Health Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2020

[Heather Jeffrey]

Well, the numbers throughout this process have been very fluid. About a week ago, we had almost no one requesting assistance or registered with us as living in Hubei province. Now we have much larger numbers. We have, as of a few hours ago, 312 seeking departure and 563 Canadians registered with us as being in Hubei province. Our picture is much clearer now than it was even just a couple of days ago.

We're working with that. We have a number of options in play. Minister Champagne spoke earlier today and talked about the different options on the table. We're working with our allies for cases—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

The question was, how many planes? Is there going to be more than one?

[Heather Jeffrey]

I think it will depend as we continue to reach out for Canadians. Every day—and every night, given the time zones—we're in contact with them as we explain the process, the timelines, the procedures on arrival in Canada and the 14-day period of observation. Canadians are making their own decisions, so the numbers will fluctuate.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

We all know that the World Health Organization just recently declared a “public health emergency of international concern”. They were pretty explicit that one chief reason for that declaration was that they are not confident that other nations have the necessary resources to adequately deal with the coronavirus.

I'm wondering how Canada has responded to that. So far, we've been focused on people coming from Hubei province. Now, with the possibility that this virus is going to other countries that may not have the same vigilance—and I think there's been quite a consensus that China has done a very good job of containing this—how do we respond to passengers who are perhaps coming from countries that may not have the same rigorous standards to deal with this? How has that affected our border entry controls and how we might be dealing with that?

[Paul MacKinnon]

I can jump in, Mr. Chair.

To my colleague's point, our officers are trained from the moment they join Rigaud to do this very work on a daily basis, so in some sense, they rely on their standard operating procedure to always be checking for individuals who may be arriving at Canadian airports showing signs of illness. Certainly we are more focused on the questioning we have about whether they are coming from Hubei province. That questioning is working well for us at this point.

Then more broadly to the question, Mr. Chair, we rely upon the skill set that our officers have for the way they work on a daily basis.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Kitchen, go ahead for five minutes.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here. I greatly appreciate that.

I'll actually follow a little bit more on what Mr. Davies was asking you, because the reality we were presented with was that initially you put policies in place for Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Now we hear that they are in Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Ottawa, Billy Bishop, Quebec City and Halifax. One assumes that's because people are travelling from other countries and coming in.

That leads me to other airports that have international flights. For example, Regina and Saskatoon have international flights. Is there a process in place?

Then I'd like to take that even a step further. What about our land-based CBSA officers? What are you doing to train them, to educate them, to put up signs to show as people enter Canada in land-based areas?

[Paul MacKinnon]

I'll try to go quickly to save your time, Mr. Chair.

We have daily calls with our regional directors general right across the country. Denis is part of that with me, as are all the other ADMs at the agency. We keep them up to date in their shift briefings that happen right across the country in terms of what's important for the officers to know vis-à-vis the health and safety of those officers. That's something that's done right across the country.

Just a general point I would make, Mr. Chair, is that as my colleague Heather said, this situation remains fluid. At the present time, our assessment is that we're confident with the measures we have in place at the airports, in addition to the airports we added on Saturday, but we're on this 24-7 and we depend upon the best advice from our health care professionals to determine how we might want to either ramp up or ramp down our activities at the border.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Are our land-based officers trained in this way, and are you updating them daily?

[Denis Vinette]

I can take that one.

Absolutely. We have put out a couple of products for our officers that go to all officers at all ports of entry to raise their awareness. One is an occupational health and safety bulletin about how to take the proper precautions in the event you come across someone who is ill, not just for this particular virus but with anyone who is ill. It is a refresher on the operating standards. As well, there is a bulletin on how to deal with individuals who may have travelled and who have declared that they have been in Hubei province. Our land-based officers all have access to and have been briefed on the same information that staff at our airport operations have.

That being said, anyone travelling through the U.S. has gone through a commensurate verification and checking in the U.S. We talk to our U.S. CBP counterparts on a regular basis to make sure we are operating to the same standards, and we therefore rely on each other to ensure that we are not passing on someone who may be symptomatic unbeknownst to the other.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

We know the virus is droplet-based, and the reality is that the droplets get onto things. You indicated that you've increased the disinfecting process for border kiosks. How often are you doing that? Is it once a day, once a week? Define for me what that process is.

[Denis Vinette]

There are two components to this. One is that there are the areas for which we are responsible, so we've equipped our officers with the necessary materials to be able to disinfect the surfaces. If you think of a standard PIL booth, the desks, if you go to immigration or what we call secondary for further processing, we've equipped them with disinfectant for those areas.

Then we work with the airport authorities who own and operate the kiosks that you see in the airports, and they're doing it multiple times a day. I can't give you an exact number, but we confirmed before coming here today that in fact it is occurring multiple times a day at all of the airports.

We've balanced that with making sure they also have access to hand sanitizers and further materials.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

To go further along those lines, let's take that droplet-based virus to the plane that initially came here. Can you tell us what was done with that plane when it came to Canada, once we knew that we had someone here with the virus? Was that plane taken out of commission? Was that plane kept from going? What was done to sanitize that plane?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, I can't speak to whether the plane itself was taken out of commission. What I can note is that all airlines do have existing standard operating procedures for grooming the aircraft between flights and after flights. We've been working with the Public Health Agency of Canada to provide them with more information about what particular—

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Do we know where that plane is right now?

[Aaron McCrorie]

No, we don't.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Okay. Thank you.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You're out. Thank you, Mr. Kitchen.

We'll go now to Mr. Kelloway for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I want to thank the panel for coming here today.

You've been speaking of the coordinated and connected efforts of all of your departments. I guess that's probably apt for my question. It's a good segue. Can you describe any support that the Canadian government is providing to lower- and middle-income countries to support their response to this virus?

[Heather Jeffrey]

Related to your question, obviously one of the important aspects of humanitarian assistance that our department contributes to is responding to requests for assistance from different countries. In some cases, we are providing supplies, first of all to the Government of China in their efforts to combat this outbreak and stop the spread of the illness.

Through global health authorities and international development assistance, we are providing important supports to many developing countries in terms of training, additional assistance and protocols. Canada's expertise in the field of vaccine development and other supports is well known. We contribute as well to global efforts to develop vaccines for new pandemic threats. Indeed, as announced in the G7 two weeks ago, we are contributing to efforts to develop a vaccine to combat this particular coronavirus. There are a number of different avenues, ranging from concrete delivery of supplies all the way through to vaccine development chains.

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

Thank you for that.

I have a secondary question, not quite connected to the first one. I guess it may be subjective, or it may be objective. I'm not sure.

Do you expect that we'll get to a level four in terms of travel to China? Is this something that you feel you can address? That's for anyone on the panel.

[Heather Jeffrey]

We develop our travel advice in consulting a wide range of sources. Obviously the travel health notices are developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada, with their medical expertise. That is separate from the travel advisories that Global Affairs Canada has published across a wide range of different considerations, ranging from safety and security all the way through to border and other controls and different aspects of a country's context.

Currently we have a level four advisory for Hubei province because of the draconian nature of the quarantine and restrictions. We don't see that yet across all of China. There are still opportunities for commercial travel in and out of airports in China, etc., but we're carefully monitoring it on a day-to-day basis. We upgrade that advice on a 24-7 basis, based on new inputs.

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

Wonderful.

Do I have time for another question, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes.

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

It's a question from a constituent of mine. I was on the phone chatting with him. Do travellers have the right to refuse health screenings? I think we've touched on it a bit here, but do they have the right to do so?