Evidence of meeting #23 for Health in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vaccine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
I have 30 seconds left.
Do you believe that it could happen in Canada with a four-month space between the doses of the mRNA vaccines?
12:45 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Medecine, As an Individual
We cannot exclude this possibility.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Do you think this has been factored into NACI's decision in recommending...?
12:45 p.m.
Professor, Faculty of Medecine, As an Individual
No, I don't think so.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
That is very disturbing. I'll end my questions with that.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.
We'll go now to Mr. Kelloway. Please go ahead for four minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thank you, Chair.
Hello everyone. Thank you to the witnesses who are here today. It's very interesting.
I have a short period of time. I'm going to start with Mr. Pinnow. I have two questions.
Can you provide your views on how to better prepare for the next possible pandemic? That is going to where the puck is going to be.
Secondly, is Pfizer looking to or is it open to setting up domestic production in Canada?
12:45 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada Inc.
To be successful going forward in creating more resiliency here in Canada, the government needs to create conditions that foster innovation and support investment. We are competing on a global stage and are apparently woefully behind our peers. We need to start with incremental support of the life sciences sector by leveraging the strength of discovery and research to build on the rest of the ecosystem. This includes the role that industry plays in providing its manufacturing expertise and managing global supply change.
An understanding that local market and regulatory conditions do impact and determine our resiliency here in Canada is fundamental. Some of the lessons we have learned from what has taken place during this pandemic is that years of public policy decisions have made Canada less attractive to investment. PMPRB's flawed regulatory changes impede domestic companies from scaling up without artificial support. There are slow drug listings and processes that have limited or delayed access to new medicine. There's mediocre IP protection.
All of this has taken place without a sincere and collaborative consultation with our industry. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we're here and available to help solve this problem collectively.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thank you very much.
My last question is for Dr. Dubé.
Dr. Dubé, in regard to your work on vaccine hesitancy—which is an exceptionally important issue today, obviously—what can all levels of government do to communicate to Canadians, especially those at risk of COVID-19, about the safety and efficacy of vaccines? What can we be doing now? What can we be doing better to get that out there?
12:45 p.m.
Researcher, Research Center, Université Laval, As an Individual
As I mentioned earlier, I think the vaccine confidence subgroup of the Government of Canada is doing great work in starting to communicate. What we've missed is that we should have started that much earlier. This could have been done in the past summer. I think this left an empty space that the anti-vaccine people have filled out. That's unfortunate. It's not too late and I think good efforts are being made.
I agree with my colleagues on the risk of having different recommendations and the confusion out there that could create more hesitancy. We need to have unified messages. We need to work with all sectors, businesses and religious leaders to have common messages on the importance and safety of the COVID vaccines we have in Canada.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Okay, I'll just say, somebody mentioned earlier in this testimony the speed of science.
Dr. Dubé, that ties in to your great point that the communication techniques and vehicles we have need to be aligned to the speed of science.
To both you and Mr. Pinnow, thank you very much for your points and for your answers to the question.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.
We'll go back to Ms. Rempel Garner.
Go ahead, please, for four minutes.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Pinnow, with regard to the contract that was originally signed for your vaccine, you said the deliveries just started with Q1.
I just want to clarify that the Government of Canada did not negotiate delivery of vaccine doses for December of last year in the original contract. Is that correct?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
When were the doses for December delivery negotiated?
12:50 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada Inc.
We began negotiating in mid-November when both we and the government identified a potential pathway to an earlier decision, and concluded that negotiation in December.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Did the United States have delivery of doses in December negotiated in their original contract?
12:50 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada Inc.
In terms of the benchmarks that are often used, both the U.K. and the U.S. anticipated much earlier in the pandemic a potential pathway for a December authorization—
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Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Okay. I'll take that as a “yes”.
On what date did the Government of Canada engage in negotiations with your company for initial December delivery?
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Oh, okay.
Was the price we paid per dose in December higher than what we're paying for deliveries in Q1?
12:50 p.m.
President, Pfizer Canada Inc.
Prices are confidential and we will not be sharing them.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB
Wow. All right.
I'm going to go back to Dr. Grandvaux for a minute to talk about this concept of consent.
In regard to the decision to delay dosing by four months, you talked about how there isn't data to support that decision, that it has been based on opinion from NACI, and now, I guess, from Health Canada. Can you talk about what that lack of consent means for people in the general public right now, and any potential other negative impacts that we might not have discussed today that Parliament should be concerned with, with the change in that dosing schedule?