Madam Chair, thank you very much.
Thank you for inviting me to discuss the role that my team and I have been playing in the whole-of-government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I am Major-General Dany Fortin. As you mentioned, I'm the vice-president of the vaccine rollout task force, logistics and operations, at the Public Health Agency of Canada and responsible for the oversight and distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations to Canadians.
The distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on a national scale is an operation of unprecedented proportions. It became evident early on in the procurement process, as the Government of Canada was identifying vaccine candidates, that the early-to-market mRNA COVID-19 vaccines would have unique handling and storing requirements that would necessitate novel, fit-for-purpose logistical solutions outside the scope of Canada’s usual immunization programs.
The particular suite of challenges posed by these novel vaccines lends itself well to CAF organizational skill sets in managing complex large-scale operations, particularly when complemented by the scientific and immunization expertise within the public health domain to form an interdisciplinary team to guide the distribution of many millions of vaccines across the nation.
By way of context for the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence augmentation to the Public Health Agency, the team has been operating in its current configuration since November, but the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence augmentation to the agency goes back over 10 months. Over the spring and summer months, from March to August, a team of CAF members supported efforts to develop the warehousing and distribution contracts for Canada’s large-scale PPE orders.
Early in the fall, additional CAF members and DND personnel were brought in to bolster planning and coordination capacity at the agency and contribute to the creation of a dedicated vaccine rollout task force. The vaccine logistics planning team and the national operations centre for vaccines advance party preceded my November arrival by a month.
My team at the agency currently has 52 personnel. It includes logistics experts, operational and medical planners and specialists, information technology and systems experts, contracting experts and a communications team to prepare me for the engagements. It is focused on all dimensions of COVID-19 vaccine distribution planning, including ancillary supplies and cold chain enabling equipment, as well as the running of the vaccine rollout national operations centre, the central coordination hub for the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines to provinces and territories, as well as to federal jurisdictions.
The mandate of the national operations centre includes the coordination of vaccine orders from federal, provincial and territorial partners to the manufacturers; the coordination with the federal logistics service provider for the transport and distribution of vaccines to vaccine delivery sites across Canada as identified by provinces and territories; the coordination of delivery of ancillary supplies and enabling equipment from the agency’s national emergency strategic stockpile; and ensuring the timely and transparent communication between partners and stakeholders, including vaccine manufacturers and logistics service providers, is maintained to enable efficient operations.
The team’s work revolves around the planning and coordination of the practical aspects of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Throughout November and December and now into January, we implemented a deliberate and phased approach to COVID-19 vaccine readiness. This provided us with the opportunity to assess and begin scaling up the cold chain capacity across Canada and to roll out the training, ancillary and enabling equipment.
My team helped strengthen the distribution plan by introducing risk mitigation tools. Through a series of established exercises and rehearsals, we collectively stress-tested the vaccine distribution plans, verified their effectiveness, identified the challenges and established contingency plans.
In light of the unique cold chain requirements of both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, this approach ensured that the initial capacity to receive, store and administer the vaccines at the provincial and territorial level was appropriate for the limited supply expected in phase one or the first quarter. These efforts culminated in an early vaccine rollout mid-December.
Our planning and execution, at every step, has been done in close collaboration with all stakeholders—federal, provincial, territorial, and indigenous partners, as well as industry stakeholders—to ensure that vaccines continue to be delivered efficiently and safely to all regions in Canada.
The quantity of doses arriving in Canada will continue to grow. We expect that shipments from Pfizer-BioNTech will accelerate in the latter half of February and through March to reach their Q1 commitment of four million doses. We also expect over one million doses of Moderna in March to reach their commitment of two million doses by March 31.
This will set the stage for the large scale ramp-up we anticipate in the second quarter of 20 million doses of approved vaccines, with the potential of even more as additional vaccine candidates are authorized by the regulators at Health Canada, and supply becomes available.
We are working to build capacity within the Public Health Agency of Canada and to support efforts across the provinces and territories to ensure the success of Canada's COVID-19 immunization campaign, and to set the conditions for a more robust institutional capacity to face future pandemics.
While we focus on this mission, we are working to identify key capabilities and functions currently being provided by Canadian Armed Forces and Department of National Defence members on the team so that appropriate human resource planning can occur at the agency to ensure the continuity of COVID-19 vaccine distribution to Canadians.
In conclusion, the CAF members and DND personnel assigned to this mission are proud and humbled to be part of this whole-of-nation effort to support Canada's COVID-19 immunization strategy.
With that, I will say thank you very much, and I will now hand it over to General Misener.