It's been two years, though, two years—
Evidence of meeting #3 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #3 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
We're out of time.
Dr. Lucas, is there anything else you want to add to complete your answer? Otherwise we're going to move to the next person.
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Deputy Minister, Department of Health
I would just note that the government has invested in a biomanufacturing strategy. It invested $2.2 billion in the last budget and has invested in a number of firms already across the country to strengthen that capability for biomanufacturing.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Van Koeverden, go ahead, please, for five minutes.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I wish to use some of my time today to clear up something that has come up a couple of times in this meeting, but first I'd like to just acknowledge or say that science often involves careful observation and it is not limited to such a narrow view that everything needs to be published or peer-reviewed in order to be called science. I'm not a doctor. I have a science degree. The science is evolving during COVID-19. We are, in fact, in an emergency situation still and relying on information. I would just call into question the kind of narrow view of science that Dr. Ellis has been using.
In addition to that, I'd also—
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Ellis Conservative Cumberland—Colchester, NS
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I really think that if someone's going to specifically address me, then I should have the opportunity to address that, sir.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Well, you would be mistaken. He has five minutes to use as he wishes. When it's your turn, you can use it as you wish. Thank you.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The other thing I would like to address is the usage of the term “personal cellphone data” earlier and also the word “scandal” in referring to the usage of such data. When I google my route to work, for example, oftentimes Waze or Google will tell me that a specific route is busy. If you google a restaurant location or a grocery store location, oftentimes Google will tell you that location is busy.
The same data is used and has been used—it's not secret—by the Public Health Agency of Canada. In fact, I believe that Dr. Tam was tweeting about it last summer in a transparent manner, telling Canadians how their data, which is aggregated, non-personal, and anonymized.... That means it's not as though they know Adam Van Koeverden was at the grocery store yesterday; they just know that more people were at the grocery store or something like that.
I was hoping that one of the officials who knows more about this than I do, and certainly more about this than members of this committee referring to it as personal data do, could elaborate, please.
3:45 p.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I was just going to mention very quickly that the actual reason we collected this data is that reliable, timely and relevant health and public health data comes out of this for other policy- and decision-making. This is population-level mobility data analysis. This is what we have collected. No personal information was asked for or was received, and no individual's identifiable data is contained in any part of the work.
The mobility data, which were offered through the service provider, was actually analyzed by the communications research centre here at Innovation, Science and Economic Development. That would help us to understand the possible link between the movement of populations within Canada and the impact of that on COVID-19. We did that in a very clear way, keeping the means of collection open and transparent. When we use that information, it is never individually identifiable. Again, it is aggregated data.
Throughout this process, Mr. Chair, the Public Health Agency of Canada engaged with privacy as well as ethics experts to ensure that the government was following best practices. We engaged our Privacy Commissioner on this initiative as early on as April 2020, and technical briefings have continued. To mitigate any privacy risks we may have, we actually require that mobility data vendors apply very robust data anonymization and aggregation controls even prior to data extraction and access.
That is what I would offer, Mr. Chair, at this point.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Adam van Koeverden Liberal Milton, ON
Thank you very much, Dr. Kochhar. We're grateful for that answer and for clearing up the fact that it's neither personal data usage nor a “scandal”, as the term was used previously.
I'd use the remaining time just to ask any of the public health officials at today's meeting if, in fact, we did see an uptick in certain jurisdictions with mandates. When Quebec, for example, said that people weren't able to go to the SAQ unless they were vaccinated, did that cause an uptick in vaccinations? Just anecdotally, did we see an uptick in vaccinations when the Leader of the Opposition was saying that we needed to accommodate the unvaccinated?
3:50 p.m.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I do want to emphasize, because I didn't have a chance to do so at the end of my responses, that there have been preprints, including from Simon Fraser University, that show a cumulative gain of up to 5% in provincial vaccination rates as a result of the vaccination requirements.
Just to quote a few numbers, in New Brunswick, there was a 249% increase in vaccination uptake in implementation week one, or one week post the announcement of their vaccination mandate; in Newfoundland, a 228% increase from a week before implementation to three weeks post-announcement; in Nova Scotia, a 199% increase, one week post-announcement; in Alberta, a 198% increase from the week of announcement; and in Saskatchewan, a 119% increase. These are the jurisdictions that saw the greatest increase. It was more modest in some of the other jurisdictions.
I do think it is important to monitor these trends just because it is important: Any of these policies being enacted by jurisdictions can be adjusted if the data shows and points us towards new directions.
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Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Dr. Tam and Mr. van Koeverden.
Next we have Mr. Williams, please, for five minutes.
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Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you again, everyone, for being here today. It's very important.
Last week, Dr. Tam, you stated that Canada's COVID testing requirements for travel are a “drain” on our already overwhelmed system and that the resources could be better used elsewhere. These testing requirements were put into place to stop the omicron variant from spreading to Canada, and we all know what the elephant in the room is—omicron is here. We have to continue—again, in your own words, Dr. Tam—monitoring sporadically for new variants, but when will the government get rid of these cumbersome resources and put them where they're needed?
I'll ask this of Dr. Lucas, please.
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Deputy Minister, Department of Health
I'll turn to Dr. Kochhar for the management of the border regime, and Dr. Tam.
3:50 p.m.
President, Public Health Agency of Canada
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The border measures are actually put in place to evaluate the characteristics and impacts of any of the variants of concern on both domestic and international epidemiological landscapes. When those tests are done at the border, they actually help us to look at the behaviour of the virus in terms of its transmission, its clinical presentation, as well as, “Do they actually behave the same way on the vaccine efficacy side?” We continue to use these tests to make sure that we have a better idea of the science and also to make sure that we are minimizing and reducing the importation of any kind of variant of concern that may cause more transmissibility, as was seen with the omicron virus.
Dr. Tam, do you want to add anything on that?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
I just want to clarify that prior to omicron, of course, there was the very phased easing of border measures, including the application of mandatory random testing for the vaccinated travellers. Because of omicron, those measures were increased, because we knew very little about the virus and we knew it was very transmissible.
I do think that the testing has been actually quite important, in that even with pre-arrival testing the positivity rate kept going up, not surprisingly, for the non-vaccinated or partially vaccinated, but even for the vaccinated travellers. That is an actual fact. Even with pre-arrival testing, with on-arrival testing it's still quite high. I do think, though, moving forward, particularly as we see the omicron wave subside and our hospitals less impacted, that these kinds of policies or the testing strategies need to evolve.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
Thank you.
Do we have indication of when that's going to be lifted?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Well, as I think I said last Friday in my epidemiology update, the next weeks are very crucial, because we'll be seeing the trajectory of the omicron wave, and we should then be able to re-evaluate some of the border stance.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Ryan Williams Conservative Bay of Quinte, ON
To reiterate, Dr. Tam, you did state that these are a “drain” on our system. Should these resources not be moved to other places at this point?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada
Yes, so with such a huge number of cases, of course, it's very difficult for any jurisdiction to manage the testing at the moment. It's not just the number of tests kits handed out or anything like that. It's actually human resources—people in labs getting sick and that type of thing.
Now, of course the bottom line is that if the provinces request support from us, can we provide it? We have been providing it, depending on the provincial-territorial request. That actually has still been going on. The support is being provided to the provinces and territories. But as I said, we do have to re-evaluate our testing stats going forward.