Industry Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm sorry for interrupting you, but I am wondering whether the vaccine task force studied the possibility of establishing the same kind of partnership in Canada with our researchers here?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Yes, for every single candidate we considered part of the rubric was the possibility to partner with Canadian scientists, or businesses or government scientists, to make it a value option for Canadians. Every vaccine was considered under that lens.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

If I understand correctly, nothing ever came of it. There was no funding from the federal government to establish a wholly Canadian task force to produce a vaccine.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Maybe I could answer briefly.

Madam Chair, the honourable member mentioned Medicago. There was direct support, in the order of about $173 million, I think, provided by the Government of Canada to support Medicago.

As Joanne indicated, at every opportunity pairing up international candidates with Canadian science or Canadian biomanufacturing capability was assessed. The problem, as Mark explained, is that in order to produce billions of doses, which is what the big companies were trying to do, they needed a very well-established, major available facility, and that was not found in Canada.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Douglas.

I will end with a very quick question—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

I am sorry, Mr. Simard, your time is up. You have gone over your allotted time, but perhaps you can continue in the next round.

Our next round of questions goes to MP Masse.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thanks very much.

I want to follow up because I still think the task force's transparency is important. I'm trying to get my head around why the United States can publish its conclusions, its agenda, be on a webcast, and we can't have any of that here, or a partial of that. Please explain why the U.S. can do this and we can't. You noted the disclosure of corporate secrets, but what's the difference between the U.S. dealing with this, and their transparency, versus our current model?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I'm afraid, Madam Chair, I can't speak fully to what the Americans are doing, and how they can do it. What I can say is that in virtually every case when we interviewed a biomanufacturing company, a vaccine company, it was necessary for the members of the task force to sign non-disclosure agreements. That was what the companies required. They did the same for the U.K. task force, I know as a matter of fact, and the Australian, the New Zealand task force, as we spoke to all of these, entered into the same kind of confidentiality. Everybody is playing by those rules, that I can say.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay. Do you even publish your agenda and conclusions, though, after meetings, or any minutes?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

No, we do not.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Why?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

All of that advice and detail is provided by the task force to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry and the Minister of Health.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

This is where I think the problem is for the public. There's an immense amount of public money, and for the decision-making about what they're going to do in their body, not even a base agenda or some conclusions are provided for them to see what's even being talked about. Sending it to the minister isn't sufficient for us, as members of Parliament, either because all we can do is do an access to information request later on and probably get a redacted document that looks all black.

Is there not any space for the task force to open up some type of connection to the Canadians who you're working so hard to try to keep safe?

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

I think that—

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Yes, MP Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

The member opposite is asking a question about the relationship of advice being provided to a minister of the Crown. These are scientific experts, they're not experts in Canadian democratic process or government decision-making, and I think—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

But they're intelligent human beings—

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Of course. No one brings that into question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

MP Masse, I'm trying—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

—and there's a point in asking them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

MP Masse, I am trying to hear the point of order. Please, one moment.

MP Amos, please continue. What is the point of order?

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

The point of order, Madam Chair, is the member is asking a question that the witness is ill-suited to answer because it speaks to the rules around advice to ministers of the Crown, which the member opposite knows full well is protected under cabinet confidentiality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Understood. The witness can decide whether or not he can answer that, very briefly. I'll ask him to quickly respond because we are out of time.

[Roger Scott-Douglas]

Madam Chair, I think it is right that the minister of the Crown would answer that question.

I would point out that transparency is very important. Task force members have met with the media and given extensive interviews 135 times, which is quite an extraordinary thing for volunteer people to do.