Health Committee on April 16th, 2021

[Bill Matthews]

I'd have to go back and confirm that.

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

Parliamentarians can't look at the price per dose of vaccines, but now you're commenting on it. When are you going to release the price per dose to this committee?

[Bill Matthews]

There are couple of things here, Mr. Chair. Number one, the contracts are confidential—

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

When do I get the price per dose for everything else?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, if I could finish on this, I'm very reluctant to effectively be in breach of a contract while we're in a world of competition for doses and negotiating the next round of buys. I can't speak to this email; I haven't seen it.

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

Why did we pay double for this?

[Bill Matthews]

I can't confirm the doubling, but I can tell you that—

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

We were late to the table for negotiating, so we had to pay a higher price premium per dose. Is that why we paid higher?

[Bill Matthews]

The only thing I can offer here, Mr. Chair, is that location of manufacturing is an important consideration in the price discussions across the board, so I'm not commenting specifically on AstraZeneca and I can't comment on the suggestion that it's double.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Your time is up. Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

We will go now to Ms. Sidhu for three minutes, please.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Tam, earlier this week, your deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Njoo, provided a clear answer to a Conservative colleague's questions. Can you clarify what other tools, such as masks and physical distancing, are necessary while we vaccinate Canadians? Can you clarify why wearing masks continues to be necessary?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Yes. The basic immunity in the population is still very low, based on our serologic surveys, for example, and vaccines are only just getting going while there is a significant resurgence of cases.

Every person in Canadian needs to layer up the layers of protection. The masks are important because the virus can spread through these droplets and aerosols that can be generated, and when someone's infected.

Of course, there's the distance thing when you're not with people from your household. People want to have many celebrations, but they should do that virtually, because it is that closeness between infected individuals and the uninfected that helps the virus transmit.

Also, avoid the three Cs—the closed, crowded environments where there is close interaction between people—as well as, of course, maintaining hand washing and hand hygiene measures. Those are the very important basic individual measures, and of course respect your local public health unit's advice about what to do in your community.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Can you also speak to what you are doing to increase uptake among multicultural communities for those who may experience issues with the registration because of a language barrier?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Yes, of course. The provinces and territories are responsible for the delivery of the vaccine programs. I think the federal government can help in many ways. Of course, providing credible information in multiple languages is really key; that's one investment.

We're quite excited about investment in community-based projects whereby people can apply for funding to communicate credible information to their communities, whether they're faith leaders or business leaders who can speak the language and can do the outreach to others.

I've been very fortunate to be able to participate in some of those events with business leaders, but also with Black physicians, for example in BlackNorth, a public-private sector collaboration to reach those hard-to-reach populations. They're also giving health care workers who are trusted by their communities—family physicians and others—the tools to be able to answer the questions that their communities might have.

In the end it's about access as well, so we're helping where we can, supporting the provinces, if needed, to mobilize to areas where some of the increased access is required. For example, Major-General Dany Fortin and the Canadian Armed Forces are helping to get the vaccine into certain indigenous communities.

In the end, it's the people and the leadership in those communities, like the elders getting vaccinated and communicating about this, that have really helped. The vaccine uptake has been great in those communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu.

We now go back to the Conservatives. I'm not sure who's up for the Conservatives on this round.

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

I'll go again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, for three minutes.

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

Mr. Matthews, why did Canada pay so much of a premium?

For other countries, production capacity on all the factors you mentioned would be a common denominator, so why did Canada pay a premium for the AstraZeneca vaccine compared to other countries?

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Chair.

On price per dose, you can't compare country to country, because other countries actually invested directly with the manufacturers. I don't have the specifics, but it's not as simple as that. You have U.K. and U.S. manufacturing occurring. The location of manufacturing is a factor. I would imagine volume might be a factor as well.

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

Did we know what the other countries were paying when we negotiated our contract with AstraZeneca?

[Bill Matthews]

At that time, no, we didn't. All the contracts were confidential, and many of them continue to be confidential.

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

How do you know if those factors played a role in Canada's paying a premium?

[Bill Matthews]

Number one, we had discussions with AstraZeneca. We talked about locations. On the volume issue, I'm speculating a bit, but based on experience in procurements, it matters. I can't say specifically in AZ, but the size of the order certainly matters.

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

If you didn't know what other countries were paying, did you just kind of accept $8.18 a dose?

[Bill Matthews]

We were in a world.... With vaccines, it's the same story as PPE. These are effectively a short commodity with great competition, so essentially you negotiate as best you can, but it's certainly a seller's market. It continues to be so in the vaccine market.