Health Committee on Nov. 6th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 87 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

In accordance with our routine motion, I am informing the committee that all remote participants have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

Pursuant to Standing Order 106(4), the committee is meeting to consider a request by members of the committee to undertake a study concerning a Public Health Agency of Canada contract.

The floor is open.

Dr. Ellis, go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you very much to everybody for being here this morning.

This is an exceedingly important time in Canadian history, when we begin to look at the spending of this Liberal government in cahoots with the NDP. We know very clearly that Canadians have had a significant difficulty with the reckless spending of this Liberal-NDP coalition government. We also know very clearly that Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, said that domestic inflation is related to this government's pouring their inflationary spending fuel on a fire.

We also know very clearly that Canadians are paying the price for that. We know that the cost of housing in this country has doubled. We know that interest rates have gone up more quickly than at any time in history. We know that inflation is at a 40-year high. Canadians cannot heat their homes, feed their families and keep a roof over their head.

We also know very clearly, from conversations with those very important people we represent, that this is not going to change, because the Liberal-NDP government continues to do its dirty deeds with respect to inflationary spending.

Mr. Chair, we hear from the people we represent every single day, and I know that you do too. In P.E.I., you hear from them, telling you exactly how difficult it is to pay their bills. I know that those other members sitting across from me hear from the people they represent in this great nation as well.

We also know that the visits to food banks are at an all-time high. Millions upon millions of people are visiting food banks every single month. In the small town where I live, Truro, Nova Scotia, they have 1,800 people on their list who come to the food bank regularly. Things have gotten so bad that when I spoke to the mayor of the County of Colchester on Friday, he said that the food bank has reached out to the county to ask them to pay their mortgage. They continue to have to buy more food and figure out ways to feed the 1,800 people, including children, who are on their list.

The reason we're here, of course, is the spending of $150 million by this government on a failed business plan with Medicago. We also know that, realistically, the business dealings with this company were actually over $300 million. They originally spent $172 million for infrastructure and building, etc., and then they entered into contracts with this company for another $150 million. Talk about throwing bad money after good, potentially, or just more bad money after bad money.

Chair, we also know that in 2003, Canada was one of the signatories of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, or as they call it at WHO, the FCTC. Very clearly, Canada was one of the signatories on this. This government should have known that when they were part of a company with Philip Morris International, a tobacco company, there was no way this vaccine was going to be accepted. Therefore, of course, what did they do? They continued to spend more money.

We also know very clearly that they've spent money on a multitude of other examples, such as the ArriveCAN app, colloquially known as the “ArriveScam” app. When you watch some of the testimony that's happening at the current time with respect to that particular app, it appears to me—now, I've obviously never developed an app and I don't really know that much about it—to be two guys in their basement, who didn't even develop an app but acted as intermediaries and took a lot of money, $54 million, from this Liberal-NDP coalition and then farmed it out to some other people. We now know very clearly from the media stories that have come out that it was possible to develop this app in a weekend. It was that simple to actually do it.

Therefore, when all of this came out, we know that some people got very rich in doing this. That's an absolute travesty, I would suggest.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

There's a point of order from Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Is what Mr. Ellis is talking about relevant to today?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

There is no motion in front of the committee at this time, but the agenda is to consider a request to undertake a study concerning the Public Health Agency of Canada. The letter that compelled this meeting does refer to lost funds. I would say that Mr. Ellis's comments are connected to that concept, so I'm not convinced there is an issue of relevance here.

Go ahead, Mr. Ellis.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Oddly enough, doesn't it make perfect sense that our Liberal colleagues don't want us talking about these painful issues? I think we established very clearly in this committee previously that when those things that are difficult and hard and painful come up, we continue to get these interruptions over and over again. We saw that when we wanted to bring forward a study on opioids, Chair, and we were interrupted over and over again and asked about the relevance of it. Of course, we do know very clearly that housing and poverty are associated with opioid use and misuse and that this government is actually giving away powerful opioids to Canadians, which are being sold on the street and diverted in terms of their use.

There, Chair, I would say I am digressing a bit and I shall return to the actual motion.

When we look at this, we're talking about $300 million now. When we look at other scandals this NDP-Liberal coalition government has been involved in, we know that this is a usual thing for them now. The only thing, of course, that is perhaps more expensive is the Trans Mountain pipeline cost overruns, which are at $30.9 billion. I'll direct people to a Global News article with respect to that.

Obviously that's in a different category, but do you know what, Chair? I would suggest that the difficulty here is that many Canadians are so used to hearing about these scandals and about the lack of fiscal responsibility that they perhaps don't understand or don't want to realize or they get numb—I think that's the better wording, Chair. They get numb to the fact that this is $300 million, which, of course, is a third of a billion dollars, which is an absolutely incredible amount of money.

Therefore, Chair, the Conservatives believe that it's important that we study this issue, and therefore I would like to move the following motion. I'll read it in English. There are copies available, and we can circulate those.

That given recent media reports that the Public Health Agency of Canada lost over $300 million on an unfulfilled contract, the committee undertake a study of the Public Health Agency of Canada losing over $300 million in taxpayers' money for an unfulfilled contract, the committee hold 6 hours of meetings on this matter and that each current meeting of the Health Committee is expanded by one hour, to address this matter and that the committee hear from the Minister of Health, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, President of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the President of the Treasury Board, and officials from the health ministry, and other witnesses deemed relevant by the committee, and that hearings begin at the next available meeting, and that the committee produce a report on its findings and report it to the House.

Chair, I would suggest that one of the other things that would be relevant to point out is that when you look at Public Accounts of Canada 2023—of which I have a giant three-volume copy here on my desk—this ends up in volume III, on page 143. I don't know what the font is, but I would suggest it might be six-point. It might be eight-point. Under this line on page 143 of volume III, what does it say? It says, in incredibly ridiculous terms, “Unfulfilled contract by a vendor” and the “Amount of loss” is $150,000,000. “Amount not expected to be recovered” is $150,000,000. It's shameful.

When you think about it, when you look at this giant encyclopedic tome, you understand that this government thinks that the accountability to Canada is related to the fact that they can bury this two-thirds of the way through a four-inch document printed on two sides, and that this is an acceptable way to do business on behalf of Canadians. This Liberal-NDP coalition tried to hide at least that $150 million.

Again, why do I say it's over $300 million that this coalition has lost? As I said previously, they also invested in this company, which they knew was going to produce something that could never be used. Their nefarious purpose was to attempt to take this vaccine and shove it into the COVAX program, after they had already taken vaccines out of that. We are the only G7 country to have done so. That's entirely a whole other shady story, Chair.

I believe that Canadians deserve and demand an explanation. How do they believe they could possibly bury, hide and lose $300 million of taxpayers' money?

I am asking this committee to study this and attempting to be generous with how we might all spend our time doing this. This is exceedingly important. Therefore, Chair, the Conservatives move that the health committee start a study on this, calling the witnesses who are mentioned in the motion and taking a minimum of six hours to study this on behalf of Canadians.

Chair, I will leave it at that. I'm sure I'll have other things to say later. I want to make sure I'm back on the list to come back later. I believe the motion is in order, and I would like to hear comments on it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

The motion is in order.

I recognize Mr. Doherty.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Chair, can I cede a portion of my time to Mr. Paul-Hus, and he can then cede the floor back to me? Is that allowed?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

He is actually number four on the list, so after you I have Dr. Kitchen and Mr. Paul-Hus.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'll let Mr. Paul-Hus go first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Do you want to cede your time to Mr. Paul-Hus?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

We'll just switch, if we can. Are we allowed to do that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I'm advised that this is possible, so we will have Mr. Paul-Hus, Dr. Kitchen, Mr. Doherty, and Mr. Jowhari, and there are more.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Chair, did you just permit a switching of speakers? Is that permitted?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I did, after getting advice from the clerk.

Mr. Paul-Hus, please go ahead.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I'm here this morning, it's mainly out of geographic interest, since Medicago is located in my town, Quebec. It's also something of a continuation of the work I did for a long time when I sat on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which was tasked with addressing various issues related to the pandemic.

Let's recall a certain contract that caused quite a stir at the time, namely the $237‑million contract with former Liberal MP Frank Baylis for the manufacture of 10,000 respirators whose actual market value was $137 million. No one has ever been able to explain why Frank Baylis had to be paid an extra $100 million to manufacture these respirators, not to mention that an assessment showed that we would never need that many of them. Indeed, only a hundred or so respirators were used during the pandemic.

This brings me back to the management of contracts and public funds. As it turns out, certain expenses were necessary during the pandemic. Everyone acknowledges the need for them. Let's not forget, however, that the Parliamentary Budget Officer's assessment of the $500 billion spent over the two years of the pandemic revealed that only $300 billion could be explained. There wasn't even any way to shed light on the remaining $200 billion or where that money went. The $300 billion that we're told can be explained includes contracts such as the one given to Mr. Baylis, as well as other sums that were wasted, which happened in the Medicago file that we're currently looking at.

In February, when Mitsubishi Chemical Group decided to pull out entirely, we were surprised to learn that the federal government had spent $173 million without any checks and balances whatsoever. The Government of Quebec loaned some money to the company and had means of getting its money back, but in the federal government's case, we learned that the money was wasted, but in the total absence of control mechanisms, we don't really know what happened.

What's more, we've come to learn that Health Canada didn't do its job. Indeed, because Philip Morris was a shareholder, the company shouldn't have been able to get any federal funds. The case before us is even worse: We've learned through Public Accounts of Canada that an additional $150 million had been sunk into Medicago. From the information available, the amount of money wasted now sits at over $323 million.

The main issue is the lack of accountability. All they do is write it down somewhere in an 800‑page document, as my colleague just showed. One hundred and fifty million dollars up and disappeared without any explanation given. We're told it's only $150 million. There comes a point where enough is enough. The needs were real and were understood, but when things are managed in this way, there needs to be some accountability. We already needed answers about the first $173 million, and now there's more. The amount has doubled.

A company in Quebec simply shut down operations, and people lost their jobs. Some ministers have said they were looking for solutions. Those are the pretty words we expect from Liberal ministers. Not many solutions have been found since February, however. On the contrary, things have gotten worse. We lost $300 million, but no explanation is forthcoming, not to mention the company shouldn't have gotten that money to begin with.

I believe there's an urgent need to get to the bottom of this. The Standing Committee on Health is tasked with authorizing or denying certain expenses. In this case, it hasn't done its job. This file involved Health Canada directly, but Health Canada didn't do its job. Meanwhile, the Department of Industry releases funds, but we're not even able to get any clear explanations. When the media ask questions, they remain unanswered.

Enough is enough. There comes a point where we need answers. Transparency isn't just for when the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois or the NDP want answers. Transparency is there for taxpaying Canadians. While people are waiting in line for food because they're out of money, while they keep working and paying taxes, there's a company that decided to go back to Japan after having gotten $300 million. We're told it's not a big deal and we let things go. Quite the contrary, it's very serious. I think there are limits. We cannot accept the unacceptable.

That's why this motion is so important. I hope that the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois will have the NDP's support to hold meetings to shed light on this. In the interest of transparency, we want answers about taxpayers' money, because they've had enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Paul‑Hus.

Next is Dr. Kitchen, and then we'll hear Mr. Doherty.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this motion.

It's interesting. There seems to be such a huge lack of concern by this NDP-Liberal government about $150 million. It's just shocking that they think $150 million is chump change. The average Canadian out there—and I'd say even more than the average Canadian—sits and talks about nickels and dimes. My wife and I have talked about nickels and dimes for years. Continually, we talk around the household, and when we look at families, they talk about where those nickels and dimes are going to come from. They add up. You continually add them up.

Here, we have a government that turns around.... It used to talk about thousands of dollars. It now considers thousands of dollars to be nickels. Now it's talking about millions of dollars and it still thinks they're just dimes. We're talking about $150 million out there that has been wasted and not accounted for by this government. That's shocking, when we have Canadians who are suffering and struggling to make ends meet and get by day after day, with the huge inflationary costs this government keeps causing with its economic strategy. It just drives up cost after cost. Here we have $150 million that could go a tremendous way toward helping Canadians.

Take a look at Coronach, Saskatchewan, where this government has been trying to end the use of coal energy and shut down a community. This $150 million in that community would help tremendously in assisting these people and getting them out of this mess that they're in because of what this government is doing, yet the government just turns around and thinks $150 million is nothing. It's shocking that the government can actually think that way.

You take that $150 million and then add to it the $172 million in infrastructure for a company that.... I get it. During COVID, when we were on the health committee, everything was moving quickly at the very start and things had to be done. At the same time, there had to be some accountability for where that money was going. Somebody had to be accountable for signing those contracts and allowing those contracts to go through.

When we're talking about this government, where there are policies that turn around and dictate what those levels are, they don't get signed off with just a simple, “Here it is. Just go ahead and do it.” Someone has to look at them. It's not just the minister who has to sign off on something over $100 million. There are deputy ministers. There are assistant deputy ministers. They all have to look at them.

We're not talking about one agency. We're talking not only about Public Works; we're talking about other areas we need to look at that are signing off on health, etc. There are probably at least three, and all three of those levels had to look at this and say, “Hmm. We're going to sign off on this without any recognition of what the endgame is if it doesn't transpire.”

This motion is asking for these people to come and account for this to Canadians, so that the Canadian public has a true understanding of where that money was spent and whether or not it was spent wisely and appropriately.

When we're signing for something, I don't know anybody in this room who would agree to have something purchased and not make certain that they received the product, or, if they weren't going to receive the product, that they were going to get their money back.

My wife and I are looking at a new kitchen. When I say “new kitchen”, I mean a household kitchen, not—

[An hon. member]

Not a baby.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

When we're looking at that aspect of things, the reality is that we're not signing a piece of paper to say I'm paying for something until I know there are assurances that it's going to be done. That's just a simple little aspect of Canadians. Every Canadian is looking at that, and they need to be responsible in understanding that aspect of it.

When we have a contract with Medicago that eventually gets terminated because of “mutual consent”, which releases them from their obligations, how does that answer to the Canadian public?

That's what this motion is about. This motion is there to try to move forward so that we're accountable for where this is. We turned around, we looked and we saw, when we first put this motion forward under Standing Order 106(4), that we had support for that at that time. We had the required number of people to agree to this.

In the news, the NDP turned around and said that, yes, they wanted to know where this $150 million was spent and what it was spent on...and being accountable for that money. The member here at this table stood in front of the press and told them that, yes, we need to bring this up. These are issues that need to be brought forward. These are things we need to do. This committee needs to turn around and say, “This is something urgent that needs to be brought to the fore, and we need to do it as soon as possible.”

I ask colleagues to look at this and support this motion so that we can get on this as quickly as possible.

With that, Mr. Chair, I will cede the floor and potentially come back later.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Dr. Kitchen.

Go ahead, Mr. Doherty, please.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the committee's sake and for those who are listening in, I want to read the motion back into the record:

That given recent media reports that the Public Health Agency of Canada lost over $300 million on an unfulfilled contract, the committee undertake a study of the Public Health Agency of Canada losing over $300 million in taxpayers' money for an unfulfilled contract, the committee hold 6 hours of meetings on this matter and that each current meeting of the Health Committee is expanded by one hour, to address this matter and that the committee hear from the Minister of Health, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, President of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the President of the Treasury Board, and officials from the health ministry, and other witnesses deemed relevant by the committee, and that hearings begin at the next available meeting, and that the committee produce a report on its findings and report it to the House.

Mr. Chair, this is shocking. Again, now we're finding out.... It's not new news. It goes along the lines of “same old same old”.

I'll go down the list of scandals and wasteful spending: $54 million on the ArriveCAN app; $116 million on McKinsey consultants—that was $116 million towards our opioid epidemic, Mr. Chair; $26.8 million in bonuses to CMHC employees; a $30,000 total for Prime Minister Trudeau's London hotel room, booked September 15 to 20 at $6,000 per night; $4.6 billion in COVID program abuse; $210 million in payments to the Beijing-controlled Asian infrastructure bank; $30.9 billion in Trans Mountain pipeline cost overruns; $8.6 million in renovations to the Harrington Lake cottage; $50 million for Mastercard; over $400 million to change our passport to some woke crap; and $12 million for Loblaws. That's $12 million for freezers.

Mr. Chair, I will offer—I've said this a number of times—that this was around the 2017 wildfires, in which thousands of residents in my riding of Cariboo—Prince George were devastated and lost everything: fridges, stoves and all household belongings. Did they get money for the replacement of their equipment? No. However, Justin Trudeau gave $12 million to his friends at Loblaws. Now he is claiming he called them to Ottawa and laid down the law. We saw how that went. It was a “Stop, or I'll say stop again” type of thing.

Mr. Chair, this is an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars. If you buy a service from a contractor but don't get the service you need, you should have the option to get your money back.

On October 23, 2020, the Prime Minister made an announcement:

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today announced an investment of up to $173 million through the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) in Quebec City-based Medicago to support Canada's response to COVID-19—

That's $173 million. Then it says:

The project, valued at a total of $428 million, will advance Medicago's virus-like particle vaccine, developed on the company's unique plant-based production platform, through clinical trials. It will also establish a large-scale vaccine and antibody production facility to increase Canada's domestic biomanufacturing capacity.

Mr. Chair, who are Medicago, and who are they to the Liberal Party? I can tell you this: They rank enough to get into the 2021 Liberal Party's platform, “Forward. For Everyone.” I turn readers' attention to page 8. Here it is, right here, if everyone can see it. It's on page 8 and it says: “We have completed the new Biologics Manufacturing Centre at the NRC, secured an agreement with Moderna to build a state-of-art manufacturing facility in Canada, and made major domestic capacity investments with AbCellera [and] Medicago”.

They're so big that they warranted getting a shout-out and being promoted in the Liberal Party's 2021 campaign platform and, Mr. Chair, that's just a cursory search. I'm sure that when we do more digging we're going to find connections either to the Trudeau Foundation or to Prime Minister Trudeau himself.

This is shocking. You know, I fight day and night for investments in mental health. In 2021, they also campaigned on a platform to make critical investments—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Doherty, excuse me. I have a point of order from Mr. Jowhari.