Industry Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[Iain Stewart]

That's right. The Public Health Agency is not involved in the production or manufacturing of vaccines.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

But you don't know.

[Iain Stewart]

I have no evidence that they're not on track for the schedule they announced, but I haven't been at the NRC since September 28. Mitch Davies would be able to speak to how they are progressing on that project.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Why was there such a delay between the original announced completion date for the NRC facility and the fact that it's still not completed?

[Iain Stewart]

Are you referring to the manufacturing facility that we were just talking about?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Correct, and I know there were upgrades to other facilities as well. It's just that we don't have production capacity right now and we've spent a lot of money, so I'm just wondering if you could elucidate as to why that is.

[Iain Stewart]

The project that was announced to manufacture vaccines at the NRC was, at the time it was announced, planned to take one year, so this summer would be when that project is completed. To my knowledge, there is no delay, but Mitch Davies would have more current information than I have.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Were there any delays that you were made aware of under your tenure?

[Iain Stewart]

There were no delays of which I'm aware for that manufacturing facility—

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

And the retrofit—

[Iain Stewart]

—before me leaving on September 28.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

And the retrofit of the other facility?

[Iain Stewart]

The retrofit of the other facility here.... I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

Again, this sign is a reminder that means you have 30 seconds left, and this one means you're at the end of time.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

I'm sorry, I thought you were cutting me off. I'll gladly take another 30 seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

You do have 30 seconds, MP Rempel Garner.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Stewart, when you were president of the NRC, were diplomatic considerations an important component of the deal with China and the CanSino vaccine?

[Iain Stewart]

The NRC and CanSino had a research relationship that went back a few years, and it was part of ongoing work around developing different kinds of vaccine variants.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Was GAC ever involved in the consideration of the deal with CanSino and the NRC?

[Iain Stewart]

They would have been aware of what we were doing, but I don't know what you mean by “involved”.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Just to let the committee know that Mr. Mitch Davies will be presenting with Minister Anand and Minister Champagne this Thursday. If you have questions directly for them, they will be here on Thursday.

With that, we now move to MP Jowhari. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Welcome to all the witnesses. Welcome, Minister. It's good to have you in our committee.

Minister, in your opening remarks you talked about two general subjects, and you left one to the appropriate department and minister.

To my understanding you talked about the vaccine approval and about the vaccine distribution. You shared with us the amount that has been procured and the timing that we're going to receive this.

Let me start with the vaccine approval. Can you share with us more detail on what you call the rolling submission and what that has done in reducing the time of the approval?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

I'll talk a bit about that and then I'll turn to Deputy Minister Lucas, who is in charge of the Health Canada regulatory team.

Early on, we knew there would be the need for speed to approve a whole host of medical supplies, including vaccines and therapeutics, and obviously devices, testing, components, etc. We were able to accelerate the capacity of the regulatory body in a few different ways. One was by ensuring they had the financial and human resources to be able to greatly increase their capacity to review applications. We added people and added capacity. As Deputy Minister Lucas will tell you, in terms of vaccine approvals, there are people working literally 24 hours a day, seven days a week on teams assigned to vaccines, so that they can do a very thorough review of the data and understand it as quickly as possible.

I will also say the rolling regulatory approval for vaccines is very important. Typically, from what I've learned in this portfolio, vaccine development can take up to 10 years from the concept to the actual approval because, of course, of the need for submissions of data after every stage of the development, including a number of clinical trials, to test whether it's effective and safe. A rolling approval allows for vaccine manufacturers in this case to be able to submit data very quickly, as they acquire it, so we're not having to review mountains of data at the regulatory approval stage. Rather, we are able to review the data at each stage, as it comes in.

That allows for a very rapid back and forth as well between the manufacturers and Health Canada if there's missing data, for example, if they need clarity, if they need data to be resubmitted or if there are gaps in the data. Rather than the manufacturer having a significant lag time, in some cases, in being able to get that, they can respond very quickly.

I will turn, with your permission, to Deputy Minister Lucas for a few more words on the process.