy issues that might be related to that type of work. It just seems odd to me.

[Mitch Davies]

I am in charge of the industry sector in the department. I don't have responsibility in my group for the framework legislation, for PIPEDA, for the specific matter that's been raised by the honourable member. I obviously will endeavour to take that question back to our department to ensure that it's properly addressed.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Are you aware of any work that your department might have done, any advice that's been provided to the government with regard to how to mitigate violations of individual privacy in a contact-tracing scenario?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Rempel Garner, thank you—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'd just like the end of my question. Everyone else got the end of their question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You're a minute and a half over.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

No, that was the stall for a technical issue. I am timing it.

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Whatever. You can cut me off. That's fine.

[Mitch Davies]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question and the importance of the question and I apologize for not having the specific area of responsibility whereby I could provide more information, but I certainly will endeavour to ensure that it is provided as a follow-up to the committee.

Thank you.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

We go now to Dr. Powlowski.

Go ahead, Dr. Powlowski, for five minutes, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

I have a couple of things in response to Matt Jeneroux's point about the WHO not showing up. I too share the disappointment that it didn't happen, although perhaps for different reasons, and I hope maybe we can reschedule.

As to Dr. Attaran's comments and his urging us to enact urgent legislation requiring the province and the federal government to share data information and make that information transparent, I think it was well said and a point well taken. I hope we can get your modelling as soon as possible, and perhaps we can ask you at a later date to appear again before the committee after we look at that modelling.

My questions are really to Dr. Strong and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

You did admirably well in making this contest and opening it to academics across the country in order to come up with proposals for projects related to COVID-19. I think they were given eight days. It was phenomenal that you were able to get that done so quickly, and now all these proposals have come in.

I see they concentrate on certain themes. I think there are some 13 different projects looking at rapid diagnostic kits and there are a whole bunch looking at protease inhibitors as a form of treatment. There are a whole bunch of groups, each taking a different approach, so it's like you're funding a bunch of horses in a horse race. It seems to me that's the way that science is generally done. It's a kind of competition, and the first horse getting across the line wins. Obviously, here it would be advantageous for the different groups to co-operate. We don't care which horse wins; we just want one of the horses to get across the line first—again that might require some co-operation—and speed up the process of science, because I think the process of science is, by its nature, a little slow. You do studies and you have those studies published and the information is disseminated to the scientific community. They go to conferences, and this generates more studies. It all takes time, and again, we don't have a lot of time.

For example, with the rapid diagnostic test kits, I would imagine there are a bunch of hurdles that are required for any group trying to come up with such kits. One group may be able to get over that first hurdle rather easily but stall on the second and third hurdle, whereas another group may stall on the first hurdle but be able to get over the second and third hurdles fairly quickly, so it would be useful to require those different groups to share the information.

There was some mention of real-time sharing among some of the organizations. Maybe you could tell us a bit more about how you're trying to get those different groups to coordinate and share their knowledge to try to get us to the end point as soon as possible.

[Dr. Michael Strong]

I thank the hon. member for the question. It's indeed quite timely. We've already begun the process of which he speaks.

It is quite accurate that it would be nice to have the first one over the line. I don't care what horse it is, but we want to make sure that everybody is pushing their horses together to get across, so we have developed a number of knowledge translation venues. We have already done two of these, bringing together, in a virtual manner like this, those teams to have these discussions about where they are in this research. They had to do this as part of their grants.

Very important to us also is to know where the hurdles are, and the way you've described them is very apropos. Where are the hurdles they are running into or that are slowing the process down, and what can we, as the CIHR, do to help move the process along and further it?

It is happening very much in real time. As you say, it is a different way to do research as an investigator. We are forcing the sharing of data in real time and we are forcing modifications to be made in real time, based on that sharing.

I hope that answers your question.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Yes. That was good.

The other thing is this. In the process of a bunch of different groups looking at, for example, a protease inhibitor as a possible form of treatment, I think that in the normal course of things, this may lead to someone patenting the medication. Then when it's on the market, obviously there are restrictions on the use of the product, because it's under patent. Will anything that comes out of this research be subject to normal rules of patent? Is there some way that we can guarantee that this is for the benefit of all Canadians?

[Dr. Michael Strong]

Thank you very much for the question. It's an important one. It's actually a worldwide question as well, because there are over 400 different studies going on in the world right now, looking at a whole variety of things.

Let's take your example of a protease inhibitor. If it is shown to have efficacy, the way that these studies have been designed and the way the funding has moved forward mean that this would move forward rapidly to scale up without having to worry about the IP protection component in there.

Obviously at some point down the road, yes, there's going to have to be a conversation around that, but not in the midst of a pandemic. We are looking very carefully and critically with our governmental partners right now at what this next phase will look like, because what we have funded through the first phase will identify these extremely promising candidates. Now we need to move to the next phase. That's where the work is happening as we speak.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Dr. Powlowski, thank you.

We now go to Mr. Perron.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to come back to the temporary foreign workers. There is no question of not letting them in, since they are essential, experienced and efficient workers. The goal is to properly manage their arrival. I would like to hear from Mr. Attaran on that.

At a time when strict lockdown measures are being imposed in Quebec's regions, some housing and infrastructure are not suitable for quarantine, and surreal fines are being given out—even threats of prison—and they encourage turning people in. In addition, all this is being blamed on farmers.

Do you think this is the right way to do it and this is safe? Do you not think that the federal government should manage the quarantine from start to finish?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Could you repeat your question, please? I lost audio for five seconds.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Okay.