Health Committee on May 27th, 2024

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

You know, patience is a virtue. Perhaps my colleague in the NDP-Liberal costly coalition is anxious to get his vote-buying bill passed.

That being said, I think it's important for Canadians to understand that the frivolous spending nature of this government is germane to what we're talking about today, in the sense that we know.... Perhaps this is why the member doesn't want me to talk about it. Almost $500 million—half a billion dollars—was wasted with the collapse of the Medicago manufacturing facility. What happened? Well, we know the money disappeared. We also know there are some difficulties with respect to intellectual property related to the plant-based vaccine, which was deemed to be irrelevant by the World Health Organization.

Chair, continuing in that same vein, what did we see this morning? It's another new study related to another $130 million wasted by this government on another vaccine factory called Novavax, which has, once again, not produced any vaccines. Two phase III clinical trials have failed for respiratory syncytial virus. Now, that doesn't mean that none of this work is important. What it does mean is that there's a frivolous spending nature associated with this NDP-Liberal costly coalition, and a lack of transparency on behalf of Canadians.

Let's allow them to begin to understand where the billions of dollars are being spent—

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I gave Dr. Ellis a minute and a half, as you did. The normal practice when somebody continues to break the rules that govern committees is that you pass to the next person on the speaking list. I know this is a filibuster, but it's a particularly inelegant one, because it's irrelevant. It's not related to CPC-7.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Julian, on this I respectfully disagree.

In the last minute and a half, it's been pretty clear that the theme of Dr. Ellis's intervention is transparency and the responsible management of the fiscal purse. He is citing examples other than the one contained in CPC-7 that support what he's saying. I know what he's saying is something that he and maybe others—not everyone—would agree with. I do see the link, as tenuous as it is, based on what he said in the last minute or so.

I don't accept that it's irrelevant and I would ask Dr. Ellis to go on.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Well, thank you very much for your support, Chair.

On behalf of the folks in Prince Edward Island, I know this is an important part of what they would like to understand with respect to the frivolous and non-transparent nature of this costly coalition.

I'll pick up the thread of where we were at with the Novavax story. The Novavax story continues to be related to the frivolous spending of this costly coalition.

As I said, I want to make it clear, because I know someone will attempt to make this tenuous connection that I don't support this or don't support that, which is what they always say. Even the Prime Minister was in my riding on Friday suggesting I don't support contraception. I would certainly suggest that the tens of thousands of prescriptions I wrote for contraceptives would fly directly in the face of that—even though he had more MPs there from other Nova Scotia ridings than spectators.

I would suggest that is a little off topic, Chair, so I'll come back to the frivolous spending. I won't—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I disagree. You're talking about contraception.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Well, there you go.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

That's actually right in your amendment.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much for that, Chair.

I guess I would simply relate it to the fact that there were more MPs than spectators there, which perhaps is irrelevant, but not as irrelevant as the costly coalition.

To go back to where we were with respect to Novavax, Novavax was an opportunity for Canadians, and it appears the costly coalition continues to just want to back the wrong horse, because now we have another non-mRNA-based vaccine that potentially could be useful around the world, but they are unable to actually produce any vaccine, with two failed phase III clinical trials, as I've said, with respect to RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, and now, for 100 employees at that factory, the Canadian government—I believe through the National Research Council—is paying out $17 million a year.

I think I have the reference here. Actually, I do. Even inside the shockingly good CBC article, what it says, if I can find it, is:

Meanwhile, the National Research Council...is still bankrolling the facility with $17 million in annual funding to help keep about 100 employees working on site, according to figures provided by the NRC, the federal government's research and development arm.

It goes on to say:

The firm, the BMC and the NRC have repeatedly blown past supposed start dates and have told the media at various points that production would start in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

It went on to quote Dr. Earl Brown, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa School of Medicine, who is an expert in virology and microbiology:

Brown said there is a “niche” market for Novavax's subunit vaccine, which uses a different technology than the mRNA products from Pfizer and Moderna.

Novavax has been able to sell some of its protein-based vaccine to patients who want an alternative to mRNA.

But Brown questions whether the mRNA-sceptic market is big enough to sustain a large operation like the BMC over the longer term.

There are a couple of relevant things here:

As of February, only 37,343 Novavax shots had been administered in Canada—

—and those, of course, were made in the United States—

—compared to more than 70 million Pfizer doses and about 33 million Moderna shots, according to [PHAC]....

“Can they be viable in the COVID market? Will they sell enough product to keep themselves alive? I think it's questionable that they survive. There are two big vaccine winners and Novavax isn't one of them”, Brown said.

“I'm very concerned when I hear about a vaccine facility that's not pumping out products. When they sit idle, that's a bad sign. You should be busy all the time, you should be active, current, having your staff putting out licensed product continuously.”

The NDP-Liberal costly coalition really struggles with understanding that people being able to be productive and having people get good-paying jobs and having a great purpose for their lives instead of receiving free things from the government is a good thing.

The article continues:

Brown said he supported the construction of a publicly-owned vaccine plant in the "fog of 2020" but the longer it remains in limbo, the less viable it will be.

He said the federal government may eventually get tired of pumping $17 million into a plant that's not producing anything— or something that's not really in high demand.

This article gets even better. This will really crystallize, when I come to it, the hypocrisy and lack of transparency and, as a matter of fact, overt opaqueness of this NDP-Liberal coalition:

He added there's “amnesia with pandemics in the extreme” and Ottawa may simply move on from plans to prepare the country for the next health crisis.

He went on and talked a bit about Connaught labs in Toronto, which was privatized, etc.

This is the connection that I wanted to make before being interrupted many times by Mr. Julian:

After a failed partnership with a Chinese vaccine company, Ottawa picked Novavax to produce that company's COVID product at the Montreal site.

In announcing the pivot to Novavax in February 2021, Trudeau said the publicly owned facility would produce tens of millions of shots by that summer.

It was billed as a way to lessen Canada's dependence on foreign sources at a time of rapacious global competition for other products from Pfizer and Moderna.

“This is a major step forward to get vaccines made in Canada, for Canadians,” Trudeau said.

This gets even better:

Also in February 2021, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne compared building this sort of facility—from the ground up, on a constrained timeline—to the U.S. effort to put an astronaut on the moon.

Oh, oh. You can imagine; it's like we've never made vaccines before.

“This is like the Apollo project,” Champagne said.

Oh, oh. I'm sorry. It kills me.

“Normally, it would take two to three years to do this, to get a production facility up and running.”

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I have a point of order.

Mr. Stephen Ellis:

Three years on, it appears it will take even longer than that to get production started.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Naqvi has a point of order.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Chair, I think I'm just going to build on Mr. Julian's point.

I think Mr. Ellis has really gone so off the deep end and off track here that he's just humouring himself at this moment. There is no relevance whatsoever anymore, any semblance whatsoever, to the CPC-7 amendment that we are dealing with. Unless his intention is to amuse himself—which he can do on his own time, in private, which I'm sure he'll enjoy even more—perhaps we can move to the next speaker.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Please bring it back around, Dr. Ellis.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Is that another point of order, or do you want to speak to the one that was just made?

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I'll be talking about the same one that was just made.

I believe it is incumbent on each and every one of us to be very diligent and cautious in the words we use. I believe the words that were used by Mr. Naqvi in his point of order were deeply disrespectful and inappropriate. I would caution him to be more selective in the words he uses in this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

Dr. Ellis, it's one thing to create a link around the different practices of government and the fiscal responsibility of each one. The level of detail that you're going into is really tangential. Please bring it back.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I appreciate that, Chair. I would suggest, though, that it's important that Canadians understand what transparency is and what it is not. We know very clearly, from the mention in this article, that this government really struggles with the concept of transparency. That is also why it is incredibly important that we are very, very clear with respect to what this bill is and what it isn't.

Again, just to underline this, or underscore it, talking about transparency, we have the industry minister suggesting that creating a vaccine facility is like putting somebody on the moon. That's just incomprehensible to everyday Canadians. We can come back to some of these points. There's no issue with me with continuing to belabour it.

However, this bill is clearly related to prescription drugs and related products intended for contraception or the treatment of diabetes, and for support, etc. That is why it's incredibly important that we add that here, so that there's clarity, there's transparency and there's responsibility on behalf of Canadians. This is not a universal pharmacare bill in any way, shape or form. This is a pharmacare pamphlet of four pages.

The final thing I will say, Chair, is that it would be shocking to me that the costly coalition around this table, not including the Conservative members—I know the Bloc member certainly does not want to support this bill, considering the fact that Quebec has a pharmacare program already—would allow Canadians to think that this particular pamphlet is a universal pharmacare bill, which as of yet has not defined even the medications related to contraception and to diabetes.

On behalf of Canadians, I would implore those around the table to vote for CPC-7, as it is important for transparency and clarity on behalf of Canadians.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Ellis.

Go ahead, Mr. Julian, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I did want to say that I'm opposing CPC-7. That's because it's not helpful in the pharmacare bill that will make a difference in the lives of six million people with diabetes and nine million people in Canada who use contraception. It's not a helpful amendment at all.

I did want to correct the record on a number of things. I will do that very quickly.

I understand the filibuster and that Conservatives are blocking the bill. They want to talk this out. That's why the House of Commons, in its wisdom, directed us to sit until we get this done. I'm prepared to sit until we get these amendments done and we get the bill finished tonight. That's what the House of Commons decided.

The filibuster—the unnecessary verbiage—is not helpful in getting what most witnesses told us needs to happen, which is getting this bill passed. The vast majority of witnesses said that very fact.

There are two things I would like to correct. First off, the Conservatives love to play fast and loose with language. It's unfortunate, because I'm fact-based. I ran a major social enterprise before I was elected to Parliament, and you have to base things on the facts.

The first fact is that there is no coalition. There is a confidence and supply agreement.

Second, the confidence and supply agreement has only been in existence for two years. It's brought us anti-scab legislation, it's brought us the pharmacare bill, it's brought us affordable housing, and—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead, Mr. Ellis.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I guess it's interesting. The member really wants us to get to the heart of this bill. He's talking incessantly about his coalition. I'm not entirely sure what the relevance is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

The relevance is addressing the points that you raised, which I ruled as being relevant.

Go ahead, Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you.

I understand Dr. Ellis is very concerned about all the good things that the NDP has brought to this Parliament because he's in a riding where there's a lot of NDP support.

That being said, I want to come back to dental care, because the facts are very clear: Two million Canadian seniors have signed up so far. A hundred thousand, in the first three weeks of the program, actually got dental care. In some cases, it was for the first time ever in their lifetimes. That means this is a significant and appropriate success.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

I have a point of order, Chair.