Health Committee on Feb. 5th, 2020

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

I'm equally concerned about things that we can't treat with medicine, and that is the discussion that we've had around the discrimination. In addition to making up-to-date, evidence-based information available on the canada.ca/coronavirus web page and the travel.gc.ca website, as well as through a toll-free number, what can my colleagues and I do to address the misinformation that is circulating online to ensure that our Asian Canadians feel safe in their own communities?

[Avvy Go]

I'll go first, and I'm sure Kennes will have some other comments as well.

I really appreciate the question and the fact that you have identified that this is a concern that we should all address. In a way, having gone through the SARS experience, we are much more willing this time around to start talking about this issue as the outbreak just begins to emerge. I think the duty is upon all of us to find ways to disseminate correct and accurate information to counter some of the misinformation that is out there.

What we have done so far in Toronto is work very closely with Toronto Public Health. I would certainly encourage all MPs, within their own ridings, within their own cities, to work with the local public health agencies to develop a plan and disseminate information through the local networks.

At the same time, we think about utilizing different forms of media, because a lot of the stuff is going on through social media. Whatever information we develop must also be disseminated through social media. Even within our own community, within the Chinese Canadian community, there is this misinformation. That is why I emphasize that it's very important that all of the information—the science-based, evidence-based information—must be made available in different languages so that people will be able to access it. I'll be very frank. Many of my clients will not be going to the government website. They will be getting their information through other kinds of websites. For instance, 51.ca is a very common website that many Chinese immigrants access.

We have to make sure that our information is being delivered to other websites or that links are provided to other websites, working with the Chinese-language media and other language media to make sure that people in different communities are able to understand and access that information as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Ms. Kennes Lin, be very quick, please.

[Kennes Lin]

In addition to what Avvy said just now, I think that what we see currently is that social media has become such a powerful and dangerous tool. With the new coronavirus coming out, social media has become a platform that has allowed racism to be more overt, whereas a lot of the ideas these people have had in mind have been more covert racist kind of ideas. They use this unknown time to fuel moral panic, and now we see that social media becomes that platform. Ongoing anti-racism funding to support the work and organizations that have already been doing work on anti-racism also needs to happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Now we go to Mr. Thériault.

You have six minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, ladies.

First, I will make a comment, if I may. As representatives of the people and, therefore, as elected officials and legislators, when faced with a public health crisis, we must proceed according to the principle of accountability. No one here has anything to gain from stirring up sensitivities and suspicion around the spread of a virus.

We must speak in measured terms and we must all ask questions, because we represent the people, who are asking themselves questions. Our questions must, however, always be about forward-looking accountability, that is, what will happen tomorrow. We are accountable for what happens tomorrow.

When it comes to contamination and propagation—we are not talking about a pandemic yet and perhaps it will never get to that point—our words must be measured.

Fortunately, ladies, viruses certainly do not recognize gender or race, and they do not discriminate. Their one prominent feature is that they can mutate. I wanted to make one thing clear: we must not play petty politics here. Let us do politics in the noble sense.

The Public Health Agency of Canada told us to work closely with the various provinces and territories, as well as Quebec, particularly with public health services. We have an Ontario public health official with us. Here is what I want to find out.

We have heard about response and contingency plans. Do you have those plans? Could we get a basic idea of these response plans?

We have heard from people and been given updates, but no one has submitted anything to us in that regard. Would you be willing to table your response plan here, given that you represent one of the key public health services in Canada, as you said earlier?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Is your question for a doctor?

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Yes, I am asking Dr. de Villa.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, please.

[Dr. Eileen de Villa]

Like most public health units, we do have obligations. Let me speak to the Ontario context. I'll start there. In the Ontario context, we have something called the Ontario public health standards. All local public health departments are expected to adhere to those standards. One of those standards includes having emergency preparedness and response plans for all kinds of emergencies and all kinds of health hazards. As a local public health unit, we do indeed have an emergency response plan to deal with these kinds of situations.

I think the other important point to note is that it is within the regular work of public health to respond to infectious disease so as to mitigate the risk or the negative impact associated with infectious diseases. This is part and parcel of our work. It is what we do on a daily basis. Novel coronavirus is a new infectious disease for us.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I am sorry to interrupt.

Are you telling us that you have no specific response plan for the coronavirus? You have plans that you set up to deal with epidemiological issues. If you have such a plan—my question was very specific—could you send it to us?

To date, we have nothing on hand to measure public health response plans, either from Health Canada or the different provinces and territories.

[Dr. Eileen de Villa]

To answer the question specifically, I'd be happy to share with you what we have with respect to responding to infectious diseases. I will tell you that this novel coronavirus was identified a month ago, but I will remind you that infectious disease response and management has an approach and framework that we use for virtually all infectious diseases. It does change, depending on the nature of the infectious disease and how it's spread. However, there are basic principles and a framework for responding to infectious disease outbreaks and how to manage those particular risks. I'd be very happy to share that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You have 22 seconds left.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I see that Dr. Henry has joined us. However, I believe that we should go to Ms. Kwan for her six minutes, and then unfortunately there won't be very much time for Dr. Henry to speak to us. We'll do our best. We're going to be kicked out of this room in about 10 minutes, so thank you for coming, and hopefully we'll get to hear from you.

Ms. Kwan, you have six minutes.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to ask some questions of Dr. Henry, if I may.

We understand that a second case, a presumptive case, has been identified in the metro Vancouver area. I'm wondering if the person who spread the disease to the family members in metro Vancouver was asymptomatic at the time of travel. Would you be aware of that, Dr. Henry?

[Dr. Bonnie Henry, Provincial Health Officer, Office of the Provincial Health Officer, British Columbia]

Yes, and we are very cautious with details of personal health information, but there was no concern about anybody being symptomatic during travel.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Do we have the information on when she travelled, when she first boarded the plane to come to metro Vancouver?

[Dr. Bonnie Henry]

There were visitors who arrived in Vancouver several weeks ago.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

From my understanding, from reading the news report, the travel took place prior to China closing the city of Wuhan, so the visitors arrived several weeks ago, and she was asymptomatic at the time of arrival. This would be a demonstrated case—

[Dr. Bonnie Henry]

[Inaudible—Editor] visit from Wuhan, more than one. They all left Wuhan before the travel restrictions were put in place. None of them were symptomatic during travel.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay, that means they were asymptomatic when they came here, and the secondary transmission occurred here to the families in metro Vancouver. That means we have a case where someone was asymptomatic and the virus was passed on.

[Dr. Bonnie Henry]

That is not correct. I said they were asymptomatic when they travelled, and there was transmission within a household with very close contact. They became one person. A number of people travelled. One person who travelled developed symptoms and then there was transmission within that household.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I see.

[Dr. Bonnie Henry]

The person we've identified has not travelled. They got the infection from close contact with a person who developed symptoms while they were here, who had travelled from Wuhan.