Health Committee on Feb. 5th, 2021

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I don't know if you've ever run a marathon, but I have, and part of running a marathon is planning, setting goals and milestones, and preparing, practising and rehearsing tabletop exercises in this case, making sure provinces and territories have the equipment and the plans they need. You're absolutely right. This is a marathon. This is also a very big list, and we are doing that in partnership with provinces and territories.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

For your information, I have done triathlons.

Right now, we know neither the costs nor the delivery schedule for the vaccines being procured.

When I hear Minister Anand say that she has to speak with suppliers daily, it tells me that something isn't clear in the contracts. It is not normal to have to talk to suppliers every day to make sure they keep their word.

Why don't you show us the contracts? What do you have to hide? Are you protecting the pharmaceutical companies, the government or the public?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Every one of our contracts has a confidentiality clause, and I or the Government of Canada cannot simply release contracts or we will be in breach of contract and our vaccine procurements and deliveries will be in jeopardy.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Why did you negotiate delivery on a quarterly basis when people need to be vaccinated every day?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Thériault, you're out of time.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

I would like to suggest to all members that the officials are here to assist the ministers in their responses. I would encourage you all to give them an opportunity to do so.

Mr. Davies, please go ahead for six minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr Chair.

For the record, I can barely run around the block.

I'd like to direct my questions to you, Major-General Fortin. Yesterday you confirmed that the federal government doesn't know how many Moderna doses will arrive for the rest of this month or throughout March, and that Moderna hasn't said why it has reduced shipments to Canada. Despite these unknowns, you said that Canada is still expecting two million Moderna doses to be delivered by the end of March to meet the Prime Minister's promised vaccination targets.

Given that the company hasn't provided Canada with the delivery schedule for the period, or any explanation for the delay, what is the basis of your confidence? Is it mere hope?

[Major-General Dany Fortin, Vice-President, Vaccine Roll-Out Task Force, Logistics and Operations, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Moderna and Pfizer certainly face global demands in a very demanding production of a new product. We have no reasons to doubt that they are both ensuring that there is a fair and equitable sharing of doses in these uncertain times. We always said that we would have limited supplies, and we're certainly seeing that.

I see this as a bump in the road, for sure. We have no way of confirming if it's a true statement that they have real difficulties with Moderna supplies, but in our conversations we have clear indications and we have numbers to see a positive trend coming out of this current lack of supplies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Major-General.

Yesterday you also acknowledged that the uncertainty created by Canada's sporadic vaccine deliveries is creating challenges for the provinces and territories. You said, “I completely understand that it's making it more difficult for provinces to prepare clinics and prepare the vaccine distribution sites.”

Now, it's quite clear that if the government projections are correct, millions of doses will be arriving at around the same time, probably mid- to late March. The Biden administration recently announced plans to enlist the support of FEMA and the National Guard to set up thousands of community vaccination sites to help ramp up COVID-19 administration in the U.S. The Pentagon has been asked to ready up to 10,000 troops for that campaign.

Is the Government of Canada considering establishing federal vaccination sites or deploying the Canadian military to help provinces and territories with the volume of doses that is obviously coming?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

I cannot speak to current Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence planning in that regard in great detail. This is the purview of the chief of the defence staff, who would be asked to provide advice to the minister in that regard. What I can tell you is that we're working closely with provinces and territories to ensure the most effective clarity on supplies and most effective rollout and to work closely with them in their jurisdiction to do as effective a rollout as possible.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

General, can you tell us in the most general terms if you're hearing anything about the possibility of federal support to set up vaccination sites to supplement the provinces, which may have difficulty handling those millions of doses? Are you hearing anything at all in that regard?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Mr. Chair, what I can tell you is that the Canadian Armed Forces are providing assistance to provinces and territories in their planning, working with the Red Cross and with ISC in their planning as well, and trying to figure out different ways of doing things and ensuring that we provide capacity as a result of RFAs, as we see in northern Ontario at this time.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, General.

Dr. Tam, on January 30, you noted that even though daily cases of COVID-19 are trending down, it's still too soon to lift lockdowns and ease other protective measures if Canada hopes to bring the pandemic under control. You pointed to the spread of several highly transmissible variants of the virus as evidence that it's too soon for the provinces to let their guards down. However, this week, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario all announced plans to ease COVID-19 restrictions, and Manitoba is also considering that.

As Canada's chief public health officer, do you believe that the federal government should implement minimum national standards for COVID-19 control to prevent highly transmissible variants from becoming established in provinces with insufficient control measures and then spreading interprovincially?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

As I've said, we need to navigate this phase of our pandemic response really carefully. I work very closely with other chief medical officers of health. They all have very different contexts within which they work.

We do provide guidance on a range of public health measures and laboratory testing and other guidance as well, but yes, as you can appreciate, P.E.I. is not the same as Edmonton, so they do have to take things into account, but I think they know that with the variants and increased transmission they have to do any easing really carefully. That is their perspective.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Anand, we have to quit meeting like this. We spent time yesterday.

Yesterday at the industry committee you testified that Canada's vaccine contracts have confidentiality clauses that prohibit the release of any terms. You have repeated that today, but your government has disclosed both the number of doses in the Pfizer and Moderna deliveries as well as the delivery schedules. Can you explain how those disclosures are not violations of the confidentiality agreements?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Yes, it's nice to see you, Mr. Davies.

I wanted to mention that the delivery schedules are outside of the contract per se. The contract per se has included in it quarterly timetables for delivery—so in aggregate the number of doses that Canada is entitled to on a quarterly basis—and the delivery schedules are provided outside of the contract, and they are estimations that the company provides directly to the Public Health Agency of Canada. On my understanding, the Public Health Agency of Canada makes those public to the provinces and territories for the purposes of planning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

I gave you a little extra time because of the problems earlier on.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That ends the first round of questions. We will start our second round of questions with Monsieur Paul-Hus.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you may go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, you just said the contracts don't include penalty clauses in the event of sporadic delivery. That means the companies have three months to deliver the vaccines, in other words, from January 1 to March 31. It's possible, then, for all the doses to arrive at once, on March 30, and we would have no recourse. Is that correct?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

The recourse, of course, is breach of contract, and what we are working with in terms of our negotiations with the companies is to ensure that we do have ascertained delivery schedules.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

You said you should have delivery schedules.

The last time, Pfizer gave notice only the day before it suspended deliveries. Do the contracts contain notice clauses regarding delivery delays, some sort of warning requirement, at the very least?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

As I mentioned, the contracts are subject to confidentiality and therefore it would be imprudent, if not illegal, for me to go into detail about what those clauses say.

However, as I mentioned to Mr. Davies, we do have the negotiated delivery schedules that we are providing to the provinces and territories as soon as we get them.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Let's talk about confidentiality, Minister. I have here the European Union's contract with AstraZeneca, Pfizer's contract with Israel and AstraZeneca's contract with the United States. The contract between AstraZeneca and the European Union clearly states that doses will be delivered monthly.

How is it that I have access to all of those major contracts when I can't get any information on Canada's deals? Do you think it's normal for Quebec's health minister to lament the fact that he has no information about the contracts that were signed, during a press conference? Do you have an answer, yes or no?