Health Committee on April 15th, 2020

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

My next question is for Mr. Matthews.

You said a few things that I found very interesting. In my previous life, I was involved in overseas procurement. One thing we always had was boots on the ground wherever we were getting our product during manufacturing times, especially because, as you can tell, when demand is high, sometimes it shifts to a factory that you're not aware of, even though you're working with a known factory.

I'm just wondering why PSPC would not have its own boots on the ground. Why would you leave that in the hands of the manufacturers? Otherwise, you wait until it gets here in Canada to find out that something has gone wrong.

[Bill Matthews]

I think it's a bit of a mixed answer, Mr. Chair.

PSPC is largely based in Canada. In our traditional procurement, we would be dealing with a Canadian supplier, who would be our interface with the manufacturer. As the member notes, she has a background in procurement, and in times of high demand you have to take a different approach.

The approach that we have used in terms of boots on the ground is to work with our embassy, number one. We do have people on the ground in China, and they—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Are they health care professionals? Will they understand the level of quality that you're looking for?

Can they go to those factories and actually look as it's being manufactured and do the checks there, rather than doing them here in Canada?

[Bill Matthews]

Partly, yes. We have the embassy, but then we supplement that with some third party expertise, people who do have that kind of expertise.

On the ground in China, we are doing a few forms of vetting. Number one is vetting the company, the manufacturing facility itself, just in general. Understanding which manufacturers in China are able to export easily and which ones are not, as well as which ones produce medical-grade products, is very important.

Then we have made some adjustments on the fly, as I mentioned, to actually receive products on the ground. There's a quick inspection done in most cases. For some types of equipment, and N95 masks are a great example, you actually need a machine to do a test—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Can you bring that machine to the factory, or can that test only be done in Canada?

We would often get samples, and then we'd check the samples.

[Bill Matthews]

We are doing the testing in Canada now. When we started, we were doing it elsewhere. The testing is done in Canada. We are testing batches, so—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

It's not in China, then.

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, the testing of the N95 masks is not being done in China right now. We are looking at ways to accelerate the testing to improve quality, but the feedback that we—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'm sorry. I do have one more question. I want to get that in during my five minutes. Sorry.

My other question is in regard to what you said about having ongoing orders year after year. Back in the day, when I was doing sales, we would always do a year-to-year comparison. Of course, in the private sector, if you lose a sale, it doesn't look good on the bottom line. Do you guys have something in place for checking your year?

I realize there's no monetary reward for making sure that everybody is buying what they need, but you would maybe have noticed that some orders were being missed if you had that kind of year-to-year comparison, or perhaps a five-year comparison.

[Bill Matthews]

I think that given the circumstances we're in right now, Mr. Chair, year-to-year is.... I don't want to say it's meaningless, but we are in a world where the volume is very far above what we're used to. We're dealing with companies that we've never had to deal with before, so—

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Right, right, exactly, but in the job that I used to do, you would always kind of look to where the sales had been in the past so that you could ensure that those people who did have stockpiles would be actually maintaining those as things were beginning to expire, just to maximize what's out there.

[Bill Matthews]

Obviously, vendors' performance and track records are very important to us, so we did reach out to the existing relationships we had and grab things off the shelves. Performance is critical.

Maybe I'll stop there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mrs. Jansen.

Mr. Thériault, it's your turn again. You have two and a half minutes.

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

Excuse me, Chair, but am I not next on the rotation?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I apologize.

Dr. Jaczek, it is to you. You have five minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses we've heard from today. Perhaps, at this rather depressing time in Ontario with the peak of the first wave, hearing from CMHA and Ms. Eaton has been particularly important.

I'm going to take a leaf out of my colleague Tony Van Bynen's book to perhaps inject a little optimism. To quote Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” Hopefully people will be able to see some light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you so much to CMHA for all you've been doing, and with the new health web portal that was announced by Minister Hajdu today, of course we know you're going to continue to do some very good work.

My question is for Dr. Liu. Dr. Liu, at this committee we've been hearing quite a bit about the role of the federal government vis-à-vis the provinces, which of course have a major role in health care delivery in our country, and even the role of local health authorities. The federal government has been issuing national guidelines on a number of different subjects related to the use of PPE and also on care in long-term care facilities, which were issued by the Minister of Seniors federally.

I'd like your opinion on how the current situation is working in terms of what we hope is a very collaborative approach. Do you see the need for, perhaps, the federal level to go beyond guidelines in a pandemic situation?

[Dr. Joanne Liu]

It's a tricky question and it's a good question. I think we've been facing that regularly, but not to this extent. To a certain extent, to make it short, I think in times of a pandemic, when everybody is facing scarcity of resources, there should be an enhanced role for the government at the federal level because it has the helicopter view. Everybody else has the provincial view. I think there is some real added value in that respect.

For example, if you look at the supply of ventilators, the expert panel will say, “We have this many ventilators.” How are we going to redistribute the extra 50,000 ventilators that the federal government has? Who has the helicopter view? It's more at the federal level than at the provincial level. It can try to make an equitable redistribution that responds to needs.

There is also, it seems, this thing about “every man for himself", but we need to accept that there might be some places.... If we were to have a scenario like New York's in, let's say, Quebec, I would hope that people chip in. We've seen it recently, when we got help from the west.

This needs to happen, with an enhanced role for the federal government. If they always have this helicopter view and then help with the redistribution in a collegial way, it might be helpful. I know that is a very slippery slope, knowing that most of what is happening is at the provincial level.

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

You've mentioned provision of personal protective equipment. Are there other areas? There have been suggestions that data collection has been varied and people are not using the same methodology in terms of use of tests. Even you mentioned in your opening statement that health care workers should be tested on a regular basis if they're working with COVID-19 patients.

Do you see other areas beyond PPE where there should be an enhanced role for the federal government during a pandemic?

[Dr. Joanne Liu]

I think it's largely about resources and making sure that if we are facing adversity as a country, we can also come together as a country to help each other and to enact it when it happens. It should be as well in terms of human resources and competencies, and yes, we should have harmonization of data collection and have the same definitions for things. For me, there is a real role for harmonization in how we do things, without being a dictatorship. It should happen, because if we could speak the same language, we would therefore get a much clearer view of what is going on across the country to help each other.

I do hope that solidarity will kick in between provinces and territories.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, doctor.

It's now Mrs. Vignola's turn.

Mrs. Vignola, you have two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I have a question for Mr. Matthews. I also have some questions for Ms. Liu and Ms. Eaton, but I have only two and a half minutes.

You said that you purchase disinfectants from Fluid Energy Group. Where exactly do the disinfectants used by this company come from? Does the company manufacture the disinfectants itself or does it purchase them from somewhere else?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for your question.

In the case of Fluid Energy Group, the company manufactured the hand sanitizer itself.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay. I know that a number of distilleries, in both Quebec and Canada, have changed their production to manufacture various disinfectants. Therefore, I wanted to know whether these companies were supplying Fluid Energy Group.

I know about the global shortage of reagents for testing. I'm wondering about the type of reagent, whether an alternative reagent exists that's as good, safe and reliable in terms of results, and whether we can produce it ourselves. Do we have the necessary infrastructure to do so?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you for the question. I am going to have to respond to this one in English. It's a little technical for me.

Reagent is a chemical necessary for the traditional testing. The main source has been from one company in the past, and there's a global shortage, as the member mentioned, Mr. Chair, so we are now using companies in Canada to manufacture reagent to fill the gap, and that comes with its own challenges. There is a certain kind of chemical called guanidine, which is a little challenging to procure, but we have some already and we're buying more, so we are well on our way to making reagent in Canada to fill in the gap because of the global shortage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I have lost the interpretation for Ms. Vignola.

How is everyone else doing?

Ms. Vignola, would you check your microphone, please? Something changed, because when you started, you were perfectly okay. Can you make sure you're speaking into your microphone? I see you have a headset. Try that. There is nothing.

Let us suspend briefly while we sort this out, please—