Industry Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

The rollout is not within the remit of the task force. I could answer as an individual but not in my capacity as a member of the task force.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Sure, go ahead and answer as an individual.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Okay.

I have been involved in vaccine work for two decades now. We have this unique situation in Canada, where we're 13 little countries. Any vaccine that's authorized federally has to be rolled out according to each province and territory. Many countries in the world have national vaccine programs—the U.K., Australia and the U.S.—where the model is that the federal government procures vaccines and then every member of that country has access to them.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right.

Just to be clear, the provincial role is just in the delivery and administration of the vaccine, not in the procurement. Is this right?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Well, in a non-pandemic scenario, they also procure and make decisions about procurement—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Let's just get right to it. In a pandemic scenario, all they do is administer and deliver, correct?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

That is what I understand to be the case, now.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

I just want to nail it down, then. That's not the delay. The provinces are administering what they have. The delay is in the procurement. To try and pass the buck to the provinces is not accurate. Right now the delay is in procuring the vaccines. That's a federal issue.

We should not use federalism to pass the buck. The federal government is uniquely and exclusively responsible for this and it has not done it. Why is it that at least 30 and maybe as many as 50 countries have been able to deliver vaccines in a way that the federal government has not, here in Canada?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I might just mention that the issue is not so much procurement. The procurement started with advance procurement agreements as early as August 5. There was then the requirement that went right up through the fall.

We were extremely successful, as Joanne and Mark have indicated—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Scott-Douglas, my question is about the outcome. Right now there are 30 countries, maybe 50, ahead of us, depending on how you measure it. Why are they doing it and we aren't? Why?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

The procurement is not the issue.

The second step, as Joanne indicated, is the authorization. Those countries need to authorize those. Health Canada has authorized two. They're seriously considering two more and perhaps imminently passing judgment on those. All of those have been wisely chosen by the task force in advance and the government has accepted that advice.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Why is it that at least 30 and as many as 50 countries have higher per capita vaccination rates than Canada? Why?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Many of these other countries had in-country capacity to produce the vaccines, and these countries authorized those vaccines earlier on. The combination of those two things allowed them to get out front. They also didn't meet the unforeseen delays in the delivery of the vaccine once it had been procured and authorized.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Even though they would have the same logistical obstacles that we have here in Canada.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

European countries and the U.K. don't have those barriers.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Why?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

The manufacturing takes place.... For instance, AstraZeneca takes place in the U.K., and the U.K. authorized AstraZeneca prior to us. They received data from the firm, from the clinical trials, prior to Health Canada—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Exactly. So they authorized before we did. That's a performance issue on the part of their government versus our government.

Then, you have other countries that are importing vaccines that have significant advances in vaccination rates on us. It's not just the fact that we don't have domestic production—a failure of this government in and of itself—but it is the fact that we have not been able to purchase and deliver those vaccines.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

That's your time, MP Poilievre. My apologies for stopping you, but you're out of time.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Lambropoulos.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being with us today and for [Technical difficulty--Editor] Canadians get vaccinated as quickly and as safely as possible. We appreciate all the work that you've done, and we appreciate your being here today.

My questions are more about what we've been hearing.

I feel personally very confident in what the government has been saying, which is that we'll get Canadians vaccinated by September and that we'll do so safely and efficiently. I have full confidence in our ministers who are involved in this and in the vaccine task force.

However, as we've heard many times on the news, and from the opposition on several occasions, they believe that the timeline won't be met. This instills fear in Canadians. They fear for their own safety and that of their loved ones. They fear for the businesses that remain closed and their livelihoods.

I'd like to hear from you—the people I believe have some kind of authority in telling Canadians the truth about this matter—when you believe Canadians will be vaccinated. Can you also give us an explanation as to why you believe that the government took the right decisions in going ahead in the way they did with regard to vaccines?

[Mark Lievonen]

I could maybe comment on a couple things, based on my experience in the vaccine industry.

The vaccines are coming. We've seen them. The delivery schedules and what's been happening this week versus delay until next week...I don't think anybody in the industry ever thought they would see that on the national news like it's happening with the pandemic, which is understandable.

We provided advice to the government. We have not implemented the procurement agreements, so again, I won't speak from knowledge of these particular agreements; I will speak from traditional industry knowledge.

Supply agreements usually are done on a quarterly basis. One would commit to reasonable commercial efforts to supply vaccines over a period of time by quarters, which seems to be what's being reported in the media. There are delays in the traditional supply of vaccines that have happened all the time over the years. Vaccines are very difficult to make. They are very difficult to supply. Therefore, to have delays occur from time to time, to have slippages of a week or so...while it creates a significant impact during a pandemic, it's quite routine in the normal vaccine business. It's understandable.

One would expect that the companies will be able to—and they've reported that they would—meet the commitments that they've made, and they are committing to supplying sufficient vaccines so that there will be enough available for all Canadians to be vaccinated by the end of September. That's what the companies are reporting, based on what they know. That's what the government is reporting.

One would hope and expect that we'll see an increase in our vaccine supply on a weekly basis, starting very shortly, again as has been reported by the companies and the media.

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

While you've played an integral role in helping the government come up with the plan and making these decisions, can you comment on how efficiently they are doing this and why other options might have not been as efficient?

I know you mentioned several times that international candidates, as well as domestic candidates, were being evaluated at the same time. Can you just give us a bit more as to why it was important to go with the most promising vaccines first and maybe focus on domestic production a little later on in the game?

[Mark Lievonen]

If you take a step back in time to June, July and August when we were getting going, it's a bit of a mind-boggling task that we were given to recommend....

Our mandate was to provide advice to secure safe and efficacious vaccines for Canadians as soon as possible.

At that time, there were no vaccines licensed or developed; they were under way for being developed. There were international candidates and domestic candidates and we had to assess, review and meet with companies and come up with recommendations about what vaccines might be available in the future. When we provided advice to the government, the seven candidate vaccines that we recommended across three platforms weren't even approved yet. There was a risk in buying, securing and entering into agreements for products that weren't even licensed yet.

The government took our advice; they reacted to it and moved to quickly secure advance purchase agreements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you.

We now move to the next speaker.

Mr. Lemire, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We know that the minutes of those meetings are not public. The process is somewhat obscure and, at first sight, quite arbitrary.

What criteria did the task force use to downgrade, or at least not select, companies from here as opposed to companies from elsewhere?