Health Committee on Feb. 10th, 2026

[Nancy Hamzawi]

I won't get into specifics, but I would note that each freezer has its own technical specifications. Typically in the industry, there's an indicator of whether or not a door is open. In most cases, it's not a single door. There's a door within a door. That's the industry standard. The indicator would be a temperature indicator on the front, typically, of the freezer, with 24-7 monitoring of the thermocouple within that fridge.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Winnipeg West, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

I have practised medicine for 25 years. We deal with error. We will look at a critical incident: How did this happen? Was this a huge bungle by one person? Did a number of factors come together to cause this to happen? That is often the case.

One thing we've found in medicine is that we often will have input from other industries that can share with us what they know from their incident analysis and quality improvement. For instance, it's very common practice now for the aviation industry to speak at medical conferences, because they are very good at dissecting critical incidents and coming up with recommendations. Have you used input from other industries that could help give you a better perspective on how to address problems like this and prevent them from happening again?

[Nancy Hamzawi]

Maybe I'll answer briefly and then turn to my colleague, Ms. Mantha.

I'll just note that, yes, we have very strong relationships with the biomanufacturing and life sciences industry, and we are in regular contact with them in terms of the sharing of best practices. We also work closely with our international counterparts, including, for example, the Five Eyes. We do regularly compare notes in order to be ready to recognize and integrate best practices as they continue to advance.

I'll turn it to you, Stacey.

[Stacey Mantha]

We do consult regularly with industry to ensure that we are monitoring advancements in cold chain technology and that we are also looking at issues that others have had so that we're learning from those. We do have very close relationships with our Five Eyes counterparts' stockpiles. That provides us with an opportunity to discuss these types of events, best practices and lessons learned with people who are undertaking the same kind of business that we are.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Winnipeg West, MB]

Thank you.

I notice that one of the things that will happen in the hospital environment, too, in the quality improvement process is that there will be a non-punitive sharing of information so that people will share frankly what happened and what their decisions were, without having what they've told us come back on them and have negative career or legal consequences. I mean, again, outside gross negligence or deliberate malfeasance. Is there a process like that where someone is simply free to say, “Well, it's always been our practice that we do X,” so that you get more frank sharing of information from all of your staff?

[Stacey Mantha]

You've raised an excellent point, and for this reason, the NESS quality management system is not punitive. It really does encourage employees to come forward, when they identify an issue, through appropriate reporting and escalation. If we start penalizing people for bringing problems forward, it creates a culture of silence. We want to avoid this, given the magnitude of the responsibility that we have.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Winnipeg West, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Now we go to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes, please.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to continue with the representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Ms. Hamzawi, in your opinion, how can Parliament exercise real control over the national emergency strategic stockpile when major losses are justified on national security grounds? We have no independent verification mechanism and no obligation to disclose.

From the Public Health Agency of Canada's perspective, are you satisfied with the current level of transparency?

[Nancy Hamzawi]

Since we're committed to sharing as much information as possible—it's our intention to do so—we participated in the in camera portion of the meeting. We wanted to ensure that we shared as much information as possible with this committee.

When it comes to classified information, there are other ways to work with Parliament. We are always ready to answer questions about classified information.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Given the historical findings and despite the corrective measures described, can you say that Canada is truly prepared, in terms of its stockpiles, their management and their deployment, to deal with a new major health emergency now, not six months from now?

[Nancy Hamzawi]

I can assure you that we learned lessons from this rare event. As we discussed at the other meeting, we have put a number of measures in place. Most of them have been implemented, and a few more are about to be. We are always ready to provide you with an update on the remaining recommendations.

As I indicated earlier, the Auditor General has launched an audit of this program. She has access to all of our documents. We look forward to receiving her findings, conclusions and recommendations. We're always open to improvements.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

We talked about inventory management and procedures. However, health emergency preparedness also depends on the ability to rapidly test, validate and deploy new treatments.

I would like you to explain to us what national structure has replaced the Canadian Consortium for Clinical Trial Training since its funding ended.

[Nancy Hamzawi]

I'll have to check with my colleagues. I can give you more information afterwards.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Could you send us an answer in writing?

[Nancy Hamzawi]

Yes, absolutely. No problem.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

To what extent is the claim that Canada is better prepared today compatible with, among other things, the decision to stop funding the consortium I just mentioned, when rapid clinical trials were shown to be critically important during the COVID‑19 pandemic?

In concrete terms, how is it that funding for rapid clinical trials is being cut when we knew that this was one of Canada's shortcomings during the COVID‑19 pandemic? Today, you're telling us that parliamentarians and the public can be reassured that Canada is ready to face another pandemic.

[Nancy Hamzawi]

My answer could cover a number of aspects, but I'll focus more specifically on the national stockpile.

We are always in contact with our colleagues in the security community to stay aware of the risks in Canada. With this information, and with particular attention to health sector capacity in Canada as well as supply chains around the world, we have a stockpile management approach that reflects these risks. We also update our stockpile to make sure we have the equipment to address those risks.

For example, before the pandemic, we only had $5 million a year to manage those risks. Now we have $220 million a year. We used to have 168,000 square feet of space, and now we have close to 1 million.

It's really different from before the pandemic. We have assets today that are roughly $1.3 billion.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That was right on time.

Now we will go to the next round with Mr. Epp for five minutes, please.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

The spirit in which I ask these questions is the same lessons-learned spirit we've been discussing so far, but I'm going to shift gears a bit and follow up on my Order Paper question 604, which was also passed in motion form in this committee and deals with procurement and other things with respect to the NESS.

I'll cite the Order Paper question references later, for your ease. If you don't have the information at your fingertips, please just commit to forwarding the information to the committee.

In OP Q-604(g), I asked which companies received contract renewals for PPE supply for the NESS in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In your response, three companies were listed.

Why was Medline not included in the list of vendors that received call-ups, understanding order number E60PV‑18MS00, given that the CanadaBuys website shows Medline's contract was extended in August 2025 and amended in September 2025?

[Stacey Mantha]

What you're seeing are the call-ups that the Public Health Agency would have done during that time. That contract or procurement vehicle is also available to all other government departments. If you're seeing something on the website that Medline received a contract, it could have been for a different department or agency.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

You basically state that standing offers under PHAC are not contracts.

Can you say that, under PHAC, extensions, amendments or administrative continuations of standing offers are treated as ongoing suppliers, or are you saying that might be just to other departments?

[Stacey Mantha]

If I understand the question correctly, the Public Health Agency of Canada did leverage that supply arrangement to acquire product. We reported on the companies and quantities that were procured through that vehicle.

I can't speak for other government departments. They may have also leveraged that procurement vehicle to acquire supply.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

How many PPE suppliers to the NESS have been flagged through open-source human rights reporting as having potential links to forced labour or child labour?