Health Committee on June 14th, 2021

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

That's really interesting. Thank you.

In terms of the phased approach, again, the announcement made was that the first phase would allow fully vaccinated individuals to have that testing, but to be able to avoid the hotel quarantine as well as a home quarantine once a negative test result came back. Is that pretty consistent with your recommendations?

[Sue Paish]

Our recommendation is that nobody avoids a quarantine. Our recommendation is framed around the nature of the quarantine. You have your predeparture test. If that's negative, you come into the country. You then must have an approved quarantine plan in place. There may be a need for those who don't have a quarantine plan to have special consideration.

Once you have completed seven days of quarantine and have a negative PCR test, then the quarantine is ended.

The third element of that recommendation is that the quarantine period of seven days needs to be very carefully monitored and supported for Canadians, but there's no suggestion of avoiding a quarantine.

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

Perfect. Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. O'Connell.

We're back to Mr. Lemire.

Mr. Lemire, you have two minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue with Dr. Bamji.

In 2019, you asked political parties some questions that we found very relevant.

I have a question for you, because I am sincerely curious to know your opinion on this subject.

My question is this. How do you see the role of government in research, given that government agencies should perhaps themselves play an active role in targeting scientific research priorities?

[Dr. Shernaz Bamji]

Thank you for the question.

I think the government people are there to govern, and the scientists are there to actually do the science. The scientists definitely have the ability to target their research to what they think is the most important thing. We would once again prefer not to have the government come in and ask us to do any sort of targeted research as they have in the past.

Even with COVID-19, again, we're very happy with the influx of funding into the COVID-19 research because we absolutely have to do that. That is going to be a very big thing for the next even 10 years down the line. However, we are not totally sure where the next crisis is going to come from—I keep saying that—and that is why we need to have completely unfettered funding, which is open funding for the tri-councils—CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Funding for basic research depends on the mesh between the pharmaceutical industry and governments. Therefore, do you think there should be better collaboration between these stakeholders?

Should the government substitute more for industry?

[Dr. Shernaz Bamji]

Should the government take the place of industry more? I'm sorry but I'm not really qualified to answer something like that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We'll go now to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, wrap this up in two minutes please.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Dr. Kalyan, I'm wondering if there's a financial aspect to this in terms of why we're not proceeding with whole vaccines. Is there any financial aspect to that, specifically with respect to the ability to patent or profit off of whole vaccines versus, say, mRNA vaccines?

[Dr. Shirin Kalyan]

I am speculating. It's really hard to convince large.... Pharmaceutical companies, on average, would have the greatest capacity and resources to roll out anything super fast. They have their feet on the ground. They can do clinical trials. They have manufacturing capacity, etc. However, with the vaccine world, pandemics come and go, as we saw previously with the SARS issue. It came about and then it sort of dissipated.

With regard to putting in a lot of resources, there's not a lot of enticement for pharmaceutical companies to do that unless they get some useful information out of it. Through this pandemic, they have gotten a lot of data on the safety and efficacy of these viral vectors. I think that was the big draw, and why we didn't....

There are those inactivated vaccines, as I mentioned. If you have the capacity to make your own type of vaccine, you wouldn't be beholden to these other potential interests.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thanks. I'll try to squeeze in my second question.

A group of clinician scientists and patient advocates recently asked the FDA in the United States not to prematurely grant licensure to COVID-19 vaccines that have emergency use authorization right now until they have fulfilled all regulatory requirements, which include biodistribution studies and a minimum two-year follow-up of participants of pivotal trials.

Is that something, in your view, that Health Canada should follow?

[Dr. Shirin Kalyan]

Yes, it is—100%.

There is a desire to push this through now to regulations. What we'll also see is a push to regulate the use of these platforms for other drugs, because once you have a [Technical difficulty—Editor] for one, then it's easier to enter any other type of indication.

I definitely think that we need to wait and understand how these work—at a minimum the biodistribution and expression data, for sure.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Davies.

Thank you to all of the witnesses. I thank you for your time today and for sharing your expertise with us. Thank you for your considerable ongoing work in your respective fields.

With that, we will suspend and bring in the next panel.

Thank you, all. We are suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome to meeting number 44 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. The committee is meeting today to study the emergency situation facing Canadians in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I'd like to welcome back the witnesses.

We have, from the Department of Health, Dr. Stephen Lucas, deputy minister. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Mr. Rob Stewart, deputy minister. From the Department of Public Works and Government Services, we have Mr. Bill Matthews, deputy minister. From the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, we have Dr. Matthew Tunis, executive secretary. From the Public Health Agency of Canada, we have Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer; Brigadier-General Krista Brodie, vice-president, logistics and operations; and Mr. Iain Stewart, president.

I will notify the committee that Mr. Stewart, Dr. Tam and Brigadier-General Brodie have a hard stop at one o'clock. They have other engagements.

With that, we will go straight into the questions.

I believe it's Ms. Rempel Garner who will start.

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

Yes, Chair, it's me.

I was having a small technical issue, but I am now good to go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Go ahead.

I'll start your time as of now, for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'll start with a question for Dr. Lucas regarding the announcement that the Johnson & Johnson vaccines the government had been holding were going to be destroyed. Have they been destroyed?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister, Department of Health]

I don't have that particular information.

On Friday, Health Canada did determine that the batch would not be accepted and the—

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

Thank you.

On the doses that will be subject to this non-use or discarding order, did we pay for them?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

Yes, the doses were paid for.

In terms of how that is being managed, I would turn to my colleague Bill Matthews to respond.

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

Briefly, will we be getting reimbursed for those doses?