Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2021

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Chair, I was there, right at the beginning, advocating for things that were, in my opinion, as I said in that letter, in the best interests of Canada. In fact, the people from VIDO-InterVac, at the University of Saskatchewan, contacted me, because they wanted, through my membership on the health committee, to get out the idea that they wanted the government to help them build a facility that could produce vaccines. The company rightly identified the fact that we would eventually get to a point where there would be a vaccine, but Canada had no vaccine-producing capacity. They asked our government for assistance and, subsequently, we funded VIDO-InterVac at the University of Saskatchewan for $46 million.

In addition, our government gave $170 million to the National Research Council in order to build a large-scale biologics manufacturing centre. We invested $25 million in Precision NanoSystems, a Canadian biotech firm, in order to improve our capacity to produce RNA vaccines. We gave VBI Vaccines in Ottawa up to $156 million and gave money to IMV, a Dartmouth pharmaceutical, and Medicago, which is in the process of developing a vaccine. We gave money to all of these various vaccine producers to try to get out of the position we are in now, which is dependent upon foreign companies, foreign pharmaceuticals and this kind of rat race where everyone in the world is trying to get hold of the vaccines.

We wanted to be able to be in a position where we had control over our own supply of vaccines, but unfortunately, science isn't something that happens overnight, and production takes time, and we are in that situation. We are dependent on these companies. Again, do we really want to roll the dice?

As for the public, whom do you want to believe? Do you want to believe a government that says we'd be in breach of contract? Do you want to believe a government that says that revealing these details could harm our vaccine supply, or do you want to believe the opposition? I don't want to roll the dice. My parents are waiting for the vaccine. My brother has some serious underlying health issues, and I want him to get the vaccine. It's in the interests of all Canadians to get the vaccines, and I think doing anything to jeopardize that supply.... I think that this motion, in antagonizing the vaccine producers, is something that could potentially jeopardize our supply of vaccines.

Once again, I do not agree with this motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

I now give the floor to Mrs. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like us to look at the situation from another angle.

Suppose you are on the verge of retirement. You go to your financial advisor to tell him that you need to buy shares that will grow in value quickly, so that you can retire soon and lead a normal life. Your advisor tells you that you will have shares in a number of companies and that this will allow you to lead a normal life once you retire. You then ask questions about those shares, just as we do now with vaccines: what is the vesting schedule, how will the shares be acquired, how much will it cost in the end, and whether you are getting a good deal. Each time, your financial advisor tells you that there is nothing to worry about and that you will be able to retire without any problems, but doesn't give you any more details. What will you do? Are you going to trust him blindly or are you going to ask questions to get clear and precise answers? He has given you acquisition targets, but you have no idea what the overall plan is.

That's a bit like what is required in this case: we want to have an idea of the overall plan, to know where we are going and whether we are really getting a good deal, as customers. After all, we are clients of pharmaceutical companies, and as such, we have a right to these answers.

This is not our money, it is taxpayers' money, and not just the current taxpayers. Given the debt accumulated since March 2020, it is also future taxpayers' money.

We depend on foreign companies because bad decisions were made in the past about patents, university research and production plants. We need to look at these decisions clearly, admit that they were wrong and improve things by investing and taking care of our people. The effects will not be immediate, but they will be felt later.

In the meantime, the fact remains that we are clients of these foreign pharmaceutical companies, and as such, we are entitled to get answers and to be treated well. Of course, we depend on these pharmaceutical companies, but they too depend on us. After all, the expediting of their research has only been made possible by public funding. So we are paying for two things, both research and vaccines, without even knowing whether the price we are paying for these vaccines is fair.

If we see the contracts, we will be able to get a better idea of the situation and get the answers that will allow us to look ahead. I don't see this as a way to hit anyone over the head, but rather as a way to reassure people. When people don't have information, they start to make assumptions, and that's when we see the most conspiracy theories coming out. Having clear, frank, honest and straightforward answers allows you to answer people's questions, to calm them down, to reassure them.

Access to contracts will facilitate the work of all MPs, regardless of party, and allow them to better intervene with their fellow citizens.

We should not act like a financial advisor who hides information. We must act like a financial advisor who has an excellent plan so that we can live a normal life after we retire, that is, withdraw from the current situation marked by COVID-19 and return to a normal life.

This is my comment. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Madam Vignola.

We go now to Ms. Sidhu.

Ms. Sidhu, go ahead.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said earlier, this is an always-evolving situation. It is evolving even now. Since we started this discussion a few hours ago, the Prime Minister made an important announcement. He announced that Pfizer would be delivering millions more doses in the spring. Deliveries that had been scheduled for the last quarter of the year are being moved up. We will see even more in the summer months.

The Prime Minister also said that we will soon share the schedule with the provinces and territories so they can prepare to get all those doses into people's arms. He also announced that we would receive an additional four million doses from Moderna and nine million doses from Pfizer, which will arrive over the summer. We are now on track to receive 84 million doses by the end of September from just these two manufacturers, Pfizer and Moderna.

Another point I want to make is that the big difference between other countries and Canada is that they had domestic capacity before the pandemic. This is to echo Dr. Powlowski's point about pharmaceutical manufacturers repeatedly pulling out of Canada on the Conservatives' watch. Remember that New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Japan have barely even started vaccinating and are countries with an at-home industry. What are [Technical difficulty—Editor]? Minister Champagne announced on Tuesday that Canada has reached an agreement in principle with Novavax, directing that leading developer to manufacture their vaccine at the expanded Royalmount facility, starting potentially in late 2021.

The point is this, Mr. Chair. Not only has our government been able to adapt to this ever-changing situation, but in doing so we are also reversing the trend of manufacturers leaving Canada. We are rebuilding our own capacity to sustain ourselves. All Canadian vaccine developers supported by our government are making progress through their clinical trials. Medicago is launching phase two or three trials in November. This is all good work that is happening.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

We go now to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, go ahead.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just a couple of things.

Interestingly, Ms. Sidhu just commented on this figure in terms of the Prime Minister announcing that we're going to get 80 million doses. I noticed that she said “by the end of September”. Again, this is part of the confusion I have about whether it's “by September” or “by the end of September” and this increasingly ever-changing target. It's hard to get clear communications from this government, and I think clarity is very important to Canadians in a time of crisis.

What's interesting.... There is a point I wanted to make in terms of scaring off these pharmaceutical companies. One thing we all have to remember is that the money that went into developing these vaccines was, by and large, public. In fact, if I understand correctly, Moderna was 100% funded by United States taxpayers. This is not a question of these pharmaceutical companies having spent billions of dollars of their own money and spending years on their own in taking risks to develop these vaccines so that they'd have an expectation of private development and hoarding of the technology and information. These vaccines were developed through public dollars, by and large. We're not talking about hypertension drugs or baldness cures or any of the private ones where you could legitimately argue that these pharmaceutical companies developed these on their own and have a right to control them.

We have a worldwide pandemic, and I'm hearing Liberals talk about the private pharmaceutical development model standing in the way—as basically a boulder in the stream—of this development, as the whole world breathlessly waits for more vaccines and we're waiting to see if Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca can produce enough.

Some of my colleagues on this committee and I have had a lot of talks about the concept of compulsory licensing, which is exactly what should be used in this situation. Compulsory licensing means this: When a private patent holder has the patent to a life-saving medication and is either unwilling or unable to make that medication available and life or death is on the line, governments have the right to act on those patents.

Here, we are talking about the normal right of expectation of a couple of pharmaceutical companies that might get mad at us if we reveal the contracts they signed, when we reveal the contracts to produce life-saving medication that the whole world needs, which we paid for. That's a shocking abdication of public responsibility. If this government did negotiate such a right with these companies, I think Canadians have a right to know that. I think Dr. Powlowski overstated my brilliance on this, maybe, but I will reiterate: Let's see the confidentiality clauses, then. Let's see exactly what this government agreed to.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but I just have to if we're playing the blame game. The Conservatives did, in my view, make a terrible mistake in privatizing Connaught Labs in 1986, and they deserve every legitimate criticism that can be levelled against that. For decades, Connaught Labs had provided cheap insulin to Canadians.

By the way, I'm going to stop for a moment and note that here we are, in 2021, at the 100th anniversary of the Canadian discovery of insulin in this country at U of T, by Dr. Banting and Dr. Best. I want to throw out some thanks to my colleague Sonia Sidhu for her championing of the diabetes strategy. It was Connaught Labs that made sure they honoured the objective of Dr. Banting and Dr. Best to make insulin available not for private profit, but as a discovery for the world. That saved millions of lives by allowing diabetics to get access to cheap insulin.

Connaught Labs also, by the way, played a role in vaccination—I believe for diphtheria. Dr. Powlowski is a doctor, so I'm not going to go further because he'll know what the other diseases were. This was a public manufacturer, so what a colossal policy failure for the Conservatives to privatize that and to begin the process of leaving Canada—to this day—in the position that we never should have been in, which is that we don't have domestic capacity, as a G7 country, to produce life-saving vaccines and medications.

I'm going to turn my attention to the Liberals, because they play their role in this too. Since 1986, by my count, Liberals have been in power 19 years, 13 of them in majority governments, over seven terms. What did they do? Did they bring back a public drug manufacturer? No. Did they do anything to change that neo-liberal course of pharmaceutical policy that was set in motion by the Mulroney government, where we gave longer patents to pharmaceutical companies and signed trade deals that protected, globally, pharmaceutical profits?

The Liberals won't even go ahead and implement their own PMPRB reforms that they know are the right thing to do. They backed off three times because of big pharma pressure. There has been zero change by the Liberal government since 1986 to address the problematic situation that the Mulroney government put us into. I don't think it lies in the mouths of any Liberals to point fingers at Conservatives. A pox on both the Conservatives and the Liberals for this position. For 150 years, these two parties have been in power in this country.

Here we are, in 2021, and we don't have the ability to produce a life-saving vaccine. Do you know who does? Argentina, Mexico, India, Australia and Japan do. Argentina was an economic basket case 10 years ago. We're a member of the G7, the most exclusive economic club on earth. We're one of the wealthiest nations on earth. We're one of the best societies on earth, and our successive federal governments have let us get into this position. Frankly, that's a shameful abdication of responsibility for which both the Conservatives and the Liberals owe an explanation to the Canadian public.

I think that's all I want to say, at this point. My final conclusion is that nobody wants to see vaccine production or distribution delayed or interrupted, but again, I don't think having us see delivery schedules and some basic provisions of the contracts that this government has signed on behalf of Canadians will do that. Also, I'm not hearing any real response to the governance value of transparency. At one time, this government really believed in that. In fact, they used that as a significant wedge issue to convince Canadians as to why they should reject the previous Conservative government. They made a pledge to be more transparent. Again, by default, we don't even have....

We shouldn't have to explain why we want transparency. Mr. Trudeau said it's an expectation. If the only argument I'm hearing from this government is, oh, my goodness, the big bad pharmaceutical companies might not give us our doses of vaccines if we reveal redacted contracts to Canadians, then I'm going to say that those contracts were horrifically negotiated. Also, do you know what you tell those big pharmaceutical companies? You tell them we'll compulsory-license them and we'll produce those vaccine doses here in Canada. Do you know why? I'll tell you what's more important than big pharmaceutical profits and interests—the health and lives of Canadians. That trumps privacy and private profit.

Quite honestly, where I'm going to conclude.... We haven't talked about this in this committee either. I still have not received a real answer from this government as to why Canada is opposing India, South Africa and Brazil's request to the WTO to temporarily relax TRIPS rules to make this technology and intellectual property available for the entire world to start producing. We could unleash the massive ability of the Indian and Brazilian pharmaceutical industries to produce vaccines by the billions, but they just don't have the technology and IP.

Why are we continuing to use a private sector drug development model in the context of a global pandemic, when we know that to do so...? The whole world is waiting for these private companies to ramp up production. Why are we restricting production just to them? Why aren't we busting open the industrial capacity of the entire world to produce vaccines? Lest you think this is an issue only of economics, it's not.

I'm going to conclude by saying this. This is a global virus. We just passed a motion in this committee earlier today to study dangerous variants, variants that, if this virus mutates, could render the vaccines that we have less effective or even completely ineffective.

Do you know what? Making sure that high-risk individuals in every country of the world are vaccinated is not just a question of morality; it's a question of self-interest. All it takes is one person from Cameroon with a dangerous new variant to hop on a plane and get off in Toronto to become a super-spreader and globally infect and introduce a dangerous variant into Canada against which the vaccines that we have may be less effective or even ineffective.

I want to hear from my Liberal colleagues as to whether they support their Liberal government's opposition at the WTO to making the global COVID vaccines widely available or they agree that this is really the private preserve of the Pfizers, Modernas and AstraZenecas of the world.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Mr. Kelloway is up next, but I'm going to propose right now, since we've been at this for three hours, that we suspend for a few minutes and let committee staff take a bit of a break, perhaps a bio break. I suspect we could all use a bit of a break. Is there any opposition to suspending for 10 minutes?

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

That's for 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes.

Very well. We will suspend for 10 minutes. We will resume at 11:08 my time. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We're back.

Mr. Kelloway, I hope you're ready to proceed. Please go ahead.

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

I am, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the 10-minute break. It's much appreciated.

I want to take a quick moment to recognize the House staff and administrators and the translators for their work today in terms of time they're putting into this. Also, I'm not sure if MP Powlowski is here, live and in the flesh via Zoom, but I also want to give him a shout-out before I talk about vaccines for a moment. I really value Marcus's approach. I know he's not a lawyer and didn't go to the bar, but he has legal experience and is obviously a committed doctor. What I like about Marcus, or MP Powlowski, is that he challenges the status quo. He's not a lemming. He's not someone who goes with the flow. He is someone who challenges us in caucus, in a good way, and as a government. I appreciate you, Marcus, for doing that for us.

MP Davies talked about the momentum of the pandemic, with the variants that are quite distressing for us all. We are seeing that current momentum of the pandemic, unfortunately. We're going to continue to see high rates of infection in many areas of the country until we make significant progress to interrupt that trend. COVID-19 is spreading among people of all ages. However, nationally, our senior citizens continue to be at the highest risk of severe outcomes. Likewise, outbreaks have occurred in high-risk populations, many of whom, sadly, have historically experienced systemic stigma and discrimination. They include prison populations and indigenous communities.

We're continuing to see and experience the downstream impacts of weeks and months of elevated disease activity. We're still seeing high numbers of severe illness and death, along with significant disruptions to health services. We're seeing a range of ongoing challenges, Mr. Chair, especially in areas that are not adequately equipped to manage complex medical emergencies.

The scale and impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic have presented us with some daunting challenges. We've been talking about them all afternoon, but they're marked by deep complexities. Therefore, the response to this pandemic, Mr. Chair, has to encompass a multitude of perspectives and has to be adaptable. We've talked about being flexible and adaptable today as well.

Despite the enduring difficulties afflicting the global community, Canadians should be heartened by the progress that has been made. Passionate global and domestic communities of practice in a range of disciplines have come together to draw on the cutting edge of science, along with a host of other science and medical experts.

Vaccines have been developed at record speed. I know the anxiety that every community in the country feels with respect to that statement. Vaccines have been developed at record speed. They have. I know it feels like multiple years rolled into one, but to put it in perspective, this time last year there wasn't a vaccine. What we've been able to do as a global community is historic, really, but we need to do better and we know that.

Through the strategic advance purchase agreements we talked about with the seven vaccine manufacturers, Canada has procured sufficient vaccine doses to vaccinate all Canadians during the coming year. We've heard that, too. In fact, taking into consideration the possibility of supply chain interruptions—of which we've had some—and of some of the vaccines not graduating from clinical trials or being authorized for use by Health Canada, the federal government has taken the strategy of diversifying its vaccine purchases and securing more than enough vaccines for Canadians.

Mr. Chair, Canada is committed to donating any surplus doses to countries that are struggling to vaccinate in their own jurisdictions. The pandemic—let's make it clear—is a global problem requiring a global solution.

Recognizing the urgent need for COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics, the Minister of Health, Minister Hajdu, signed an interim order respecting the importation, sales and advertising of drugs for use in relation to COVID-19. The order allowed the Government of Canada to speed up the review and authorization of drugs and vaccines for COVID-19 without compromising safety and quality.

Also, Mr. Chair, on December 8 Canada published “Canada's COVID-19 Immunization Plan” on the Public Health Agency of Canada website. The plan outlines the most ambitious vaccine program in Canadian history and was developed in consideration of all levels of government, indigenous leaders, stakeholders, international partners, industry, and medical and science experts, among others.

The complexity—and I've talked about this—of this operation makes it remarkable, given the ongoing global procurement and relentless demand for the vaccine. With the expansive geography of our country and the unique storage and transportation requirements of the vaccine, which are many and varied, the coordination required between both levels of government and indigenous communities, I think, is something to hold up with pride. But we always need to do better.

The immunization plan, to go back to that, is predicated on six core principles that govern the planning, decision-making and actions of all those involved in the pandemic process and response—and there are many. These principles are science-driven, thank goodness. They are based on science-driven decision-making; transparency; coherence and adaptability—we talked about that today—fairness and equity; public involvement; and consistent reporting.

The plan, Mr. Chair, also lays out seven steps in the rollout process. These include communicating and engaging with Canadians throughout the campaign, obtaining sufficient supply of vaccines, obtaining regulatory authorization from Health Canada to ensure the safety and efficacy of vaccines, allocating and distributing vaccines efficiently and securely, administering the vaccines according to a sequence of priority populations identified by health experts, and collecting data to monitor vaccine safety, effectiveness and coverage. All of these steps are well under way, and work is ongoing on each of them.

The vaccine doses, Mr. Chair, are being distributed according to the federal, provincial and territorial plans to ensure fair and equitable allocation. To manage the distribution of vaccines, the Public Health Agency of Canada formed a vaccine rollout task force and established a national operation centre under the direction of General Dany Fortin.

The operation centre is staffed with planning and logistics experts from the Canadian Armed Forces and other government departments. They're responsible for distributing the vaccines across the country. As well, private sector logistics service providers have been enlisted to help with the very ambitious undertaking.

The Canadian government strategy is informed by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, an independent committee made up of medical and science experts. Its goal is to vaccinate those people who are most vulnerable to the infection and who, if infected, would be the most vulnerable to developing severe illness or, worse, succumbing to death. These initial priority populations are seniors in congregated living arrangements and the staff of those facilities, whom I know well in my riding; health care workers and seniors over the age of 80, like my mom, and seniors under the age of 80, in five-year increments; and indigenous adults in remote communities.

Mr. Chair, it's anticipated that three million people from these priority populations will be vaccinated by the end of March. The provinces and territories have the daunting job of storing, administering, monitoring and reporting on vaccines within their jurisdictions. The federal government has said from day one that it stands ready to assist where it can.

Mr. Chair, in fulfilling its commitment to transparency—and we talked about that today—the Government of Canada has begun to post updates to its website, canada.ca, on vaccine administration and coverage. The government is also reporting on any adverse events that occur following vaccination and will ensure that these are investigated to determine if they were caused by the vaccination. Finally, the government has published the number of doses that have been distributed to each province and territory. The canada.ca website is a great source of current science-based information and data around COVID-19.

It provides Canadians with a way to follow the response to the pandemic. Any vaccination plan with this many moving parts—and there are many—must be adaptable so that Canada can learn from the real-world experience and refocus its efforts to obtain desirable results from its actions, particularly with regard to vaccine safety, effectiveness, coverage and adaptability.

Adaptability relies on feedback mechanisms, and the plan has been to incorporate a number of these, including commitments to collect data through surveillance and research—again, science—to provide reporting on the vaccination campaign progress and to communicate with and engage Canadians throughout this campaign. Surveillance data is being provided from the vaccine registries of the provinces and territories and then retriangulated with sources domestically and abroad. This work will take the measure of vaccine coverage to its fullest extent.

Finally, working with scientists and experts across this great country to develop a plan, the federal government has identified four key ways to measure success. This is important. The immunization plan will be successful when, number one, everyone in Canada has access to a vaccine, and we are working on that; when we are immunized to protect those who are not; when we reduce the number of people getting sick and dying from COVID-19; and when we have strengthened Canada's immunization infrastructure. In the event of a future outbreak or a pandemic, we need to respond quickly, efficiently and effectively.

We've all said this afternoon, and in previous meetings since last February or January, that COVID-19 poses the greatest pandemic threat to the lives and livelihoods of everyone in over a century. The world is still grappling with the devastation that is the scourge wrecking our society and many aspects within it—our health sector and our economy. It is a global problem of significant complexity, and it will take all of us to work together to resolve it.

In closing, though, I believe we can be optimistic that our collective efforts will start to pay off in the coming months. I think we have talked about that today, around the rollout of 400,000 vaccines per week until the end of March. I'm optimistic by nature. I'm an informed optimist. I'm certainly not a pessimist, but I'm an informed optimist. I don't have rose-coloured glasses on, but I look around at where the strengths are, where the assets are, and where people are working to make a difference in health care, in research and in government at all levels, and I believe we are going the right way to come out of this better than we did coming into it—much better.

I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the time. I'll pass it on to the next speaker.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

We go now to Mr. Long.

Please go ahead.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to all of my colleagues. It's certainly a pleasure to be here and to bring greetings from my beautiful riding of Saint John—Rothesay.

I have to say that I'm thrilled to be subbing in on the health committee this afternoon. I can't think of a better way to spend a Friday afternoon than with all of you talking about the urgent pandemic we are facing and the critical time in our country to act. I think as a government we are doing a commendable job for Canadians, acting and dealing with issues that come before us and representing Canadians very well.

Mr. Chair, I also want to say very quickly that I'm thrilled by the Atlantic Canadian flavour of the committee. I see my friends and colleagues MP Fisher and MP Kelloway, and on the opposite side I see MP d'Entremont. This afternoon we have four Atlantic Canadian MPs. That can only make the committee a lot better and a lot stronger.

I want to start by making a few points. Obviously, it's amazing how things can change so quickly in our world and certainly in our country. One thing I always take pride in is talking to students at high schools and students at universities about our country and our history. I'm always...not warning but certainly cautioning the youth of today that things can change in an instant. We can never really take anything for granted. Lo and behold, little did I know last January or February that we would be faced with really a once-in-a-generation, life-changing event that the whole world would be grappling with.

The pandemic has changed how we view things, how we look at our friends and our family, and how we want to change things into the future. Little did we know last February, when we were all in Ottawa and at our committees doing work that's important to Canadians, and certainly important for our constituents, that we'd be...not rushed back to our constituency offices, but on March 13 we came back, and here we are.

I remember coming back, meeting with my staff, and saying, hey, we have to be here for Canadians. We have to respond to Canadians. We have to roll up our sleeves and be here for our riding. Those were scary days in the early weeks of this pandemic. In this office, we got our PPE up. We got our plastic barriers up. We wore our masks. We came in and faced basically 400 to 500 emails, calls, questions and inquiries on a daily basis. I'm really, really proud of the work we did and how we stood up for our constituents and delivered unbelievable programs for Canadians to help them. We had their backs.

I have a few other points that I want to state for the record. Obviously, as a government we share the urgency of Canadians to ensure access to life-saving vaccines as rapidly as possible. Our government is operating with a sense of urgency every single day. We take hundreds of calls daily in this office about the vaccine and the vaccine acquisition and distribution. People are concerned. But when you cut through the smoke, if you will, and clear the air, and you talk about what we're doing, how we've sourced, what we've done, and how we've distributed more than 1.4 million vaccines in Canada to date.... Today we have more good news that more are on the way.

Let's be clear and let's state for the record that even if no additional vaccines are approved by Health Canada, which we all know isn't going to happen, we remain on track to receive six million doses of vaccines by the end of March, 20 million between April and June, and a total of over 70 million doses by the end of September.

Again, Mr. Chair, with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines alone, just with them alone, we're on track to have doses in this country for all Canadians by the end of September. Let's be very clear: We will deliver that. If you want a vaccine, you can have one by September. When we relay that to Canadians, they are very, very happy with the work that we as a government are doing. They are very, very relieved. They are very, very pleased with how we have stepped up, procured, sourced and will deliver vaccines. Look, we remain wholly focused on getting vaccines to Canadians. We're on top of the file and we're not going to stop until the job is done.

Mr. Chair, if I may, I will go back to one of my jobs. It really wasn't a job; it was a love I had, years before I became a member of Parliament. I know MP Barlow is probably sitting there thinking right now, “Oh, no, he's going to talk about the Saint John Sea Dogs again. We're going to hear about major junior hockey again. Oh, no.” Even though that team, I will say, in 2011 won the Memorial Cup, the quickest an expansion team has ever gone from being on a piece of paper to winning the cherished Memorial Cup, I will give MP Barlow a little bit of relief, because I'm not going to talk about the Sea Dogs right now.

I am going to talk about another job I had, which was teaching international logistics and international sales and marketing for the New Brunswick Community College. You know, being a teacher at the community college was an amazing experience. To be able to take a textbook and shut it and say, look, this is theory—and actually, I also worked in international sales with Stolt Sea Farm, a salmon company—and this is how it's done. This is how logistics happens. This is how you source. This is how you procure. This is how you distribute and this is how you start from here to get to there, if you will. I do want to take some time to talk about our acquisition strategy.

Again, Mr. Chair, since the beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada has been committed to working with the provinces and territories, indigenous leaders, health professionals and all stakeholders on a pan-Canadian response to protect the health and safety of all of us from coast to coast to coast. We take that responsibility—especially now, given the pandemic we're in—extremely seriously. The aim of Canada's public health response has been to minimize serious illness and overall deaths related to COVID-19 while minimizing societal disruption.

With regard to COVID-19 vaccine acquisition, the Government of Canada has been driven by the principles of science-driven decision-making, transparency, coherence and adaptability, fairness and equity, public involvement, consistency in reporting. As part of the focus on science-driven decision-making, the Government of Canada is continuing to consult expert advisory committees and seek advice from public health leaders across Canada and experts in vaccine science, industry and research.

This includes seeking advice from the national advisory committee on immunization and the COVID-19 vaccine task force, as well as input from chief medical officers of health across Canada. In line with advice from these experts, the government has developed a vaccine acquisition strategy to ensure safe and effective vaccines across Canada as soon as they become available, all with the goal of providing enough vaccines for every person in Canada free of charge. In fact, we have sourced and procured more vaccines...realistically, enough vaccines for every Canadian four or five times over.

As you know, Mr. Chair, a central component of the government's current vaccine supply strategy has been coherence and adaptability, to position Canada to be able to mitigate the uncertainty that exists around vaccine development and the very real potential for disruptions that can occur in the supply chain.

One of the things that certainly I always taught in international logistics when I did teach it at New Brunswick Community College in St. Andrews, which was an unbelievably rewarding experience, as I said earlier, is that you need to be ready for the unexpected. You need to be able to adapt. You need to cover all your bases per se. Sure, it's great to look on as an armchair quarterback—they coulda, woulda, shoulda—but we're in unprecedented times. We are turning over every rock and making sure we have every scenario covered, and so far what we're doing is working.

As per the experts, we could not expect that all vaccines would be successful in clinical trials. At the same time, the government could not reliably predict which vaccines would be the first to be successful in reaching regulatory approval. Nobody could, Mr. Chair. Again, we needed to make sure that we had every base covered, and in fact we did that. With this in mind, Canada was an early investor in vaccines and secured agreements with seven—seven, Mr. Chair—of the leading vaccine candidates when they were in the early preliminary stages of development.

Canada's portfolio of vaccine candidates was sought with purpose, ensuring to secure vaccines from a number of different companies with a broad range of vaccine technologies and sourced from diverse supply chains. To date, two vaccines—Pfizer and Moderna—have successfully been authorized for use in Canada.

The government has secured enough doses for the entire population, which are scheduled to arrive in Canada by September of this year. Again, the commitment: If you want a vaccine against COVID-19 by September, you can have that vaccine. Let me again state very clearly that when we relay that to our constituents here in Saint John—Rothesay, they are extremely grateful. The Government of Canada is working diligently across departments with their provincial and territorial counterparts to ensure there are no unnecessary delays in getting these doses to health authorities as soon as shipments arrive in Canada.

Canada's commitment to an evidence-based supply strategy means that Canadians will have access to the most promising vaccines at their earliest availability, and Health Canada's robust process for regulatory authorization provides assurances that the vaccines available to them are safe and effective. The government wants everyone who receives a vaccine to know that they can have full confidence, knowing we have undertaken rigorous review.

Mr. Chair, the government is confident the current vaccine strategy will serve Canada in managing the challenges in the world of vaccine development. However, the nature of the virus and this pandemic necessitate that the federal government continue to actively manage the strategy closely. In fact, we are doing just that. That is why the Government of Canada is continuing to monitor the evidence on the COVID-19 virus and all vaccines. Federal departments are working with the provinces and territories, health workers, experts and international partners to share the latest evidence and information. As we've seen with recent variants that have emerged around the world, the threat of COVID-19 to the health of Canadians continues to evolve. This type of collaboration is critical, Mr. Chair, to help us understand how the virus is mutating and how that may impact the success of vaccines in preventing infection and transmission of the virus over the long term.

Mr. Chair, I had a call the other day and basically the comment was this: “Your government's planning is poorly thought out; it's too quick and it hasn't been studied enough.” You know, with respect, of course I went back and said, “Look, we're trying to turn the pages of a book before the ink is dry.” These are unprecedented times and we're trying to move as quickly as we can in a time when we don't know what the next day, the next week, the next month or the next variant is going to bring us. We need to continue to collaborate with experts. We need to trust and put our trust in Health Canada. We need to have faith, as a government—and not just as a government but as all political leaders—that we can stand together, work together, continue to collaborate and have each other's backs to get this country through an unprecedented time. We will do that.

Mr. Chair, I'd also like to take the opportunity to highlight that Canada is not alone in facing the challenges around COVID-19 vaccines. Many countries are implementing similar approaches to their vaccine strategies. I also had a call this week asking, how come that other country is so much further ahead of us? That country was basically the size of Prince Edward Island, and Canada is a large, logistically challenged country. It was like comparing apples to oranges.

Mr. Chair, Canada's international partners and allies are also impacted when there are disruptions to supply chains. They have adopted a diverse portfolio approach, given the uncertainty around how many safe and effective vaccines would be available, and when. We also know that other countries share Canada's commitment to supporting mechanisms that will provide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines internationally in order to help bring an end to the acute phase of the pandemic globally. While Canada's current focus is on securing domestic supply, Canada is also committed to working with Gavi and the COVAX facility. This includes Canada's commitment of $220 million to the COVAX advance market commitment to purchase vaccine doses for low- and middle-income countries. This funding is in addition to the up to $25 million U.S. that Canada previously committed to the COVAX AMC.

I would note that Canada has been asked about how it is managing its potential surplus of vaccines. Although Canada is not currently in a position of surplus, Canada is fully committed to working with its partners to ensure that vaccines do not go to waste. Canada worked closely with international partners, including Gavi, the COVAX facility and vaccine manufacturers, to ensure that all possible options are explored to ensure doses get to people around the world who need them.

With respect to the acquisition side, I want to finish by affirming that Canada is confident that our current strategy has positioned Canada to be able to navigate uncertainties in the world of vaccine development, and the Government of Canada is committed to continue to manage the vaccine strategy in the best interests of the people of Canada, to ensure we have timely access to safe and effective vaccines.

Again, I come at this from a bit of a different perspective. I had the opportunity in a previous life—it seems like 20 years ago—to teach international logistics and to articulate what I learned when I worked for a salmon company and travelled the world with respect to salmon sales, and how important it is in the logistical chain to have every part covered, from sourcing to procurement, warehousing and distribution, and execution.

Sure, we have challenges, and sure, we're going to face more challenges, obstacles, roadblocks and adversity, but we face that straight on, and we face it knowing that our government is there. Our government will respond and answer the bell for Canadians.

Look, we're in government, and I certainly accept the fact that people will be critical. People will say, “Yes, you did this, but why didn't you do that?” or “Why can't you do that?” We were elected to govern. We were elected to lead, and we have led. We have stood up for Canadians during this pandemic. When other parties wanted us to stop benefits or not extend the CERB, the wage subsidy or rent relief, we said, “No, we will be there for Canadians.” We will get Canadians through this once-in-a-generation pandemic, and we will come out of this strong—stronger than before, and more united.

Look, we all know that over the past year we've lived our lives in the shadow of the virus, unfortunately. What we do, how we act, where we go, all this has been changed. I would like to think it hasn't been changed forever, but certainly I don't think there's a Canadian who doesn't now reflect more on their lives, their friends and their family, and just wonder and give thanks for what they have and hope for a better future. We've all experienced it. We've experienced isolation, uncertainty, heartbreak, disappointment, fear and anxiety. We've missed seeing our friends, our families and our extended families.

I was a small business operator. Many of our friends have lost businesses. They've had trouble making ends meet. They don't know what tomorrow brings. Sadly, so sadly, many Canadians have lost loved ones to this dreadful pandemic that is COVID-19.

Even as the current wave of this pandemic continues to take a toll on all Canadians, we're seeing safe and effective vaccines being rolled out across the country. The vaccines are coming; they're coming. We had more good news again today. We heard we're going to receive hundreds of thousands of vaccines weekly for the next several weeks. I know personally, and we know as a government, that it's been difficult. We all just want the pandemic to end. We want to go back to the way it was. As vaccinations roll out among those in our communities who are most at risk of infection, all of us need to keep following measures that prevent the spread of this virus and its variants. We say it here every day. We do videos here in this office every day. Wear a mask. Wear the mask up over your nose. Wash your hands. Social-distance and be smart. That's how we will get through this.

Chair, from the beginning of the pandemic, our government has been keeping Canadians safe by acquiring personal protective equipment and other supplies in a competitive worldwide market. As we continue to work non-stop to negotiate access to hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines in an atmosphere that is ever volatile and complex, Canadians across this country have been taking guidance from our public health officials to heart and putting it into action. This spirit of co-operation has been crucial as our first line of defence to keep our neighbours and communities safe.

Chair, let me say that our premier, Premier Blaine Higgs, has done an admirable job managing our province through the pandemic. I tip my hat to his government. I'm very encouraged to see the co-operation and alignment of our premiers with our government regardless of political stripe. It's refreshing and encouraging to see all political leaders across this country at all levels—municipal, provincial, and of course us as federal—all working together. We can see that in the co-operation on this committee this afternoon.

We have a strategy. We're going to make sure we deliver safe and effective vaccines. They will be delivered, distributed and administered as soon as we can acquire them. It's a strategy that we've been putting into action for many, many months. The fact is that getting these vaccines to Canadians in a timely manner means we are competing with the entire world in a very volatile market for a very precious commodity. When I talk to my constituents, of course there are lots of questions and lots of concerns, but generally they are very, very happy with and appreciative of the job we are doing for Canadians.

We've been approaching companies from around the world. As soon as their vaccine candidates begin to show promise.... We knew whom to approach based on the most recent scientific developments. Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine task force, we had access to advice from leading experts in vaccines and immunology to alert us to the best candidates.

From there, we got commitments and signed flexible agreements with seven vaccine manufacturers, starting, as we all know, with Moderna in July. This government then went on to get access to millions of doses and to put in options in our purchase agreements for millions more. By ensuring access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines secured from seven different manufacturers, our strategy is set to deliver for Canadians.

We're faced with a disease, if you will, a virus, and we don't know exactly what will happen in the future, so we need to cover our bases. We need to secure and source. I'm proud to say that experts across Canada and around the world agree with our approach. By building a diversified portfolio of vaccines, we have positioned Canada to be able to deploy the vaccines as soon as possible, as soon as they are available.

Let me say this, Chair, about dealing with uncertainty. The approach is providing much-needed security to communities across Canada, and all of us as political leaders can assure Canadians.... This isn't the time to stoke fear and uncertainty among Canadians, because Canadians are dealing with a lot right now. The last thing they need is to see political leaders toss rhetoric back and forth. That only elevates Canadians' concerns and fears.

Shipments of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been arriving. Our most vulnerable people in long-term care homes and our health care workers are being vaccinated. I can certainly attest to that in my riding of Saint John—Rothesay. This indeed is happening. Our most vulnerable are being vaccinated.

Working together with the provinces and territories, we have received and distributed, as I said earlier, a total of 1.4 million COVID vaccine doses, with Canadians getting their first dose and more being inoculated every day. However, the road continues to be long, and we need to anticipate that things can go wrong. We need to be ready for that. We need to cover our bases and be prepared. That's what good planning, sourcing, warehousing and distribution do.

The road is long. It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's a long race. It's not those who are first out of the gate. It's not those who make the biggest splash. It's those who are prepared to win the race, and we're going to win the race. We're going to provide a vaccine to Canadians who want it by September. We said we would. We said we will, and we will.

Countries are clamouring to get the doses they negotiated. We're in a race with every country around the world. Countries want those doses as fast as possible. I understand. I understand the angst and anxiety. I feel it too, but Canadians need to have confidence that we have their backs. They need to have confidence that we have the people in place who can make this happen, because we are in an unpredictable marketplace, and we're in an extremely unpredictable world right now.

It's a pressurized environment, and there are going to be bumps. As one of my former colleagues used to say when I worked in the hockey business, it's a long and winding road with many twists and turns; we just need to make sure that we stay on that road and don't go into the ditch. We won't go into the ditch. We're going to stay on the road. Sure, we're going to have a few bumps here and there, but we're going to move forward and we're going to deliver for Canadians. We're going to make sure that we're safe and we're going to make sure that we can move past this pandemic. We will move past this pandemic.

Mr. Chair, the Prime Minister and the government have remained vigilant. They have been in contact with the CEOs of these companies nearly every day, and these companies have reassured us that they will meet their commitments for the first quarter of this year.

I was a business guy in a former life. I understand that we said we would do this by this date, by first quarter, by second quarter, third quarter, by September. I'm expecting my government to live up to those commitments, and I know we will. That means that Pfizer will still deliver the four million doses and Moderna the two million doses by the end of March.

Canada is hardly alone in facing obstacles to receiving vaccines, but this is what our strategy was designed for. We cast the net wide. Having a number of agreements in place, building a diverse portfolio and keeping arrangements flexible are helping to bring stability to a chaotic situation. While the numbers may fluctuate in the short term with a curveball here and there, manufacturers will continue to find efficiencies as they produce more and more doses for distribution around the world, and as this government remains committed to sharing accurate information with Canadians, we will share information with Canadians as soon as we get that information. As more doses are produced, the system for manufacturing and distributing vaccines will stabilize.

I just want to say that we know every member, every MP, everybody who is sitting here on this beautiful Friday afternoon—it's minus 16 here in Saint John, believe it or not—wants to see an end to this, all of us. We all agree on that. For sure, we differ on how we get to the end, and we differ on how we want to support Canadians. We want to make sure that we have supports for Canadians and continue with things and support businesses with the wage subsidy and commercial rent relief and CEBA and things like that. We want to make sure we have those, whereas some of our Conservative colleagues didn't want those programs to continue on. We did. We wanted to make sure that we protected businesses and we protected constituents.

I sincerely believe...and, Chair, I think my record over the past five or six years—it's hard to believe I'm a second-term MP—shows that I'm not afraid to speak out. I'm not afraid to speak up. I'm not afraid to call things out as I see them, but I'm also deeply proud of the job we are doing in unprecedented times with unprecedented challenges.

I know we're on the right track, with a strategy for acquiring vaccines that combines diversification, flexibility and aggressive negotiating. When setbacks occur, we are committed to keeping Canadians informed. We're committed to communicating. We will continue to bear down and redouble efforts to get shipments back on schedule.

As we have heard before, Chair, and as I've said before, the race to end the pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint. Yes, I look at it too and ask why they did this or why they got more doses there this week, but it's a marathon. It's who has prepared for the long haul, not the short gain or the short win. It's who has covered enough bases. It's who has the net cast to make sure that when we have curveballs we can deal with them.

Let me wrap this up, Chair. I'm profoundly proud of our country. I'm profoundly proud of all our political leadership. As I said just a few minutes ago, I give kudos to Progressive Conservative leader and premier Blaine Higgs for his managing of the pandemic for us in our province. I applaud his leadership. Obviously, we don't agree on everything, but these are difficult times. It's not a time to be trying to tear people down or trying to divide. It's time for all of us to come together, work together and stand together.

I have absolutely no doubt, Chair, none whatsoever, that, God willing, sooner rather than later, we will be able to look back with pride and remembrance, with a sincere, profound sense—

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

I've been listening to the member speak for over 30 minutes. The motion is on contracts and I have not heard that word a single time. We have heard about salmon fishing, careers, hockey careers and all kinds of things the member is proud of, but I'm looking to hear about contracts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

I did hear discussion of this, but I would encourage Mr. Long to remember the topic at hand.

Thank you.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Chair. I take your point.

Just on a point of clarity, I never was in the salmon fishing business. I was in the aquaculture salmon-growing business. That's an amazing business on both coasts. I have salmon-fished up the Miramichi River and the Restigouche River, but aquaculture is profoundly different. I know that the member would certainly recognize the difference between the two.

To wrap up, I will hearken back to my days with respect to logistics and distribution and how we have sourced vaccines and negotiated contracts with vaccine manufacturers to make sure we have delivered and will continue to deliver for Canadians.

I thank you, Chair, and all the committee members for the work you're doing. I'm just visiting here. Your work is profoundly important. MP Barlow and I also do a lot of very important work on HUMA, which I'm extremely proud to be on, but again, obviously the health committee right now is of utmost importance for all Canadians. I sincerely and genuinely thank you for the work that's being done by every one of you. I think it's profoundly important for our country, and I thank you.

I'll wrap it up, Chair. Thank you for your indulgence. I wish everybody a great continued meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Long.

We will go now to Dr. Powlowski. Please, go ahead.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have to say thank you to Mr. Long, Mr. Lamoureux, Madame Vignola and Mr. Barrett for appearing with us today at the health committee. There's finance committee and there's ethics committee, but I'm sure you'll all agree you've made a big [Technical difficulty—Editor] to health committee.

Welcome to all of you.

Let me also say thank you to all the analysts and to the translators, although I'm pretty sure there isn't a place you'd rather be on a Friday afternoon than right here with the health committee. Thank you all.

Let me get to the actual matter at hand and the importance of not doing anything to potentially jeopardize our access to the vaccines. Why is that? We're doing pretty well with respect to vaccines. I know that when the Prime Minister has said that everyone who wants a vaccine will have a vaccine by the end of September, he's basing that solely on contracts from Moderna and Pfizer. There are three other vaccines out there that seem to be effective. Two of them have already gone through the phase three trials. With the other one, Novavax, preliminary results have shown that it's effective. Yes, it has to go through the regulatory approval process and we're not sure how long that's going to take, but from talking to my medical colleagues, it seems likely that most, if not all, of these vaccines are going to be approved. All the data that approval is based on is out there, so we know what that data has shown. The results and the concerns, such as with AstraZeneca, have been much talked about in the medical community, but we think they're going to be approved.

When those other vaccines are approved, we will have millions and millions of doses of those in addition to Pfizer and Moderna, so I think in the quite near future we will have a lot of vaccines. The problem in the spring and early summer is going to be getting those vaccines into arms. That's going to be a provincial responsibility, but I have faith in the provinces and in the medical system. Heck, I might be out there myself, giving some injections. It seems to me that it would be a good use of my time—maybe even better than being here in health committee.

I want to address the things that Mr. Davies brought up, because he brought up some very real questions. He talked about the fact that many of the vaccine manufacturers have used public funds in developing those vaccines, yet then they have patent rights over those vaccines. It's a very legitimate question that we all ought to be asking right now, and certainly I ask this question: Is it in the collective interest of all the people in the world that the global supply of vaccines be reliant on the free market and the goodwill and business interests—the financial interests—of the pharmaceutical industry to solve the crisis for all of us? Does the free market lead to the optimal outcome in terms of health care, but also in terms of the economy and getting the economy going again?

It is potentially a great failure of global governance that in the end we've left the management of the pandemic to free enterprise and the interests of the pharmaceutical companies. There is probably a better way of doing this. I say it's a failure of global governance, not Canadian governance, because this is a global problem and the only solution has to be a global solution. That'll probably be in terms of a treaty, so that the next time this happens, we're not reliant on market mechanisms and the free market to handle our collective problems.

That's something that's going to be in the future. Right now, we're stuck with the system that currently exists, which is the free enterprise system—the market system. To have that market system work, we're dependent on contracts and contract law. We're dependent on a market where, if the seller has better opportunities with another buyer, perhaps they'll avail themselves of those opportunities. In the system we find ourselves, in the game in which we find ourselves playing, I think it's very prudent to not do anything that could potentially jeopardize our vaccine supply. That is what we're arguing about here.

Sometimes we have to come back to that: What are we arguing about here? It's that we do not want—or do not believe it is in our collective interest—to require the vaccine producers to bring their contracts before us at this committee.

As for the global response, I share Mr. Davies' interest in the possibility of using compulsory licensing. Compulsory licensing is allowed under international trade law and under the WTO TRIPS agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property. Compulsory licensing allows a government, after negotiating with the patent holder, and should they fail to reach agreement with the patent holder, to award a compulsory licence to produce a medication to another enterprise to produce it. This is recognized, as I say, under the WTO, as part of what's known as the TRIPS flexibilities.

This was very much an issue that came to light in the academic literature because of the problem of access to antiretrovirals in Africa during the 2000s. A lot of antiretrovirals were still under patent and, therefore, were at a price range where basically nobody in Africa could afford them. A lot of the African countries and the developing world knew of the TRIPS flexibilities; however, they felt uncertain as to whether a WTO panel really would allow a poor country to use a patent in order to produce medications under the provisions of the TRIPS agreement. In fact, the WTO, in the Doha declaration, stated that, yes, those flexibilities and compulsory licensing could be used for basically what we have here, which is a public health emergency.

I know that our country in fact has quite a long history of using compulsory licensing. At one time, we were, I believe, the leaders globally in terms of using compulsory licensing to produce medications. I believe that under the Prime Minister's father, Pierre Trudeau, we in fact engaged quite frequently in compulsory licensing. Certainly Canada did not oppose, and in fact stood on the side of, four African nations in their attempts to use compulsory licensing as a way of allowing access to life-saving medications in Africa. In fact, it was under the Jean Chrétien government that we enacted the Jean Chrétien Pledge to Africa act, which allowed Canadian companies to use compulsory licensing to manufacture in Canada drugs for export to developing countries.

In addition, I would point out that early on, under COVID—this summer, in fact—we enacted legislation allowing the Government of Canada to use compulsory licensing with respect to products related to COVID, so Canada has quite a long history of involvement with compulsory licensing. In fact, that is potentially one solution to the problem, but on this question, when it has come up in international quarters in terms of our response to the pandemic, I know the concern has been that compulsory licensing is too slow a process and developing countries wouldn't be able to use compulsory licensing fast enough in order to address the problem.

As a result of that, India and South Africa, as Mr. Davies is aware, went to the WTO a number of months ago looking for a waiver from the WTO, which would basically allow countries that are poor or developing countries to bypass international or intellectual property rights and allow those countries—or companies in those countries—to produce the vaccine. They've gone before WTO asking for the waiver. It's been postponed several times now. Mr. Davies has said that Canada opposes this waiver before WTO.

Don, I don't know if you're listening, but I got this from the department of international trade. I know the media has said and it's been publicized that Canada opposes the waiver. I just got this from international trade because I asked them what I could say on this.

The official response is that Canada does not oppose the TRIPS waiver. It says that Canada has reached out to proponents of the waiver and all WTO members to better understand their concerns. We appreciated the January 15 responses to our questions from co-sponsors of the waiver proposal. We will continue to discuss these responses at TRIPS council, most recently at the February 4 informal meeting, and we look forward to further engagement at the upcoming February 23 meeting. We don't oppose it. TRIPS governs intellectual property matters, but currently vaccine accessibility issues centre on distribution supply chain concerns.

My understanding of the Canadian position is that the free market and, by voluntary licensing, other countries and companies in those countries will hopefully be able to make agreements with vaccine producers in order to ramp up production, which is collectively in all of our interests. Certainly compulsory licensing is allowed under international trade law. I think if you look at our history, Canada has either engaged in compulsory licensing or approved of compulsory licensing in the past. For developing countries, there could be, one, a voluntary licensing agreement with the actual producers, and, two, compulsory licensing. My understanding is that if this isn't working, Canada does not in fact oppose the waiver or, at least at the moment, hasn't taken the position of opposing the waiver.

I think that's very interesting and I have to say I think Canada has taken a very ethical position and a position that I think is collectively in all of our interests. I certainly agree with Mr. Davies on a couple of points with respect to the global pandemic and having a global approach. One is that, as long as the disease is out there in other countries, it can mutate and come back and haunt us for years to come. Really it is in our best interests to find a global solution.

The second thing is in terms of the economy. I think it was ILO, the International Labour Organization, earlier on in the pandemic that was predicting that 500 million more people globally would be pushed into poverty as a result of the pandemic, and the World Bank estimated that something like 20 million to 40 million people would be pushed into extreme poverty. Various economic think groups have come to the conclusion that it will collectively cost the economies in the developed world billions and billions of dollars if we don't address the pandemic in developing countries, for a couple of reasons.

One is that the supply chains for our companies start in those countries, and another is that, even though developing countries may not spend as much per capita as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom do, markets in those countries are sizable and the pandemic is affecting those markets. For all of those reasons, I fully agree with Mr. Davies that there has to be a global approach to this problem. There has to be a global solution. I salute our government's approach in terms of the international response.

Let me throw in before closing that, with respect to the international response, Canada really has taken a leading role. We've provided $1.6 billion for the global COVID response, including $220 million to COVAX for the purchase of vaccines. I think we have done, actually, a fairly admirable job with a problem that doesn't affect just us in Canada. It's a global problem that I think really calls out for global solutions.

Frankly, I don't think there is an international law or adequate mechanisms for dealing with this kind of problem. I would encourage our opposition and the New Democratic Party to consider the possibility of something like a treaty and how we could globally make a response to this that would collectively be in our best interests so that, next time around, we don't have the same kind of problem.

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

We'll go now to Ms. Sidhu.

Ms. Sidhu, go ahead, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all of the members who are joining us today to give their perspectives on the matter we are discussing.

Mr. Chair, delivering the vaccine out to Canadians is a massive undertaking. Never in modern times have we seen such an unprecedented level of collaboration and co-operation. This is a team Canada effort. Our collective efforts have allowed us to prepare, build capacity and develop better ways to deliver vaccines. We developed a process so that we could deliver vaccines across the Canadian landscape within days of approved vaccines becoming available.

You heard Dany Fortin at the last committee meeting. We have built and continue to build important relationships with our federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous partners, as well as with industry and a wide range of stakeholders. These relationships allow us to come together in common purpose and to adapt to a complex situation and the rapidly evolving circumstances we are seeing today. Together we have built and tested distribution plans that meet the characteristics of these COVID-19 vaccines. The early-to-market mRNA vaccines demand special cold chain and procurement considerations. This meant our well-established procurement and distribution program would not work. Instead we took a more centralized, federal approach to obtain and distribute this vaccine.

The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine needs an ultra-low temperature, as we all know, commonly known as a ULT cold chain. Ideally, this vaccine is stored and shipped at -70°C. The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine requires a frozen cold chain. This means it needs to be at -20°C, both in storage and during transportation. The capacity for storing these vaccines varied among jurisdictions in some places. ULT freezer capacity was already available in fixed infrastructure, such as in larger hospitals, scientific research facilities or specialized commercial sites. In other areas, an innovative approach that allowed for temporary capacity was needed to respond on a smaller scale.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has been working with the provinces, territories and indigenous partners to build the capacity for the cold chain. They have been obtaining ultra-low temperature and -20°C freezers in addition to hybrid units in various configurations. The freezers are then distributed where needed and the agency ensures that they are properly installed and inspected and are fully operational.

The federal government is also acquiring specialized equipment, containers and dry ice to transport vaccines in smaller quantities. The thermal shippers, in which the vaccines are shipped in their frozen state, can also be used for storage at the destination for up to a month. This allows greater flexibility to maintain the cold chain while reaching remote and isolated communities. This is in addition to providing supplementary equipment to support vaccination. By December 14, 2020, we had 14 locations across Canada ready to receive and administer vaccines. Within a month we were using over 10 times that on a weekly basis.

There are multiple delivery points, referred to as vaccine delivery sites, in each province and territory. The number of these sites being used at any given time fluctuates from week to week. Some sites are used for only one type of vaccine. Others can be used for both. The jurisdictions receiving the vaccine determine which sites are used and how, in order to support their individual vaccine plans.

The largest service providers can deliver vaccines deep into the provinces and territories by designating vaccine delivery sites in remote and isolated communities.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes, Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't mind the Liberal members reading the speeches they've been given, but I would really appreciate it if they remained relevant to the topic that we are talking about today, which is the contracts between the pharmaceutical companies and the Government of Canada, and the details of those contracts. It's not about vaccination distribution strategies and storage and those types of things. I would just appreciate it if the members stayed on topic on the issue of my motion.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Chair, on the same point of order, if I may?