Health Committee on Jan. 18th, 2022

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

As I said, we work with suppliers every day and every day we inform the health ministers. We know that, wherever they are across the country, they need fast and reliable information about the delivery of rapid tests in the coming weeks and months.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

We understand that you don't have the delivery dates. You are quick to say that we would receive rapid tests, but unfortunately not quick enough to tell us when we would receive them.

Contracts have been signed for 313 million rapid tests. Of those 313 million, how many rapid tests are coming from Canadian manufacturers?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

We have a series of suppliers around the globe. Deputy Minister Thompson will tell you more in a moment. Some Canadian suppliers are meeting all sorts of procurement needs, whether it be tests or personal protective equipment. Soon, we hope.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Minister, the Quebec government has just announced an agreement with a Quebec supplier for over 30 million rapid tests made in Quebec.

Canada has contracts for 313 million rapid tests, but you cannot tell us how many of those tests will be made in Canada.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I could provide more details if you wish. All of this requires specifics that are difficult to share verbally. If I may, I will refer to Deputy Minister Thompson—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I have more questions for you, Mr. Minister.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

It depends. Do you want quick answers—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I want to hear from my minister, because I feel the Minister of Health has to be aware of the status of rapid testing in Canada. The minister makes the decisions and talks to the provincial health ministers, so it's important for him to know what the situation is with respect to the availability of rapid tests, where they come from and how many are being manufactured in Canada. I feel it's important to be aware of this information.

That brings me to another question that I also consider important: what is the current status of our national emergency stockpile, Mr. Minister? How many medical-grade masks, N95 masks and rapid tests do we have in the stockpile to face a new crisis, another omicron that could be just as dangerous? No one can predict that right now.

Mr. Minister, since you cannot answer my question about how many tests are being made or will be made in Canada, do you at least know the status of our national stockpile to deal with this crisis?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Mr. Berthold, I understand and appreciate your desire for clarifications.

You already said, a few moments ago, that we don't have time to fool around here. If you agree, we'll email them to you as quickly as possible and you can look at them at any time. We can provide further clarifications if you want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister Duclos and Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I just want to say that I'm eager to obtain the figures that the minister just referred to in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Okay.

He promised you, so I'm sure he'll keep his word.

Mr. van Koeverden, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Duclos, for being here. I'd also like to thank our public servants, who have been working tirelessly for over two years.

Thank you for your tremendous work and for joining us today for this important meeting.

I'd first like to acknowledge the obvious, that this is a global pandemic impacting every country around the world and that when Canada is compared with our peer nations, in particular to our neighbours to the south, Canada's response has been formidable. In short, tens of thousands of lives have been saved with good actions and swift policy decisions, and those decisions have been made by many of the officials here today.

So I would like to thank you on behalf of millions of Canadians for your leadership and expertise. As referenced earlier, this is a pandemic that is similar in size and scale to a world war, but instead of lives lost, there has been a similar number of lives saved as the result of policies and decisions made, including to swiftly vaccinate, as well as some tough calls that were necessary at the time. All in all, I do believe that gratitude is warranted.

Whether it's in terms of containing the spread of the virus, rolling out vaccinations, procuring vaccinations and other important things, fighting delta or reopening the economy, Canada has consistently scored above average. Canada is one of the only countries in the world to never have fallen into the bottom half of any metric, according to numerous publications. As we know, among the newest tools in the tool box to fight COVID-19 are antivirals, and this week was a good week for an announcement regarding antivirals that will reduce the strain on our medical system and our health care system, and particularly ICUs.

While vaccination is central to fighting COVID-19 in Canada and around the world, providing everyone in Canada with access to potential treatments remains vitally important as well.

I would like to direct my initial question to the deputy minister.

Can you please tell us about the agreements we heard about this week with regard to antiviral oral medications to combat COVID-19?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

Certainly. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'll provide a few remarks and then turn to my colleague Paul Thompson and, if time permits, Dr. Tam.

Yesterday, essentially three elements of our plan to support access by Canadians to Pfizer Paxlovid antiviral were announced. First there was the regulatory decision made by Health Canada after receiving the submission on December 1. The team worked through the holidays and around the clock to complete that review, working with other international regulators and collaborators. The second was the announcement that treatment courses for Paxlovid are in the country. They were pre-positioned to allow for rapid deployment to the provinces and territories. Paul Thompson can speak to this, building on the procurement agreement signed for a million treatment courses of Paxlovid that was announced back in the late fall. Third—and Dr. Tam can speak to this—is work done by the Public Health Agency of Canada, working with experts and in collaboration with the provinces and territories to provide guidance on the use of Paxlovid, recognizing the importance of coordinating for testing and ensuring that priority populations have it.

Mr. Chair, I'll pass it to Paul Thompson to speak further to the procurement agreements.

[Paul Thompson]

Thank you very much. I'd just like to add that we were very pleased to secure the delivery of the 30,000 treatment courses coincident with the regulatory approval, and we're also working very hard on the 120,000 treatment courses which are expected over the course of the first quarter, between now and the end of March. So that's a total of 150,000 treatment courses, and we're also working on the broader schedule of deliveries for the overall procurement of more than one million treatment courses.

That's what I would add.

Thank you.

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

And perhaps—

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

You may make a brief comment if you wish, Dr. Tam.

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

For the initial supplies, the Public Health Agency has been working with the provinces and territories to discuss how these will be best deployed. On that front, we provided some interim guidance to assist with prioritization, in collaboration with clinical experts across the country, as well as ethicists, in order to prioritize these doses to people at the highest risk of severe outcomes. We also provided guidance on other considerations, such as making supplies more available to rural and remote communities. Coordination with the clinical system is very important because of the need for testing and for confirming the infection really quickly.

It is not an easy thing to do for the local jurisdictions, but we're here to support them as needed. We look toward these initial doses and the deployment as learning a lot from the initial deployment in order to support the subsequent deployment of supplies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Tam.

Thank you, Mr. van Koeverden.

We'll continue with Mr. Thériault, who has two and a half minutes.

Mr. Thériault, before I give you the floor, let me remind you that if you ask a one-minute question, the person will also have one minute to respond. I know based on your parliamentary experience that you're aware of this.

Mr. Thériault, you have two and a half minutes.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, the solution is to increase my time.

That said, the other key measure to get us out of the pandemic is global vaccination. Experts say that, as long as we haven't vaccinated the entire global population, we won't be safe from a variant crisis every eight months. This is significant.

Canada's premiers have been very clear on this issue. However, several experts believe that they have lacked leadership. They don't walk the talk. The equivalent of 200 million doses were promised, but half of them were delivered.

I'll make four statements. You'll tell me whether you agree with them.

First, the patents must be lifted. To that end, why hasn't Canada supported the waiver of the WTO's Agreement on Trade‑Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS? Why didn't it accept President Biden's invitation to do so?

Second, vaccines must be provided to developing countries. We mustn't do what Canada is doing now, namely, sending out doses that are about to expire. There must be predictable and realistic timelines for these countries, as well as logistical support.

Third, we must participate in the outreach efforts to get these populations vaccinated.

Lastly, logistical support for countries is crucial. We must be able to meet the storage requirements. These requirements are very complex, but they ensure that we don't lose all these doses and vaccines.

Will the minister commit to implementing these measures?

Will you accept President Biden's invitation?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault.

I'll start by saying in a slightly different way what you said. COVID‑19 won't end anywhere in the world if it doesn't end everywhere on the planet. We know why, and we knew it a few months ago. The Omicron variant is a reminder that other variants can emerge as long as everyone isn't sufficiently vaccinated.

The global response includes three parts: the international program for patents and international production; the vaccine direct delivery program; and the support program, as you said, for immunization in the field.

First, with respect to patents, there are discussions and a set of international measures.

Second, in Canada, we have more direct control over our participation in Operation COVAX. We're among the six largest contributors, largest donors, in terms of the number of doses from any country in the world. Canada has a total of 200 million doses, many of which are already being delivered or have already been delivered.

Lastly, we're one of the world's largest providers of administrative and logistical support. Canada has invested $2.5 billion around the world to help some countries receive vaccine doses. That's what we're doing through COVAX. We must also be able to help these countries administer the doses in situations that are often even more difficult than the circumstances in Canada. Some communities are remote. In these countries, the health care system is weaker and equipment may not be available. In addition, people must have confidence in the system for distributing and administering vaccine doses.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

So how do you explain that the—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Thériault and Minister Duclos.

Next is Mr. Davies, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, while Health Canada has approved four COVID-19 vaccines for use in Canada to date, there remain several outstanding applications from Sanofi Pasteur, Vasogen Inc., Medicago and Novavax. For individuals who may be vaccine hesitant or who may have concerns about the use of mRNA vaccine technology, access to such alternate vaccine formulations as the Novavax protein subunit vaccine could encourage uptake.

Minister, given that your government once boasted of securing the most diverse vaccine portfolio in the world, why do Canadians have such limited access to alternate COVID-19 vaccines as are being used in countries like India or the Philippines?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you, MP Davies. There are three things here—first, the portfolio; second, the actual vaccines to which we have access; and third, the regulatory process at Health Canada.

First, on the portfolio, you are indeed correct. It's not my fault and it's not the fault of Minister Anand. It's the fault—the success—of lots of experts, including at the federal government, that we were able to choose a portfolio of seven vaccines, four of which, as you said, have been already approved in Canada.

Second, on confidence, we have access to loads of mRNA vaccines in Canada. We have currently in Canada 22 million booster doses that we could administer right now, with another 35 million coming very quickly. We have ample confidence and ability to use those existing vaccines.

Third, on further approval processes for other vaccines, I will turn to DM Lucas for a brief remark.