Evidence of meeting #14 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vaccines.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
I am wondering whether you can help with this.
Do you know why the government last month postponed for the third time PMPRB reforms that would, by Health Canada's own estimates, save Canadians billions of dollars in pharmaceutical costs over the next 10 years?
February 2nd, 2021 / 12:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Madam Chair, the context we're working in, of course, is the pandemic. It impacted timelines for the development of the guidelines by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, which were developed through consultation.
Those were finalized in the middle part of the fall, and the government took a decision to delay their coming into force to ensure that the guidelines were in place and understood, to support the implementation of the PMPRB regulations.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
To your knowledge, was there any implication or threat, indirect or direct, by pharmaceutical companies that they would interfere with vaccine access if the PMPRB reforms went ahead?
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Madam Chair, as I stated, the decision was made on the basis of wanting to ensure time to respond to the guidelines, which were finalized through an extended process during the context of the pandemic in 2020 such that they could come into force at the beginning of July 2021.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
We know that this is a global pandemic and that we're all affected by it. We know India and South Africa have put forward a proposal at the WTO to exempt member countries from enforcing traditional patents, trade secrets and pharmaceutical monopolies, in other words, to make the vaccine available to all countries. In your view, should Canada support that proposal?
Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Madam Chair, I will not be in a position to comment specifically on the details of that proposal given my detailed knowledge. What I would say is that Canada has strongly supported the accelerator facility developed with the WHO and the Covax facility to ensure that countries around the world can have access to the vaccines that are going to be so essential for our recovery from the pandemic.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you so much.
That ends our time today.
I'd like to thank you, Mr. Lucas, for your time today. I'd like to thank the translators, IT, the analysts and our clerks for their support.
On Thursday we have ministers Anand and Champagne with us to further answer questions. Seeing the interest in procurement, I suggest all members who will be participating in that meeting be on early so that we can get through the sound check so that we can start our meeting on time and make sure everyone has an opportunity to ask the questions they have. We also have an update that we will have the vaccine task force coming to us during the week of the 15th. We will have further updates that will be circulated by the clerk.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.