Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2021

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues for agreeing to support this motion, which I think is important, and for making the time to meet, under Standing Order 106(4), to have this discussion today.

As everybody knows, I tabled a motion last meeting. As our committee continues to meet on the matter of COVID, it has become clear that much of the information surrounding the vaccines that Canadians and members of our committee seek may reside in the contracts the government has signed with the vaccine suppliers. We've become aware that other countries have negotiated some better commitments and penalty clauses into their contracts that we have not. I think those contracts should be made public, or as public as can be. Canadians deserve to know this.

We tried to get some relevant answers from the ministers last week. We were met with what I would describe as talking points and platitudes, not real information. The few answers we did get cannot be verified. Journalists have tried. Premiers have tried. MPs have tried.

I think this needs to change. As I said earlier, our job today is to get answers for Canadians and to hold the government to account during what I would describe as the largest health crisis in our country's history. We'll come back to the subject of vaccine contracts later, but we know that the law clerk has received more than 6,800 documents as a result of the order in the House of Commons. Of those documents, the law clerk has only been able to provide about 2,000 to the committee, due to the fact that those documents have to be provided in both official languages.

In terms of the documents provided on Friday, we found out that senior Liberal staffers in the Prime Minister’s Office discussed withholding details about COVID-19 from Canadians. The main concern in the Prime Minister's Office revolved around the avoidance of accountability on spending announcements rather than providing real details to Canadians. This is extremely concerning and something we should not take lightly, especially when the government's response to these damning documents has been to blame the public service.

It was also revealed that staff members from the procurement minister's office discussed delaying the scheduled release of information in hopes that more favourable numbers, in terms of PPE procurement, would come as a result of the proposed obstruction. The minister's director of communications, James Fitz-Morris, replied to an email, saying that the plan was “crazy enough it might just work”. He then added, “If journos ask where it is—we can say that [Saint-Jean-Baptiste] Day delayed some reporting—so we are holding to early next week. Which also has the benefit of being mostly true!”

He said “mostly true”, Mr. Chair. We had two ministers before this committee last week, on record, saying that their government has been transparent with Canadians during the pandemic whether it's bad news or good news. They said it multiple times. We now know this is false. Politically inconvenient facts have been purposely left out of the public domain, and a pattern has started to emerge.

I want to come back to my motion and the vaccine contracts. I've just outlined two disturbing situations that members of this committee should take seriously and that I hope all of us will reflect upon. We've been told that revealing vaccine supplier contracts would jeopardize our vaccine supply. As I've said, I can't independently confirm this one way or another. However, what we can confirm is that one of the documents provided by the law clerk has revealed internal policy guidance on how to block the release of details related to the government contracts, including sole-source contracts authorized under a national security exemption.

This document reads, “The application of an NSE does not absolve a department of its obligation to proactively disclose contracts; however, the Access to Information Act contains provisions that provide heads of organizations discretion around disclosure”.

This should underscore why the House motion adopted on October 26 was necessary, and perhaps why Liberal members are so opposed to passing it. The government can no longer hide behind section 18 of the Access to Information Act on these contract details.

On a final note, there's another document that was released on Friday, a PMO email, that shows the government was able to negotiate a penalty clause into a contract for PPE from China. It reads, “The supplier agreed to pay a penalty fee if they don't deliver in 15 days which is rare but good to see”. I trust that knowledge of this detail hasn't put our PPE supplies from China in jeopardy. So we should have the same information when it comes to vaccine procurement and distribution.

With that, Mr. Chair, I move the following:

That the Chair of the committee write to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel inquiring on whether or not the contracts for Canada’s seven vaccine agreements with suppliers have been provided to his office as part of the motion adopted on October 26, 2020 by the House of Commons.

Should the law clerk have copies of any of these documents, that the committee instruct the law clerk to prioritize the translation of these documents and that these documents be published as soon as possible in accordance with the parameters set out in the house motion.

If the law clerk does not have such documents, that the committee request from the government the contracts for Canada's seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee, that the documents be vetted in accordance with the parameters set out in the house motion, and that the members of the Standing Committee on Health review these documents in camera.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This outlines the importance of having the details on what these contracts entail. How were they negotiated? Why were they negotiated on a quarterly basis, rather than monthly or weekly as in other countries? What are the obligations of these vaccine manufacturers to deliver these vaccines? Are there cash penalties or any other fines if they do not meet their obligations?

We've seen a substantial reduction in the number of vaccines that have been distributed to Canadians, and we now hear that we may get a massive dump at the end of the quarter. What implications is this going to have for the provinces? Do they have the resources to distribute these vaccines? What are the implications for Canadians going to be?

This, again, Mr. Chair, is just a request to get what I would consider very pertinent information on the negotiation and agreements of these contracts between Canada and the seven vaccine manufacturers. I hope to have the support of my colleagues for some transparency around these contracts, because Canadians deserve to know how these contracts were negotiated and what the details are within them.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

It's contrary to our normal practice of dealing with a 106(4), but the clerk advises me that it is in order and is committee business. You certainly gave notice, so the motion is in order.

I will go now to Mr. Davies, please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I had put up my hand previously because I wanted to get agreement or find out where we were on the timing of our meeting next week. I've been texting back and forth with some members and I understand that there is agreement not to hold the meeting on Monday. I don't think we came to a decision on that, so I would like to have that clarified—that the meeting next week, the 106(4), won't be on Monday. If not, I would probably move that, unless we all agree.

I wasn't really prepared to speak to John's motion, so I'll just let my colleagues speak to it first and maybe come back to that. I would say that I'm broadly in agreement with what John has said.

I have to say as well that I'm not going to move anything at this meeting, but I plan on coming back and reading very carefully the motion of the House on production of documents. It seems to me that the government has not complied with what we passed. I'm going to go back and read that very carefully, but there were set deadlines for production of documents. We were told there were millions of documents from the Clerk of the Privy Council, and we have had only thousands that have gone to the law clerk. That is not in compliance with what the House ordered.

I know there was an amendment to the House order to help the government prioritize the production of certain documents, but it didn't eliminate the obligation of the government to comply, with those documents. The other thing I would say is that it's pretty apparent to everybody that the first tranche of documents that came to the committee was utterly useless. The first tranche was no more than public speaking notes that were probably accessible to any Canadian at any time. Now, though, we're starting to see documents released to the law clerk that actually have real information in them that is, frankly, as John just pointed out, revealing some troubling aspects of the handling of the COVID issue.

Anyway, my inclination would be to support John's motion. The more information we have before this committee in unvarnished fashion, the better we as parliamentarians on the health committee can carry out our duties.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Ms. Sidhu, you are next, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Having concluded the business we came for here today, I move that we adjourn today's meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

We have a motion on the floor to adjourn. I'll ask the clerk to take a vote.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Thank you.

We go now to Ms. Rempel Garner.

Go ahead, please.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Well, Chair, so much for working collegially, I guess.

To my colleague Ms. Sidhu, the business of the committee was not complete. There is a motion on the floor that is of material import to every Canadian, given the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic that has shut down most of our economy and we are behind most of the developed countries in the world in terms of the receipt of vaccine.

I think what my colleague has done with this motion is to put forward a very elegant solution that respects various issues that have been brought up with regard to the release of the contracts. It is in alignment with motions that we've already put forward to this committee and on which we've seen some obfuscation, to put it mildly, from the government.

To my colleague Mr. Davies' very correct point, we have spent a lot of time in this committee trying to compel the government to release information that is of material import to Canadians on how we're getting out of the pandemic. I think Mr. Barlow has begun to address the deficiencies in information that we have received in this committee.

I cannot believe we tried to shut this motion down. I really can't. It's shocking, actually.

That said, I am in full support of this motion. I certainly think every provincial government, most of the press gallery and everybody is asking for this. It's done in an elegant way. I think it's really smart. I commend my colleague Mr. Barlow for putting work into finding a solution, which I will be strongly supporting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner, I don't know if I've ever been called “elegant” before. I will definitely be putting that on my resumé.

To my colleague Ms. Sidhu, we have talked for the last hour about how important it is to get this information and get to work and answer questions for Canadians. To me, your adjournment attempt means that this is something you don't want to talk about.

I want to be clear that we are not asking for anything that is not going to come out eventually. We are asking in this motion if the law clerk has already received the contracts or the documents that are part of the contracts. If he has, this motion is asking him to prioritize the translation and the release of those documents to the committee for us to review. If he has not received those documents, this motion is asking that the government put a priority on providing those documents, those contracts, to the law clerk for review, translation, and again, to come to this committee.

We are trying not to prolong the inevitable. We're actually trying to speed it up. We have now seen that this is a critical issue for Canadians when we see just how far behind other countries we are in terms of accessing vaccines. Even more so, what are the [Technical difficulty—Editor] of these manufacturers if they do not meet their obligations with the Government of Canada? Are Canadians assured that the manufacturers are going to meet their obligations and...not do their best but actually have a hammer in those contracts that ensures that Canadians get the vaccines the government has promised them? If not, then what next?

Really, this motion is just to put a priority on the documents that the law clerk is already going to receive. If he hasn't, it ensures that he gets them as quickly as possible and we get them in front of committee. That's really what this motion is. It is not asking for anything different or over and above. This is just trying to expedite or accelerate access to those contracts. I am sure they will be heavily redacted, but some information, as my good friend Mr. Davies says, is better than no information. I think what Canadians are asking for right now is some insights and some transparency on what these contracts entail.

I hope that clarifies a little bit what this motion really entails.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with the substance of the motion. However, its wording may mislead us as to the intent of our colleague. I would not want it to allow the committee to circumvent the Official Languages Act or to compromise the ability to obtain documents in both official languages.

According to the motion, "should the law clerk have copies of any of these documents," they should be translated and produced as soon as possible. "If the law clerk does not have such documents," we will have to ask the government to produce them and give us access to them, but nowhere is there any mention of translating them. This could be interpreted as a roundabout way of getting around the obligation to translate them. To avoid this, I would like this obligation to be clarified in both cases: if the law clerk has these documents, he will have to have them translated quickly and give us access to them; if the law clerk does not have these documents, the government will have to table them, have them translated and give us access to them.

The motion is interesting in that the secrecy of industry information will not be an issue, because it says that we will review these documents in camera.

That said, Mr. Barlow would need to clarify his intention. If his motion is that the committee be given access to documents in English only to examine them in camera, I will oppose it unless he decides to make an amendment. I can also propose one, but I would like to hear his response first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

Yes. I'm more than happy to have that as a bit of clarification.

It was my understanding, in the committee's routine motions, that no document could be submitted to the committee without being translated first. However, I certainly see your concern with the motion, so I am more than happy to put that clarification in the last paragraph: that once the law clerk has those documents, they be vetted and translated prior to being submitted or distributed to the committee.

I'm fine with that clarification, if the clerk can add that into the motion, or if Mr. Thériault wants to make a friendly amendment. I'm fine either way, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

I'll let Mr. Davies make that an amendment when he next speaks, if it is his wish to do so.

Mr. Davies, go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

So moved.

Before I get to that, there are two points I want to make. One is just to remind all of us that in the text of the main motion that ordered the production of the documents, the criteria were very clearly laid out to the law clerk as to how redactions would occur, including one specifically to allow redaction to not interfere with contractual relations. I don't have the exact words. I just want to make that clear.

The other thing I want to put on the record is the fact that the translation issue has been commented on by the law clerk. As we all know, the government is sending documents to the law clerk by the thousands and refusing to translate them, leaving that job to the law clerk and the law clerk's very limited resources to translate. Now, if one were cynical or conspiratorial of mind, one might think that this was a way for the government to slow down the production of documents to this committee, because we know that the law clerk is sitting on a mountain of documents and has had to hire extra staff to do the translating.

The law clerk has gone on the record and stated.... I don't have the legislation in front of me, but with him being the law clerk, I would imagine he knows what he's talking about, being the chief legal officer of Parliament. He has indicated that he believes the government is in violation of its obligation to do the translation and to produce documents to the law clerk in translated form. I want to note that on the record and raise my concern on that.

I do think the government with its [Technical difficulty—Editor] as well as other legal obligations—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Davies, I lost you for a few seconds. Can you maybe back up a couple of sentences?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm sorry. Sure.

I was just saying that the law clerk is the chief legal officer of Parliament. I think it should be pointed out that we're concerned that the law clerk has had to say to the government that they are in violation of their obligation [Technical difficulty—Editor] under both the Official Languages Act and other legal obligations to the law clerk, and that this is slowing down the process.

I agree completely that Mr. Thériault has every right to have these documents at the same time as we do in both official languages, but I don't think our committee has had a chance to weigh in or comment on this decision of the government, through the Clerk of the Privy Council, to refuse [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I was saying that the government, of course, has vastly greater resources with which to do the translation than the law clerk does. I think that's something we should be expressing our alarm and concern about.

By the way, I will move the motion that Mr. Thériault and Mr. Barlow both commented on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Would you please do so explicitly, if you will?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I don't have the words. I'd defer to Mr. Barlow's words or Mr. Thériault's.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I have a proposed wording.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Let me just clarify this with the clerk.

Mr. Clerk, do you have the wording of the amendment that Mr. Davies wishes to move at this point?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Jean-François Pagé]

Is it to ensure that the documents are in both official languages? Is that the amendment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We seem to be in agreement—

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have wording to propose for this part of the motion:

If the law clerk does not have such documents, that the committee request from the government the contracts for Canada’s seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee in both official languages, that the documents be vetted in accordance...

This is where I would introduce "in both official languages". This clarifies that the obligation to produce these documents in both official languages is the responsibility of the government, as Mr. Davies mentioned, and not of the committee.

That is the amendment I propose. Is that all right with you?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Clerk, are we square on what the amendment is?