Industry Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

The details of the procurement arrangements are not known to me, but in general, I think they are on these quarterly timelines. There are other factors at play, such as whether you have already domestic biomanufacturing on your soil, or a local candidate could be manufactured quickly using your own technology.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

But are there not countries that don't have manufacturing capabilities on their own soil, or access to vaccine similar to the Canadian situation we find ourselves in, that are also ahead of us on that list of 30 or 50, depending on how you measure the countries? I keep coming back to that because that's what I hear when I go back to my riding.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Some of those vaccines.... For example, the Russian vaccine, the Gamaleya institute vaccine, is not a vaccine that is in our portfolio. It became authorized, as it were, very early, without any publicly available data for any scientists to evaluate. Those countries would also be included in these metrics that we're seeing in the press.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

This is for any of you. I know we'll be pushing for a review of this whole process post-pandemic. Hindsight is 20/20, and I would be the first to admit that, but at this stage, this far in, would you have any response to what perhaps a post-review would uncover?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

MP Epp, you are out of time.

If the witnesses can quickly, within 10 to 15 seconds, answer that, then we'll go to the last round.

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

Thank you.

I would just quickly say that I think it's become very clear that the earth is one country. We have to think about preparedness for emerging infectious diseases as a planet. Our countries are very much interdependent. I very much applaud the ability to build domestic biomanufacturing. I think that is necessary. We learned that, I think, during this pandemic. But we also have to account for the fact that we have to work together with other countries.

Mark?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Unfortunately, we really need to get to the next round.

MP Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To our witnesses, thank you. You are, and your committee members are, all heroes, in my view. I think Canadians owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. I mean, I've had the opportunity to discuss on many occasions with our chief science adviser the nature of the work you are doing, she in her ex officio capacity on your task force. It is simply tremendous. I find it most regrettable how certain politicians and certain members of the media are choosing to politicize this for what I think are very short-term gains when you are really helping us look at the short-, medium- and long-term needs of our country around vaccines.

I want to get on the record the issue around any budgetary parameters. Were you in any way limited in your mandate in terms of looking at vaccines within the constraints of particular financial aspects, or was it just “best advice, money is no object”?

[Mark Lievonen]

We provided our advice based on the best advice available.

While some of the companies would talk about the financial considerations during presentations, that was not taken into consideration when we provided our advice.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you for that.

The member of Carleton earlier commented that his view was that the lack of domestic production was a domestic failure. What is your view with respect to the current state of domestic production? Could anything more have been done to create a circumstance, once we had known there was a global pandemic, to have moved faster to generate domestic production?

[Mark Lievonen]

I think in the short run the decisions that were taken made sense. There clearly is an issue to be addressed going forward, and that is under way. Through recommendations of the joint biomanufacturing subcommittee to the government, some announcements have been made, as you know, for Canadian domestic production capability. I expect more under way and more to come, but I don't think anything could have been done in terms of supplying vaccines between now and the end of September. There is not a domestic solution that could have sped that up.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

That's a very important statement. I do hope our members opposite and the media take note of that.

Do any of our other expert witnesses have further comments on that point?

[Dr. Joanne Langley]

I would just be in agreement. We had on our committee experts in this area who are aware of the global situation and the time it takes to actually get a plant running a new vaccine and to do the tech transfer, and that was our conclusion.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

On the issue of CanSino, there is a false narrative being pedalled that Canada somehow put all its eggs in the CanSino basket. What is your opinion on that kind of narrative?

[Mark Lievonen]

Joanne and, I believe, Roger spoke to that earlier, so I will just add my comments as well.

While CanSino was very much part of what was talked about, it was kind of early on and later on. Any discussions we had were done in parallel. All the other vaccine candidates that we looked at were considered at the same time. None of the decisions around CanSino impacted the timing of any other decisions. It wasn't waiting for one to get to the other.

At least from the time the vaccine task force was put in place, we looked at all those things from the beginning when we met. We looked at all the potential candidates, domestic candidates and international candidates, starting at that time, and again, as we said, we looked at them in parallel, not sequentially.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

With respect to certain Canadian companies that have perhaps not been selected, should Canadians have expected and is it normal and appropriate for certain companies to have been chosen by the government to receive funding and for certain companies to have not received funding, or lesser funding? In your opinion, is that normal and appropriate?

[Mark Lievonen]

We had a process to review the strategic investment fund proposals that looked at all companies equally. We've talked about the criteria we used to assess those proposals. We provided advice to the government, and some funding announcements have been made under strategic investment fund proposals.

There is also other funding. In some cases, we thought the proposals were not at a stage for SIF funding but would benefit from other funding. There has also been a series of funding made by the NRC IRAP and the next generation fund. A number of Canadian companies have received funding from the government to advance their candidate vaccines and their programs, which are at an earlier stage.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you to all three of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

That ends our third round of questions. I thank the witnesses for staying a little over time to answer all the questions of our members. On behalf of the INDU committee, I thank the three of you for the work you're doing and will continue to do for us here in Canada. Please extend our thanks to the other members of the task force. We really appreciate your time.

With that, I will let the witnesses depart and I will turn it over to the clerk, because we have an election of a vice-chair to deal with.

Thank you so much.

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

Thank you for being here.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Michael MacPherson]

Thank you.

We have an election of first vice-chair. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), the first vice-chair must be a member of the official opposition.

I am now prepared to receive motions for the first vice-chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

MP Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Clerk, I'd be honoured to nominate Mr. Poilievre as vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

It has been moved by Earl Dreeshen that Pierre Poilievre be elected as first vice-chair of the committee. Are there any further motions?

Seeing none, it has been moved by Earl Dreeshen that Pierre Poilievre be elected as first vice-chair of the committee, pursuant to the House order of Wednesday, September 23, 2020.

I will now proceed to a recorded division unless we have unanimous consent.

It looks pretty unanimous to me.

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried and Pierre Poilievre duly elected as first vice-chair of the committee.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, everyone.