Health Committee on April 14th, 2020

[Mitch Davies, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Industry Sector, Department of Industry]

Mr. Chair, committee members, good afternoon.

I will keep these remarks short, preserving time for your questions.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

The COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve rapidly. In the battle against this virus, Canada’s scientists, innovators and industry are working on multiple fronts to fight the pandemic.

On March 20, the Prime Minister announced Canada’s plan to mobilize industry to fight COVID-19. This plan introduced measures to directly support businesses to rapidly scale up production or retool their manufacturing capacity to develop products made in Canada to help meet the needs of the front lines of the health care system. Since that time, our department has received over 5,000 offers to help from businesses across Canada.

We are reaching out to each of these businesses to explore their offers and have moved many forward into new partnerships. As a result, Canada is securing the capacity to produce necessary medical equipment and supplies.

For example, we are purchasing critical made-in-Canada ventilators, securing new supply chains to produce medical gowns, producing large volumes of disinfectants, and producing and procuring surgical and N95 masks. At the same time, we have issued challenges to innovative companies to support research and development on new technologies and products.

We are also working with the life sciences industry on treatments that will help Canadians who become infected and on vaccine research to provide population-level immunity for all Canadians. In all of these efforts, Canadian researchers and businesses are stepping up to meet this challenge, and we will continue to support them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

I'm still not seeing Mr. Massé. If he comes on later on, we may take a break in the questioning to let him give his presentation.

At this point, we will start our questioning. As noted, we have an agreement amongst all parties for three rounds of questions. We will start with Mr. Jeneroux.

You have six minutes, Mr. Jeneroux. Please go ahead.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Just to be clear, Mr. Chair, if the witness does come back on, I hope it won't interrupt my round of questions, but will be after my round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Certainly, if that's what you prefer, yes.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Yes, please. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I want to take my time to highlight how disappointing it is that Bruce Aylward, a Canadian adviser to the WHO, has at the last minute decided not to appear and has not offered to be rescheduled at a later date. This is unacceptable.

Since December, the WHO has been updating citizens around the globe on the impact of COVID-19. First, Dr. Tam did make herself available to take questions, and now the WHO is pulling out. This committee has the explicit mandate to “meet for the sole purpose of receiving evidence concerning matters related to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

I want to take this time to point out some facts that I was hoping Mr. Aylward would be able to address, but seeing that he has decided not to come and to hide from any accountability, I will simply read this into the record.

There is absolutely no doubt that the WHO has been slow to recommend concrete measures, which has negatively affected Canada's response to the virus. In fact, the WHO has gone above and beyond to congratulate and thank China for its response, which has been to mislead the world on the gravity of the virus. Taiwan, a country that effectively flattened the curve and contained the virus by proactively implementing enhanced border screening measures before China even admitted to having a new disease, is being completely ignored and disregarded by the WHO and Mr. Aylward particularly.

I want to highlight some of the evidence that proves the need to have the WHO attend as witnesses and answer questions, because the WHO's response has affected Canada's response.

First, the WHO stated that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. That statement was used to develop Canada's response in January. Fewer than 10 days later, the WHO announced that the virus was in fact spreading through humans, and yet it still kept the risk assessment for the world as moderate. In fact, Dr. Tam used Canada's legal obligation to the WHO as an excuse not to implement travel bans. She said that due to the fact that the WHO was not recommending travel bans, we could not do so for fear of being called out. Our government was more fearful of being called out by the WHO than protecting Canadians. This deserves clarification from both the WHO and Dr. Tam.

As the WHO continues to praise China's approach after announcing over 8,000 deaths, Taiwan is producing four million masks a day and providing them to front-line workers and consumers for their safety. Again, I remind Canadians that the WHO refuses to include or acknowledge Taiwan's approach. Why was China being listened to and Taiwan being ignored?

In late February, as cases continued to mount and the WHO continued to discourage travel restrictions, and as our government continued to listen only to the WHO, a group of Chinese Canadian doctors urged mandatory quarantine of Chinese travellers in order to contain the virus and not overwhelm Canada's health system. The government refused to listen and instead continued to fear being called out by the WHO.

It took until March 11 for the WHO to declare a global pandemic. Numerous countries across the world were already seeing a significant rise in cases and the death rate was growing. There was no doubt that the virus didn't respect borders, that it was spreading fast and that there was no cure.

In March, after Canadians were being told to stay home, after day cares and schools were shutting down across the country, and after millions of people started losing their jobs, the government admitted that it was now closing borders and implementing mandatory self-quarantine of travellers. Our government started going against the advice of the WHO, even though Dr. Tam had earlier suggested our legal duties to the WHO.

However, this is about Mr. Aylward and the WHO's refusal to attend our committee today. I'm sure there will be opportunity in the future and at the right time to investigate why this decision was suddenly made, but that's for another time. There is no doubt there are mounting questions about including Taiwan in the WHO, a subject that Mr. Aylward clearly does not want to discuss. There is no doubt there are mounting questions about the continued praise of China as evidence grows regarding China's transparency. There is no doubt there are mounting questions about the WHO's refusal to recommend enhanced border measures and the use of masks. There is no doubt there are mounting questions about what the WHO will recommend in the future. For example, just a few weeks ago, it mentioned the removal of people and families from their homes and quarantining them as a possible scenario.

That is why I strongly urge you and the clerk to ensure that Mr. Aylward make himself available and that, as a Canadian adviser to the WHO and a senior adviser to the director general of the WHO, he appear before our committee. We are studying the impacts of COVID-19 on Canada and the government's approach, and he should have answers to Canadians' questions. We have serious questions about the WHO's data and who is really making these decisions that are impacting Canadians. This committee is an opportunity to ask questions that are on the minds of Canadians, and we need to hear from relevant witnesses in order to do just that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will cede the rest of my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Matt, are you done?

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Chair, I sure hope you were listening to at least my last comment, where I said I'd cede the rest of my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm having some audio issues. My headset went dead.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

How about I send you the written version?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Okay, I heard most of it, but thank you.

We will go now to Dr. Jaczek.

Dr. Jaczek, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will be trading my spot in the rotation with MP Van Bynen.

My questions and comments will be directed to Dr. Attaran.

First of all, Dr. Attaran, so you understand where I'm coming from, I was a local medical officer of health for some two decades here in Ontario and obviously coped with many outbreaks. Even during SARS, we were heavily involved in our health unit. The leadership we looked to at the time was, for sure, a provincial leadership in terms of public health response.

I think you can agree that with this pandemic we really are in an unprecedented situation. Clearly there is a need for a national coordination of public health responses. Thank you for being blunt. We are here as members of the committee to ensure that we listen to people such as you, take your good ideas and move forward in terms of incorporating some of those ideas in this truly unprecedented situation.

I want to ask you about the fact that the Government of Canada did enter into a multilateral information-sharing agreement with all provinces and territories in 2016, and that agreement did outline the public health information that must be shared with the federal government in the context of a public health emergency, which is clearly where we are now.

In your view, what types of challenges have been associated with that sharing of provincial and territorial public health information with the federal government? Could you give us some specific areas where you see that the agreement might need to be tightened up?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Doctor, thank you for your question. I'll be blunt with you back. That agreement should be torn up and replaced with a law, because it's a voluntary agreement that took a million years to negotiate after SARS.

I don't agree with your point of view that this is a unique situation. SARS was very close to being this, and after SARS, the federal government did a lessons learned study late in 2003, which said that if the provinces and federal government could not come to an agreement that was effective on information sharing, then Parliament should legislate. That was 2003. The information-sharing agreement you're speaking of came 13 years later, much too leisurely, and it still isn't legally binding.

When you have provinces that are slow to deliver information about the epidemic to the federal government, or do so incompletely or do so in formats that are not compatible with the others, making apples-to-apples comparisons impossible to do, this is frankly unacceptable, and it has gone on way too long since SARS. That information-sharing agreement is pretty words. It has not functioned during this epidemic. There are data possessed by the federal government that are not being given to independent scientists to work with. For instance, when PHAC places in the database a case of a person being hospitalized or a case of a person testing positive for COVID, there's no data released about which province that comes from. The province of origin is censored by PHAC.

What that means is that it's impossible for scientists to perform analyses that point you to the hot spots. Of course, in an epidemic, it's the hot spots that matter, but if PHAC is going to be slow sharing information from the provinces and then censor it so as to eliminate any evidence of hot spots, frankly this is, with the greatest of respect, incompetent and it should not be the case in a country as advanced as Canada. I see exquisite location data in the datasets of other countries, such as Singapore, but for Canada it's not there.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

Are there other areas apart from data collection where you have seen the need for greater consistency nationally? I believe you have alluded to self-assessment tools, which might lead to different medical guidance if they vary from province to province, or territory to territory. Could you elaborate a little on that?

[Prof. Amir Attaran]

Doctor, thanks for the question. You're referring to a study that we released last week with my Ph.D. student Brieanne Olibris.

As you know, each of the 10 provinces has a self-assessment tool on its health website, which basically asks Canadians, “Do you have a fever? Do you have difficulty breathing? Have you been travelling?”, a variety of questions like that. Depending on what the person inputs into this website, each province has its own.... They're all different. The person may be told they're in big trouble and to call 911 right away, or they may be told to stay at home or they may be told to call their family doctor. It depends, province by province.

We did a comparison of all 10 provinces. You'd like to see they're all giving the same medical information, because for certain things there's really only one medically correct answer. What you get is that this is not the case at all. Each province has created an assessment tool that doesn't match the other provinces. None of them match the official case definition of COVID from the Public Health Agency or the World Health Organization. This is just incompetent. I don't have a polite word for it.

The right way for the country to be doing this is to have a single health assessment tool that representatives of the provinces can agree on and the Public Health Agency of Canada can offer.

It must be available in both official languages, because it is important that it be offered to Quebecers as well.

Then this tool can be used by all provinces. We haven't done that. We're terribly disunited, and in some cases that disuniting is probably killing people. In a few provinces, if you use their self-assessment tool and you say you have a headache, the provinces tell you that it's not a COVID symptom, but of course headache is a COVID symptom. In some provinces people are receiving medically incorrect information about the disease, and that could really kill them. It's not something that should be happening.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Dr. Attaran.

Do I have any time, Mr. Chair? I'll just carry on, then.

In terms of epidemic curves in each province, have you looked at the different types of course that we see across the country? Ignoring for now your concerns related to consistency—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry, Dr. Jaczek. I apologize. My mike was on mute and I cut you off already. You're well over time.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We go now to Mr. Perron.

You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to meet you.

I would like to thank the witnesses who are here to enlighten us, especially Mr. Attaran, who brings a different vision and information that speaks to the concerns of many people.

As the agriculture and agri-food critic, I want to talk about temporary foreign workers and particularly about how the quarantine was planned by the federal government. This responsibility was offloaded onto the backs of the provinces and Quebec. I consider quarantines to be a matter of public safety. They involve people coming into the country, so it is a federal responsibility. We can all agree that these workers are very important, that they are welcome and that they are essential to our food security.

I will direct my question to the officials from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration and, if Mr. Massé has not returned, to Ms. Cosgrove of the Department of Employment and Social Development.

Do you really believe that the way it was decided this week to manage quarantines and to delegate all this responsibility to the provinces and to Quebec, as well as to the private organizations that have been organizing the arrival of the temporary foreign workers for a very long time, is the best way? These entities have experience in recruiting workers, not in quarantines. Many housing and transportation issues will vary greatly from one place to another, as will the temptation to work in certain communities. We MPs are connected to those communities, and people call us and tell us their concerns.

Do you think that is the best way to do it? Why did you not decide to centralize quarantines as a service to the farmers? They have enough on their shoulders.

[Matt de Vlieger]

Mr. Chair, I can begin, and if my colleagues wish to add anything, I invite them to do so.

Mr. Perron, thank you for your question.

The question is a little bit about the roles and responsibilities. I'll say something with respect to the temporary foreign worker program generally, and specifically about the measures that have been put in place for seasonal agricultural workers.

This is work that has been done in close collaboration across orders of government, both in terms of immigration ministries and public safety ministries, but also agriculture and employment or labour ministries at the federal level with provincial counterparts, discussing, certainly from a public health perspective, how to coordinate in making sure there is alignment with respect to measures for self-isolation and quarantine.

You are right to indicate that at the border that is a Government of Canada responsibility. In fact, it starts before the border. It starts, for those travelling from overseas in the air mode, with our Transport Canada colleagues, who have protocols in place for the screening of travellers when they get on an airplane. With the advice of the Public Health Agency, informed by WHO, advice for screening of those persons so that people who are symptomatic are not—

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

Forgive me for interrupting you, Mr. de Vlieger. You just mentioned that it is a federal responsibility when people enter the country.

Based on what Mr. Attaran said earlier about the importance of having uniform measures, do you not think it would be justified for the federal government to manage quarantines from A to Z and send the workers to the regions only after the quarantines are over?

I do not know how it works in the other provinces, but right now in Quebec, every region is in lockdown. It is forbidden to move from region to region. We are living in a surreal world where hundreds of people started arriving over the weekend and are scattered across Quebec with little to no quarantine control.

[Matt de Vlieger]

I thank you once again.

I can take it further into the jurisdiction. When foreign nationals are entering Canada, and for that period of self-isolation, the quarantine period of 14 days, that's where new orders are in place under the Quarantine Act, under federal legislation. It's under the Quarantine Act, and then the measures that I described from an immigration perspective, which apply not just to the foreign nationals but also to their employers during that 14-day period, so that the self-isolation protocols are enforced and the compliance is done on those.

You spoke earlier about transportation and how centres of quarantine happen. Perhaps my colleague from Employment and Social Development might be able to comment on some of those measures in place that handle the transit—

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

Mr. de Vlieger, we have measures requiring every employer to have housing with plenty of space for people to keep a distance, and that every common area be disinfected at least daily, but we think it is unreasonable to put that on the backs of farmers and private organizations.

[Matt de Vlieger]

I think my colleague from Agriculture and Agri-Food can speak to the new measures and the funding announced yesterday for employers.

Mr. Jurgutis, could you answer the question?

[Steven Jurgutis]

Yes, I might simply add, as I mentioned earlier, that funds are available and they will be shared among all employers so that the necessary measures can be implemented.

We are also in contact with organizations that arrange transportation and housing and, in Quebec, with the UPA, the MAPAQ and the Quebec government to find a solution together to help them in this regard.