Industry Committee on Feb. 4th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Good morning, everyone. I now call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website, and the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I'd like to outline a few rules to follow. Members and witnesses may speak in the official language of their choice. Interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on your microphone icon to unmute yourself. For those in the room—although I don't believe we have anyone in the room—your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

I remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, we ask that your microphone be on mute. With regard to the speakers list, the committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain the order of speaking for all members.

As is my normal practice, I will hold up this yellow card when you have 30 seconds remaining in your intervention, and I will hold up the red card when your time for questions is up. Please keep an eye on the card and respect the time limit so that everyone has a chance to ask their questions.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, December 1, 2020, the committee is meeting today to continue its study on the domestic manufacturing capacity for COVID-19 vaccine.

I'd like to now welcome our witnesses. With us today we have Anita Anand, Minister of Public Services and Procurement, and François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. We have, from the Department of Public Works and Government Services, Mr. Bill Matthews, deputy minister; from the Department of Industry, Simon Kennedy, deputy minister; and from the National Research Council of Canada, Mitch Davies, president.

I'm getting a note from the clerk that we need to pause for one moment. I think we're having some sound issues in the room. I will suspend for one moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

We will resume the meeting. Thank you very much.

Each witness will present for up to seven minutes, followed by rounds of questions. We will begin with Minister Anand.

You have the floor for seven minutes.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hello, everyone.

How is everyone doing today? It's great to be here with you.

I want to thank you for inviting me to be here with you this morning. Before we start, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that I'm meeting you from the territory of many first nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabek, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples.

I would also like to thank everyone who continues to work hard behind the scenes to make these virtual meetings possible. Thanks especially to our interpreters and our translators for playing such an outstanding role in the ability of Canadians to understand and process this information.

Joining me today is my deputy minister, Bill Matthews. Thank you, Bill, for being here.

I want to speak first about the PSPC response to the pandemic. In the face of intense pandemic fatigue and strain, Canadians have pulled together to curb the spread of the virus. I know I speak for all parliamentarians, particularly those of us in this room today, when I say that we wish to thank the doctors, the nurses and the health care providers who are working tirelessly on the front lines. Their work is crucial. That is why, since the start of this pandemic, my department at PSPC has worked non-stop to procure vital PPE and other medical supplies for front-line workers.

In terms of domestic production, we should recognize and thank all Canadian suppliers who have stepped up to fight COVID-19 with us. Many Canadian companies increased their levels of production to provide vast quantities of the items we so urgently need. Protecting our front-line medical professionals was, and continues to be, a top priority.

Early on, for example, we finalized a long-term contract with Medicom out of Montreal to produce tens of millions of N95 respirators and surgical masks annually. We have already taken delivery of more than 18 million made-in-Canada surgical masks and more than 5.7 million made-in-Canada N95s from Medicom.

Throughout the pandemic, more and frequent testing has been critical in order to prevent isolated cases of COVID-19 from becoming renewed outbreaks. LuminUltra, a leading biotech company based in New Brunswick, stepped up to produce large amounts of reagent to support COVID-19 tests right through to March of this year.

While many businesses ramped up existing production capacity, some companies completely retooled their production lines to meet the country's needs. For example, Bauer in Quebec switched from making hockey equipment to making face shields for front-line workers. Toronto Stamp pivoted from making signage to kick-starting a project involving more than a dozen Toronto businesses to manufacture face shields. A Calgary-based chemical processing and manufacturing firm, Fluid Energy, stepped up to produce millions of litres of hand sanitizers to ship across Canada. The list goes on, Madam Chair. For example, Stanfields in New Brunswick has provided us with 100,000 medical gowns per week. Irving Oil, based in New Brunswick, retooled their lines to produce hand sanitizer.

These companies are just a handful of the many innovative and dedicated firms across our country that have stepped up and worked to make sure our front-line health care workers are protected.

I'll move now to vaccine procurement. We know that the quickest way to get to the other side of this pandemic is to follow public health advice alongside a successful vaccine rollout. While our government is investing in the future of domestic vaccine production, my department continues to fight the pandemic today with a strategy that is getting authorized vaccines into the country as soon as possible.

Madam Chair, from the start our government's objective has been to secure safe, effective and necessary vaccines for Canadians as rapidly as possible. Our work was guided by the vaccine task force, the creation of which was a key element for our country's vaccine strategy. In all, our government managed to gain access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines from seven different candidates, resulting in one of the most robust and diverse portfolios of COVID-19 vaccines in the entire world.

Through the establishment of these agreements, we negotiated the quickest delivery options possible. Following the Health Canada approval of Pfizer and Moderna, we have received and distributed more than 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccines to provinces and territories. Between Moderna and Pfizer alone, we remain on track to have enough vaccines to immunize everyone in Canada who wishes to be immunized prior to the end of September.

In addition, through the COVAX initiative, Canada will receive at least 1.9 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is close to receiving Health Canada authorization. Should the vaccine be authorized, deliveries could begin arriving before the end of March. We also continue to work closely with the five remaining manufacturers with whom we have bilateral agreements: Sanofi-GSK, Medicago, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax.

Our goal is to get more Health Canada-approved vaccines into Canada as quickly as we can.

While vaccines are critically important, so are the supplies needed to administer them. For example, we have secured more than 170 million syringes of varying sizes from a range of suppliers. This includes 64 million of the low dead volume syringes, which are in extremely limited supply around the world. Approximately one million of those specialized syringes are arriving in Canada this week.

In closing, Madam Chair, throughout the pandemic, every single time we have asked Canadian companies for help, they have stepped up and delivered. In addition, we have made sure that we have critical made-in-Canada PPE and medical supplies to meet our country's needs.

Keeping our loved ones safe is our top priority.

Thank you for your time. I'm happy to take your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Minister.

I now invite Minister Champagne to take the floor.

Mr. Champagne, you have seven minutes.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Minister of Innovation]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, my dear colleagues.

It is an honour for me to speak today as Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to provide an update on the government's efforts to ensure that Canadians are vaccinated against COVID-19.

First, on behalf of parliamentarians, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the officials and public servants who have worked hard over the past months, the past year, to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. I'm thinking in particular of my Deputy Minister Simon Kennedy, but also of Mitch Davies, president of the National Research Council of Canada, and Bill Matthews, Deputy Minister to Minister Anand, who has done a remarkable job.

Canada has secured access to the most promising vaccines being developed in the world. The government has also acted to increase domestic vaccine production capacity to help ensure Canada's long-term pandemic preparedness.

When this pandemic began, Canada had no flexible large-scale biomanufacturing capacity that was suitable for a COVID-19 vaccine. It is important to remember how we got to this position.

For the better part of the 20th century, Canada played a key role in the development and global production of biopharmaceuticals, primarily through the work done at the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories in Toronto. That changed in the 1980s, when the government of the time decided to privatize the Connaught laboratories. Within 10 years, Canada's domestic biomanufacturing ecosystem had eroded. Although companies performed a considerable amount of R and D here in Canada, few products were commercialized for public use.

Then, the previous government cut the funding at Industry Canada that supported life science companies and attracted new investment in Canada.

Since then, Canada has lost a number of companies and significant investments. Here are a few examples.

In 2007, AstraZeneca ceased its manufacturing operations in Canada and consolidated them into its facility in Sweden.

In 2010, Johnson & Johnson closed its research centre in Montreal.

In 2011, Teva shut down one of its Canadian manufacturing plants, the one in Montreal.

In 2013, Boehringer Ingelheim closed its research and development centre in Laval, which was focused on hepatitis C and HIV.

In 1973, approximately 19% of Canada's domestic demand for vaccines and therapeutic drugs was met by imports. Today, Canada imports 85% of its vaccines and therapeutic drugs.

Let us look ahead.

From the earliest stages of the pandemic, our government recognized that we needed to increase our domestic capacity to make vaccines and therapeutics in Canada. We invested early and significantly. We took immediate action with a long-term vision.

Let me highlight for you, colleagues, a few of the many investments we have made since March 2020.

We must also remember that, in general, it can take two to five years to set up a new pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, if good manufacturing practices are followed. Given the crisis, we will make considerable efforts to speed up the process and reduce lead times.

First, we invested $126 million to build the National Research Council's new biomanufacturing centre near its Royalmount Avenue site in Montreal. Once fully operational later this year, the new facility will be able to produce approximately 2 million doses of vaccines per month nationally.

This week, we signed a memorandum of understanding with Novavax to undertake domestic production of its COVID-19 vaccine at this new biomanufacturing facility in Montreal.

The government has also invested $44 million to upgrade the Royalmount Avenue clinical trials facility. This will allow the NRC to produce materials for clinical trials and doses of vaccine for emergency use.

Let us look at what we did in Saskatchewan. We invested $23 million to help the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization–International Vaccine Centre—or, as we call it, the VIDO-InterVac—to help accelerate the development of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, and another $12 million to transform its current animal vaccine production facility to meet the standards required for the production of human vaccines.

Our government knows that the private sector plays a key role in research and development. Private companies are perfecting vaccines and improving biomanufacturing capacity.

For example, since the early months of the pandemic, the government has allocated $792 million under the strategic innovation fund to develop vaccines and therapeutic products here in Canada and to strengthen biomanufacturing activities. Colleagues from Quebec City will know that the private company called Medicago, which already has over 20 years' experience in vaccine production, has received support of up to $173 million. The funds will enable Medicago to accelerate clinical trials and build a vaccine and antibody production facility in accordance with good manufacturing practices. The government has committed to acquiring up to 76 million doses of Medicago's vaccine candidate if it is shown to be effective.

The strategic innovation fund has also invested up to $56 million in Variation Biotechnologies to develop a COVID-19 vaccine in its Ottawa research facility, and up to $25 million in Precision NanoSystems of Vancouver to support their breakthrough lipid nanoparticle technology.

The government recognizes that deploying effective vaccines is the best way to restart the Canadian economy and protect the health of Canadians over the long term.

In the Fall Economic Statement, we committed to exploring ways to strengthen Canada's long-term biomanufacturing and pandemic response capacity. Canada is poised to move forward thanks to its talent and its innovation advantage. This strong commitment comes because we can count on a collective effort.

In conclusion, I would say to all of us, let's seize the moment, let's be ambitious and let's together build a resilient biomanufacturing sector here in Canada.

I am now ready to answer your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister.

We will now start our rounds of questions.

For the sake of translation, please do not talk over each other, so that the translators can do their work.

The first round goes to MP Cumming.

You have the floor for six minutes.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Good morning, Minister Champagne. Welcome to the committee and to your new role. I look forward to working with you.

INDU is going to play a very important role in the economic rebound. You have your hands full. There is lots of work to be done in your portfolio.

I want to start by talking a little about your previous role and getting your input on CanSino and the difficulties that have now come to light with the Chinese government restricting the vaccines coming back into Canada.

When were you aware there were issues with the deal with CanSino?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

First of all, Mr. Cumming, thank you for welcoming me. I look forward to working with you. You and I already had a conversation. This is really my stuff.

Let us look back to when this all started. We all know that on March 11 the World Health Organization declared a pandemic. From that time to today, we have about 234 vaccine candidates around the world. On the advice of the vaccine task force—to be more specific to your question—we did look at the candidate that you mentioned, but this was for about three months, something like April to May to August. After that, we discontinued the discussion.

Even before that—and I think that's important for Canadians who are watching—within 12 days of the World Health Organization's declaring a pandemic, we were investing $192 million in biomanufacturing here in Canada. Within a month, we had invested close to $792 million.

My point is just to put that in context for Canadians watching. When there are 234 vaccine candidates in the world, we rely on science, and we rely on the advice of experts. The episode that you're talking about was a very short episode in a very long process. We looked at that for about three months, but then we decided to discontinue the discussion.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Did you actually provide advice to the NRC that maybe this wouldn't be a good company to do business with? When you saw that the Chinese government was restricting supply, how involved were you? Did you intervene, on behalf of Canada, with the Chinese government?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

As I said, Mr. Cumming, if you look at the portfolio of vaccines that we have to date, these discussions were for a very brief moment. After that, we moved on. We selected the pillars, I would say, that will be the pillars of our resilience here in Canada when it comes to biomanufacturing.

You talk about Medicago. You talk about VIDO. You talk about AbCellera in Vancouver and now Novavax. My point is that, following that, we selected, with Minister Anand, seven vaccine candidates around the world. Two of them—the Pfizer and the Moderna—have been approved by Health Canada. That's the rollout that we have in Canada.

The episode you're talking about was just one of the different vaccine candidates that were looked at, at a very early stage, and then we moved on quickly. Today, we have the largest portfolio of vaccines to provide for and, obviously, to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Well, let's talk about it quickly. Let's go to Royalmount. There seems to be some confusion over this facility. If you take a comparative to the U.K., which actually built its domestic manufacturing capacity much more quickly than Canada, Royalmount.... The Prime Minister announced that the facility's construction should be complete in July. You were quoted as saying that, no, fit-up's going to take a couple more months. Now we hear that likely, at best, they might get their assembly started and approved by the end of December. Now the discussion is that it may not be into full production until after December—potentially into the new year.

Which date is it? When will we actually see vaccine production in Canada?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Let me be very clear. You have four phases when you build a plant. You have the design phase, the construction phase, the certification phase and the production phase.

I think we should all rejoice, first, as parliamentarians, that Novavax has chosen Canada. When I talked to the CEO.... They could have gone to about seven or eight countries where they already have manufacturing facilities, but they chose Canada, which is good news.

What I did say—and the Prime Minister—is that we expect construction to be completed by the end of the summer. Then you have the period of certification, which could be a couple of months, because, as you know, this is about good manufacturing practices. This is governed by Health Canada in accordance with its processes. Canadians would understand that we want to go fast but that we want to make sure that we respect all the health and safety protocols. Following that, we would go into production.

What I did say is that we would be producing a vaccine before the end of the year in that facility, in Royalmount. We are very pleased, I must say, and we should—you and I and every Canadian—think that having Novavax.... We were lucky because, in a way, the manufacturing process that we have in Royalmount is compatible with the Novavax vaccine. The second thing that made the CEO choose Canada was speed and, obviously, a very stable, predictable, secure supply market. I think that's good news because we need to be prudent and resilient for the future.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Did you not look at the potential of retrofitting existing facilities early on in this game? Starting from scratch, foundations, putting up a building, building a brand new facility.... Where was the effort for a rapid response? There's lots of industry in Canada.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Totally. Thank you for asking—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, MP Cumming, you're out of time, but I will let the minister answer quickly because I know this is an important subject.

Minister, go ahead.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Cumming, we received about 87 applications under the strategic innovation fund. We looked at all that, and then the task force looked at projects. Their filter is, obviously, to look at what is feasible, the science, the technology and what can be deployed very quickly to provide vaccines to Canadians.

That's how they were looking at it when they were providing advice to this government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We will now move to our next round of questions.

MP Lambropoulos, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Minister and Madam Minister, thank you for being with us this morning to answer our questions.

My first question is for Minister Champagne, but I invite Minister Anand to add to the answer if she wishes.

Canada's strategy has two components. First, we have the supply strategy and, second, we have the domestic biomanufacturing strategy. To date, all that we have announced to Canadians is that we will fight COVID-19 with two doses of vaccine for every Canadian by September.

How will vaccine production here in Canada help us reach our goals even faster?

Do you believe we could count on Novavax to achieve our objectives before September? Do you feel it's more of a long-term solution, that is, it could help us subsequently, if the first two doses don't work, or if the virus comes back even stronger?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Let me say a few words, then I will let my colleague take over.

First of all, thank you for the question, Ms. Lambropoulos.

I feel that choosing Novavax for Canada is very good news for Canadians. As I often say, we must act immediately and concretely, yet with a long-term vision. What is our long-term vision? It is to ensure the health and safety of Canadians, and that requires resilience and caution.

My role as Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry is to bring home as many links in the supply chain as possible. As noted in the previous questions, we have realized that we are starting from a reduced manufacturing base. This began decades ago. What we are doing now is rebuilding the biomanufacturing base here at home. This will allow us to face the future with much more resilience.

Together with the NRC and its president, Mr. Davies, we will do everything we can to accelerate the construction of the Royalmount Avenue plant. We have four stages: design, construction, certification and production. We are going to do everything we can to make it happen quickly.

That being said, we have other pillars, such as Medicago in Quebec City, AbCellera in Vancouver and VIDO in Saskatchewan.

What I am doing, in cooperation with the government and public servants, is laying the foundations of this resilience, so that Canada is stronger and can face any future health emergency.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much for your answer.

As you said, the Royalmount Avenue facility will allow us to produce 2 million doses of vaccine per month. That will be done over the next few months.

What's the best-case scenario for this? When do you think is the earliest we will be able to start producing these vaccines and getting them out to Canadians?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

As I said, there are four phases: the design phase, the construction, certification and production. We have said, as the Prime Minister has said, that we expect construction will be completed by the summer.

Then you go into the certification phase, which is an independent process, what we call the good manufacturing practices, which is certification from Health Canada for any biomanufacturing facility in Canada. This period of time could vary, depending on how much time it will be. Then we will move quickly to production.

That's why I said we will be able to produce before the end of the year. Construction will be completed by the end of the summer. There's the period in between of certification that, obviously, we will know when we enter that phase with the independent experts who are going to certify.

I think the good thing for us, and I'm sure you realize, is, again, that Novavax has chosen Canada, thanks to the policy we placed, thanks to the funding we have and our view about science.

I spoke to the CEO. He was excited to come to Canada. They see Canada as the place to be now. We have proven during the pandemic to be a very trusted partner. I can tell you, as a former foreign affairs minister, that the world is looking for stability, predictability, rule of law, traceability and security of supplies. We have demonstrated we're a partner of choice to the world, and that's why we can attract these kinds of investments into Canada.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you very much.

Minister Anand, with regard to procurements, so far we have two vaccine candidates that are going to get us vaccinated by September. Obviously, more of them will be approved by Health Canada in the coming months, hopefully sooner than later.

What do you think is the best-case scenario? When do you think is the earliest that we can get Canadians vaccinated?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you for the question. It's nice to be able to interject here.

I use a two-track model to analyze this question. The first is based on approved vaccines alone, those from Pfizer and Moderna, and that is going to lead us to six million doses by the end of Q1, 20 million does by the end of Q2, and 70 million doses by the end of Q3. It's based on that analysis that we are using the end-of-September deadline. But of course we're going to have, hopefully, additional vaccines coming online; that's the purpose of our diversification approach to vaccine procurement. Once those vaccines come online and the vaccines arrive in Canada, those timelines can, hopefully, be moved up.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire now has the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the ministers for being here. I believe that today's meeting gives us the opportunity to move forward. Honestly, we don't always get new answers to our questions when ministers appear before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. I want to tell them that I appreciate this.

My first question is for Minister Champagne, but Ms. Anand can provide additional comments.

How would Canada and Quebec benefit from having a strategy to deal with the pandemic independently?