Health Committee on June 14th, 2021

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

That wraps up our first round.

We'll start our second round with Ms. Rempel Garner.

Go ahead for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to put the following motion on notice. It is that the analyst and clerk be directed to prepare a brief report to the House outlining the material facts of the possible contempt, discussed with Bill Matthews, deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement, on June 14, 2021, concerning the documents ordered by the House on October 26, 2020, and further requested by this Committee on February 19, 2021; and that report be tabled as soon as it is ready.

I'll cede the floor to my colleague Mr. d'Entremont.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner.

Go ahead, Mr. d'Entremont.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to join you from a committee room, for a change.

I want to go back to you, Mr. Matthews, on the issue of the Janssen vaccine and the destruction of the 300,000 vaccines. Can you explain it to us just quickly?

Within the contract, these will not be counted against the total number purchased from Janssen. Can you maybe give us an idea of how many doses were supposed to have been ordered from Janssen?

[Bill Matthews]

In order for the doses to count as delivered, they have to meet the regulatory requirements put in place by Health Canada, as Dr. Lucas has already shared. These doses did not meet those requirements, so they will effectively be destroyed at some point. The contract with Janssen is for 10 million doses.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

We hear from government that we have a robust portfolio of vaccines. We had some pretty compelling testimony from Dr. Kalyan. When we talk about the other kinds, we have two mRNA and one viral vector, and Janssen's not available to us yet. What other contracts are we looking at right now with other manufacturers?

[Bill Matthews]

There are seven that are commonly referred to. There are the two mRNA—Pfizer and Moderna. You have the two viral vector—AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Then you have the three subunit protein—Novavax, Sanofi and Medicago. Medicago is a bit of a special category, but I'll put it in that bucket as well.

If you're looking for more information on the differences between those technologies, I suspect that my health colleagues are better able to help.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

I probably will ask them the question, but before we go there, the doctor we had or the testimony we had prior to this did talk about some older forms of vaccines, questioning maybe some of the challenges we have with the mRNA vaccines and that the technology, while interesting and helpful, may not be quite as effective as maybe some old types of vaccines.

Are there other older versions of vaccines on our list of seven?

[Bill Matthews]

I think—and I will kick this to health colleagues—the Novavax, Sanofi and Medicago are a little different, probably closer to more traditional types of vaccines. I'll pause there and let my health colleagues elaborate.

[Iain Stewart]

If I may, Mr. Chair....

Theresa, you might want to speak to the efficacy of the messenger RNA vaccines. Apparently, a previous witness suggested that they are not effective or not as good as some of the other technology platforms.

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Mr. Chair, thank you for that question. I hope I'll give the answer you are looking for.

The mRNA vaccines have been extremely effective in terms of the clinical trials and the real-life data, including against variants, which I think some of the previous answers covered—and also the viral vector vaccines. We have data from clinical trials and live data as well.

The question is this: What about the other vaccines? You do need to have the clinical trial data coming out of the other vaccines to know how effective they are. Novavax is coming out with some very promising data, which has to be reviewed by the regulator.

Protein subunit vaccines are technologies that have been used for other vaccines for human use, so we know that kind of technology. Some of these vaccines have an adjuvant as an immune-boosting aspect to the vaccine as well. These are vaccines that we have used in the past.

Some of the previous questions pertained to concerns about the repeat use of vaccines and whether they will become effective as boosters, for example. That is something that we will have to examine through data. Whether the whole virus or live attenuated virus vaccines will come to fruition and be an option in the future remains to be seen. It is possible that we will be using boosters that are different from what we used for the initial vaccine programs. Again, we will have to look at the evidence.

[Chris d'Entremont, Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. d'Entremont.

We go now to Mr. Kelloway.

Please go ahead for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. MP O'Connell will be taking my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead, Ms. O'Connell.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Matthews, I want to clarify because I think you misspoke.

The motion you were referring to.... The House motion doesn't actually exclusively refer to contracts. It's Mr. Barlow's motion. I'll read a section of it into the record:

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....

Would you like to clarify which motion in particular you were speaking to? I think the—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

If Ms. O'Connell is going to read from the motion, then she has an obligation to read the entire motion. If you continue with that motion, it says:

...be tabled with the committee in both official languages, 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.

In fairness, you can't just give a partial quote. Of course, the rest of Mr. Barlow's motion makes clear that it is vetted in accordance with the House motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

I believe that gets into debate.

Ms. O'Connell, please go ahead.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The point was in relation to these documents. The House motion doesn't refer to the contracts. If the members want to debate how the motion should be applied, that's their prerogative.

However, Mr. Matthews, can you please speak about how your department dealt with the information and why it was sent here? Which motion were you referring to?

[Bill Matthews]

I may be guilty of oversimplifying things, but I view the motions as being related. As was said, Mr. Barlow's motion did say that, if the law clerk didn't have the documents, please prioritize that the contract documents are forwarded to this committee, which is what we did. I have done some homework while we were talking, and that, indeed, is why these documents were sent directly to this committee and not to the law clerk.

Regardless, in terms of the redaction, it was the Department of PSPC that did the redaction. We are the contracting agent of the government, and we have a sense with our vaccine providers as to what is commercially sensitive and what is not. I do apologize, Mr. Chair, for being a little general in my language earlier. The documents were sent in response to the Barlow motion, but I do appreciate that the two are related.

I'll leave it there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I must interject here at this point. The bells are ringing in the House, so we are required to have unanimous consent to continue. I propose that we finish Ms. O'Connell's time, then jump straight to the Bloc and the NDP portion, and then adjourn if that's okay.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

No, Mr. Chair, we don't have unanimous consent to continue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Therefore, I have to suspend. Is it okay to suspend or shall we adjourn? If we suspend, we have to resume on Friday and that will interfere with the scheduling for Friday's meeting.

Do I have consensus to adjourn at this time?

Seeing no dissent, I declare this meeting adjourned