Industry Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Mark Lievonen]

There have been a number of SIF proposals that we've reviewed, and there have been some investments. One of them is Precision NanoSystems, where investment has been made to expand the mRNA capacity there. There are other proposals under discussion and the government is committed to investing in biomanufacturing capacity.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much. I really appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

My thanks to the witnesses for their visit, which we really have been waiting for and looking forward to.

Canada had the sequencing of the virus in our hands as of January 11, 2020. The public announcement of the first case came on January 25, 2020. According to the information that you have just given us, the first meeting of the COVID-19 vaccine task force took place on June 16.

Decisions were made between January 25 and June 16. Do you know who was making the decisions in the government and how that happened? Then, do you know whom the government consulted during the five months between the first case of COVID-19 and the first meeting of the committee?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

I'm not getting translation, but you related the timelines for the pandemic and asked who made the decision about the task force and who they consulted.

I think that would be a question for the secretariat. Would that be correct, Roger?

[Roger Scott-Douglas, Secretary, COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force]

Yes, I'm happy to answer, Joanne.

The task force was constructed in May of 2020 and held its first meeting on June 16, 2020. Until that time there were other groups that were also advising the government. For instance, the chief science officer, Dr. Mona Nemer, has other committees that supported expert advice. There were also, obviously, significant science capabilities within Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. This expertise was also drawn on in those early months as the vaccine task force was being established.

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

So we gather that the government wasted time or improvised before it called on you.

Let's move on.

Between June 2020 and August 2020, the committee's activities remained basically secret. You met for six weeks and you made recommendations to the federal government, but neither the public nor its elected representatives knew the composition of the committee.

Who was sitting on the committee and with which companies were they associated? Why did that remain secret for six weeks? Were mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest established at that time?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

The committee was established in early June. As Joanne indicated in her opening remarks, an extraordinary amount of work was done by these volunteer experts in the immediate months thereafter. As soon as the appropriate due diligence could be done both by committee members and then also, importantly, advice was being given, therefore before approval could take place, experts within the ministry of ISED and other groups were reviewing and doing follow-up due diligence. As soon as that had been done and agreements were signed on August 5, that was made public. All the names and roles that had been played by the task force were made public at that point.

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

In terms of the sums allocated, we know that the government's decision to choose CanSino Biologics as a partner was announced in May. It was actually the first decision that the committee ratified in June at its first meeting. However, the agreement with China collapsed in August.

Were the $56 million allocated to CanSino Biologics spent?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

It's not quite factually correct. The task force was asked to review SIF proposals and international candidates. As Joanne mentioned, CanSino Biologics was one of a number. There were 19 international companies looked at. There were 24 Canadian companies that were examined. CanSino was in that mix. They were reviewed initially by the task force. Further evidence was provided and the task force ruled and their advice to ministers was that new science suggested not backing CanSino further.

The relationship between the National Research Council and CanSino was entirely independent of anything that the task force was doing. The early relationship you were talking about was independent of the task force's advice.

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

I understand, but the heart of the Canadian strategy at that point was to go ahead with CanSino Biologics as a partner. Who decided that? Were $56 million given to CanSino Biologics, or do we still have that money?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I think, Madam Chair, with great respect, CanSino was not at the heart of the Canadian strategy, by any means. It was a much more balanced approach. The task force, as Joanne and Mark indicated, recommended strongly for a diversified portfolio across both vaccine platforms and companies. At all times, a full-court press was put on all fronts. There was no effort made by anybody to privilege one company over another, and certainly not CanSino.

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

So you did not recommend CanSino Biologics.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

CanSino was initially recommended. Then, when further evidence materialized, the advice was given not to recommend pursuing it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Witnesses, if you're having difficulty with translation, please let us know. We can make sure that IT reaches out to you. If you need translation, make sure that on the bottom of your screen you've selected English.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here and for your work.

One thing that is crucial is public confidence. There's no doubt that we're recommending what people put in their bodies to fight a deadly situation. Some people already have reservations about vaccines. Some people have reservations about the length of time it should be tested and so forth. One of the best things we can do is to provide more openness and accountability for that.

One of the concerns I've had with regard to the task force is the transparency aspect. You mentioned the NRC site with regard to the declarations of conflict of interest. I have that, and I've looked at it.

Ms. Langley, you noted that you worked at the university and “collaborated with Janssen in the past on clinical trials”. Under “Action Taken”, this says, “As there are no direct, material linkages, it was not considered a conflict and recusal was not deemed necessary.” That's not a lot of information for Canadians to see. I want to know whether that's the same or equivalent to when you publish conflicts of interest in journals and other types of materials. If you just look at the surface of that, it doesn't really explain a lot. From those conflicts of interest that were declared, I think I found only one or two where action was taken.

Maybe you can comment on those things, please.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

I can speak to the question about me. Roger, perhaps, could do the second part.

You're right that it's very similar to what we do for journals. For every trial that we publish the results for, for every talk that we give, particularly in a university, we have to have a slide that lists every company our employer has had a relationship with. For me, for example, I'm a professor at a university, at Dalhousie. I'm an employee of the university. When we do clinical trials here at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology, some of our funding would be from CIHR and some of it might be from a company like Janssen doing a phase one trial. We'd negotiate a contract—it would be the university with the company—and then the money would be used to pay the research nurses we have and so on.

None of the money in Canada, when you do those kinds of clinical trials, goes to investigators, at least when you're in an academic setting. I think that answers the Janssen part. We had previously done Janssen studies—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

You're saying, then, that this website from the NRC is equivalent to what you have to do for the journals and other types of conflicts of interest. I'm just looking to find out whether this is equivalent in terms of the disclosure of information and the way it's actually being done here.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

I can tell you what the disclosure was to the NRC. I listed every possible relationship I would have had to Janssen. Not all of those would have been listed, potentially.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay: so it's not equivalent to what you have to provide for journals and other types of conflict of interest declarations, then.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

No, journals are very different, so you can't make a general statement about journals, I think it would be fair to say.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I don't know how this is a difficult question. I'm really just trying to find out whether what's being published on the NRC website is as robust as what's normally disclosed when you publish in journals and so forth. That's all I'm looking for.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Perhaps I could jump in.

Thank you, Joanne.

Madam Chair, a very exhaustive effort was done to make sure that the conflict of interest protocols used by the task force were equivalent to those of all major granting bodies. We looked carefully at what CIHR had done. We looked at other countries and what they had done. This meets all of the same kinds of tests.

There were rigorous declarations. Joanne mentioned that in all of the cases, about 30 people recused themselves when they were found to have a direct conflict or the appearance of one.

With regard to the cases that are on the NRC website, these are the announced projects by the government. There are eight cases of recusal in those projects that have been announced where the advice of the task force was taken by the government and investments were made. It meets the very highest standards.

We spoke about credibility. The task force numbers are incredibly—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Sorry, I don't to want to..., but I'm just running out of time here.

You're saying that this website disclosure is equivalent to when you publish journals and so forth. That's what I've been trying to get to in my questioning here. It sounds to me also that you're only disclosing the ones that have to be, that are from the government, so there are other disclosures that haven't gone public, then. Is that correct?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

All that is disclosed is where the advice of the task force has been acted on by the government. Ministers received a full list of all of the declarations for every item of advice.