Health Committee on March 31st, 2020

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

That is not my question.

[Tina Namiesniowski]

No, and the second—

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, that's not my question. I don't want to know if we're communicating with multiple suppliers. I'm talking about the war effort of every one of our entrepreneurs in the field.

How can these people get answers quickly so they can contribute?

[Tina Namiesniowski]

In addition, we have many efforts under way in the federal government to work with local suppliers to do exactly what the member who asked the question was requesting. There are various efforts under way at the industry, science and economic development department, for example, as well as at Public Works and Government Services, where anyone who believes that they can contribute is asked to contact those two organizations.

Perhaps my colleague at Health Canada wishes to add more.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Lucas, please go ahead if you wish.

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

We would be happy to provide the honourable member asking the question and the committee with a list of the key contact points for entrepreneurs. There's a web portal established with members of the National Research Council, the industrial research program, who review every request coming in and follow up with entrepreneurs in terms of either their ability to produce things now or the support needed to transform their current production for specific equipment or materials as inputs.

In addition, there's funding available to support making the adjustments in businesses to produce locally. Then, as noted, there's also a contact point for Canadians and businesses who have information on potential suppliers overseas, which is triaged on a minute-by-minute basis by Public Services and Procurement, and we'll provide that information as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We go now to Mr. Davies for six minutes, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the New Democratic Party of Canada, to thank all of those Canadians, health care workers, transport workers, cleaners, allied health workers, everybody who is working in trying circumstances and helping to keep us all safe. I think I speak for all parliamentarians when I say how important your work is and what a debt Canadians owe to you.

I'm going to ask my first question to Mr. Lucas of Health Canada. On March 9, Deputy Prime Minister Freeland wrote to the provincial and territorial premiers, asking them to inform the federal government of any critical gaps in supplies or in their capacity to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, things like ventilators, N95 masks, testing equipment, face shields, etc.

I'd like to know what the major gaps identified to the federal government were. Can you give us an approximation of the size of those gaps, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Lucas, go ahead please.

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have had an ongoing process supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada to understand the needs of provinces and territories and to contribute to the bulk purchases the Government of Canada is making on their behalf. Certainly, President Namiesniowski can speak to that further.

From the information in the letters coming in that you referred to, we have reinforced areas where the provinces have been seeking additional support in the form of N95 masks and ventilators, and we have moved proactively to order those from all available suppliers, as well as have been noted in the comments already made, and to work with Canadian businesses either on existing production or in areas where they can create new production to address those needs. We are monitoring this on a day-to-day basis and are in constant dialogue, on a daily basis, with provinces and territories to understand those needs and to work to address them.

In addition, provinces and territories have provided information on other areas of focus including support for Canadian unemployed workers and businesses, and those have been addressed through measures announced to date and with work under way.

I'll turn now, Mr. Chair, to President Namiesniowski for any further comments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Mr. Davies, would you carry on?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I would like to direct my questions to the witnesses whom I'd like to answer, please. We have very limited time.

I'm disappointed by your answer, Mr. Lucas. I asked you a very specific question about what gaps the provinces told you about and their extent. I think Canadians have a right to know that information.

I'm going to turn to something else. On March 27 in The Globe and Mail, Dr. David Naylor, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, wrote the following:

However, we could be far better informed. Our rate of testing has accelerated, but the coverage is still well below that needed to give an accurate picture of the epidemic. Thousands of test results have been backlogged at various times, leading to intermittent and confusing spikes in case counts, even as tardy delivery of provincial case reports to the Public Health Agency of Canada has blurred our view of national outbreak demographics.

This was written four days ago.

To the Public Health Agency of Canada, is that an accurate assessment by Dr. Naylor?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Namiesniowski, please go ahead please if you wish.

[Technical difficulty--Editor]

We will suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Namiesniowski, please go ahead.

[Tina Namiesniowski]

Mr. Chair, in response to the question, at the federal level we have been working with all of our provincial and territorial partners on the issue of testing within Canada. I think there is broad recognition of the importance of testing and the need to ramp up testing across the country. There is a commitment that collectively there will be increasing numbers of tests taken to enable us to have a fulsome picture of the state of COVID-19 within Canada. It's hard for me to speak to what may be happening within a particular jurisdiction, which is really a question better directed to a jurisdiction. I can say that we have collective commitment to ramp up testing overall, and as we have every single day, we making increasing efforts at testing and ramping up our overall approach across the country.

This is a question that also implicates my colleague at Health Canada, so he may wish to add more, Mr. Chair, if that's of interest to the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Davies, do you wish to hear from Mr. Lucas?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'd appreciate just directing the questions if I could.

Today the Italians actually came out and said very clearly that putting COVID-19 patients in hospital with other patients was one of the main causes of transmission and a leading contributor to excessive deaths. We know that public health experts are suggesting that Canada can significantly decrease the risk of medical facilities becoming centres of amplification by setting up facilities dedicated only to COVID-19 patients.

Mr. Lucas, does the Government of Canada have plans in place to establish separate facilities for COVID-19 patients? I would specifically ask that in the context of delivering service to indigenous communities in this country as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Davies, who was that question directed to?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

That's for Mr. Lucas, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Lucas, please go ahead.

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

As I noted, we are working closely with the provinces and territories on managing their health care systems. A number of them have established COVID-specific parts of hospitals as well as alternate facilities, to allow patients to move out of those hospitals, so they can focus efforts in the ICU on COVID patients. This is critical, as you noted, to ensure that the risk of infection from donning and doffing protective equipment as health care workers move between wards is minimized to the greatest extent possible. Additional assets are being defined in terms of facilities to help support efforts as needed, including working through Indigenous Services Canada's first nations and Inuit health branch to ensure the supports needed for indigenous people. I'll stop my response there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Lucas.

We'll go now to our second round of questions, with Mr. Webber for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today and for all of the work you're doing to help us get through this pandemic.

I have a few questions for Ms. Namiesniowski from the Public Health Agency of Canada regarding our nation's supply of personal protective equipment. I appreciated her comments in her initial presentation on the details of securing personal protective equipment. Thank you for that.

Of course, we are all hearing concerns about the rationing of personal protective equipment and the warnings of outright shortages in this country. This of course would lead to our frontline workers being unprotected. I understand that just recently, announced today even, the government has committed $2 billion to purchase medical equipment and supplies. That's great news, but it leaves me to wonder why the government would allow 16 tonnes of personal protective equipment to be shipped to China last month, leaving us here in Canada in a very vulnerable situation.

I have just a few questions regarding that shipment. Was it part of a formal contractual agreement? Did China promise to repay that shipment with an equal or larger shipment? If so, when was that repayment negotiated for?

Also, Ms. Namiesniowski, has the federal government either shipped or facilitated the shipment of equipment to other countries, and if so, to whom, when and how much?

[Tina Namiesniowski]

Thank you for the question.

As has been raised during previous appearances at the committee, Canada was approached, as were a number of other countries, by China for assistance in the context of China responding to the crisis that was happening in the country. In the context of Canada's response, there were supplies made available, but I believe there were supplies beyond simply what the federal government offered in the context of the request that was made. That is something I do not necessarily have the details on.

In the context of the request that was made to the federal government, at that point in time it was very clear that there was a direct benefit to Canada to respond in a positive way. Every effort was being extended within China to contain the virus and what was happening on the ground. From a Canadian perspective, that was very important, in the sense that any effort that could be made to limit the exportation of cases to the rest of the world was directly of benefit to all countries, including Canada.

Canada's donation was positioned in the context of being helpful to a country that was in crisis, but there was also a broader benefit to Canada as well as to the rest of the world.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you for that.

Were there other shipments of PPE made to other countries around the world, or was it just China?