National Defence Committee on Jan. 29th, 2021

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Madam Chair, when developing our plans, we looked closely at risk mitigation measures. We considered a host of factors that could come into play, such as a warehouse or a production site potentially being compromised.

Of course, we did not anticipate Pfizer's announcement to have such an impact, and for a period of four weeks. That has a fairly significant short-term impact on distribution, and I realize how disappointing it is and to what extent clinics are suffering the consequences. However, everything leads us to believe that we will be able to considerably increase the distribution over the next few weeks.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

So you are still optimistic, and you believe that this will definitely not have a major impact, given Pfizer's promises.

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Madam Chair, I am optimistic, but cautiously so.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I understand you.

At the end of the day, the provincial vaccination objectives are set based directly on what the federal government promised to deliver, I assume. Is that right?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

That's right, Madam Chair. This is the result of extensive coordination among the provinces, territories and various stakeholders.

It is important to note, I think, that provinces and territories are used to carrying out an immunization plan for vaccines that are stored at temperatures between 2 degrees Celsius and 8 degrees Celsius, in accordance with their own systems and through the usual distribution networks consisting of pharmacies, private clinics, and so on.

However, the currently approved vaccines are completely new and come with particular requirements that require a centralization of efforts when it comes to purchasing and distribution power. Provinces are invited to closely coordinate their own plans and to align them with what can be supplied.

I also encourage the provinces to go through the federal government as much as possible for distribution, so as to facilitate their own distributions.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I assume that, as you just said, the coordination effort is massive. This is unprecedented. It is completely new, since you built it from scratch. So I want to congratulate you once again on the work you are doing.

When it comes to coordination efforts, the provinces are aware of your distribution plan from beginning to end because you have shown it to them, I assume. Is that correct?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Madam Chair, we have very frequent discussions with the provinces and communicate with them in writing on a daily basis, and we regularly share our allocation and distribution tables.

Of course, we are doing all this based on data that, according to indications, is relatively definitive and comes from the manufacturer, and on planning data that is to be used with a grain of salt. As we have heard again today, distribution plans can change.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Garrison, please.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to join my colleagues in thanking the Canadian Forces for the contribution they've made in the fight against the COVID pandemic, in particular for the assistance they've provided in long-term care homes in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba, and, of course, General Fortin's team in the distribution of vaccines.

I want to start with a question to General Fortin. However, I'll make some remarks about the context to keep myself from asking would-have, could-have, should-have questions, which are clearly beyond his wheelhouse.

We're in a situation where Canada has lost the capacity to produce vaccines in Canada due to decisions by governments that precede this one. We're also in a situation where we have not provided as strong support for research and development as we could have provided for vaccine development in Canada. Finally, there were discussions last summer about the contracts that we were negotiating. They would include the right to produce vaccines in Canada, or a condition that some of the vaccines be produced in Canada. The Prime Minister was talking about that in August and then walked that back in November. I don't want to ask any of those things of General Fortin.

What I want to ask about is our relationship to the pharmaceutical companies that are providing the vaccine. This morning, AstraZeneca released highly redacted versions of its contract with the EU. That contract says that they will make best reasonable efforts to provide vaccines in the quantities stated in the contract.

General Fortin, is your understanding of these contracts that they are contracts for delivery of vaccines by a certain date or that they are contracts only for best reasonable efforts to deliver vaccines?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

It is a complicated answer.

First, I cannot answer in sufficient detail on the issues of procurement. What I work with are the vaccines that have been approved, that we have contracts for and that I know are coming to Canada. That is my wheelhouse: coordinating the distribution.

What I can tell you is that Canada has agreements with seven manufacturers. The approval for the remaining five are at different stages. I am not tracking the detail of the contractual arrangements; that would be a question for Procurement.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

So you're in the situation of simply getting notices from the vaccine manufacturers of what they will provide by a certain date and then dealing with those notices. We don't really have any recourse under these contracts other than to accept what is promised on whatever dates they're promised.

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Those discussions are very much ongoing. We have discussions often with the manufacturers on the details of the shipping for the immediate and the mid-term. We also have discussions at tables where Procurement Canada is also in a position to discuss its own areas of responsibility with the manufacturers. It's a joint effort.

With regard to my team, I really focus on what's been contracted, what's in the first quarter, for this instance. We have planning figures for the next quarter. As those manufacturers experience the expected challenges and fluctuations in production, they constantly keep us informed. We have to go with information that they provide to us, with the full expectation that they are being as transparent as they can be.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Of course, you have my full sympathies for the difficult situation you're dealing with there, but I think everyone will understand why members of Parliament are concerned. These aren't contracts in the normal sense of the word. Certainly the president of AstraZeneca said they're not. They are contracts for reasonable efforts, they're not actually contracts for delivery, and that leaves Canada in a very vulnerable situation.

Let me turn to another aspect of that, and it is where the vaccines are coming from. Certainly Pfizer is producing in the United States and in Belgium. There have been indications from both the United States and the EU that they may possibly wish to limit exports of those vaccines.

In those discussions, are we having any discussions about where the vaccines are being produced at this point, given the threats to disrupt distribution of vaccines by the U.S. and the EU?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

I can comment on the vaccines that are currently approved. They are produced in Europe, and they are shipped from Europe to Canada through various means. Some of those products are also manufactured in the U.S. and other locations. At the current time, the U.S. production is aimed at the U.S. market.

Minister Anand at PSPC is very much engaged with the manufacturers, as she has indicated a number of times, to bring forward quantities into earlier quarters and to also look at diversifying as much as possible the point from where those vaccines come to reduce the risk. I think we're all very focused on what we learned this week from the EU and the executive order in the U.S. and what that could mean. There are a number of variables at play here, and they're all being considered to the best of our ability.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right. Thank you very much.

We will move on to Mr. Dowdall, please.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I as well want to take the opportunity to thank General Fortin and General Misener for their dedication and commitment to this great country of ours.

I read this morning a report that came out from the Angus Reid poll and basically showed that Canadians' confidence in the government's vaccine plan had declined from 58% to 45% in the past six weeks. That's certainly not a positive trend, and we need to do better. Just 36% of Canadians now say they feel that the federal government has done a good job in securing sufficient doses for the population, and that's down 11 points from December, while the number that says “not so good” has more than doubled.

General, I certainly don't envy the position you are in. I have every confidence in your ability, and I certainly have more than enough confidence in the men and women of our Canadian Armed Forces to deliver every vaccine you are provided. I am very proud to represent CFB Borden, which is in my riding.

I have a few comments that I've also heard from some other individuals here in talking about long-term care homes. There was a bad outbreak in Barrie, just beside me in the next riding over, and one in Bradford as well.

Certainly, the conditions aren't that great, and I think we've learned that over our studies, to show that we can improve upon our seniors' homes, but there is one thing we can do—and we can do now—to help these people. Really, the onus here is that instead of blaming others, we need to have a mirror and look at ourselves. We need vaccines for these people. We can deal with those issues later. That's number one.

My question comes from the calls that I have received this week. There were quite a few because of the area I'm representing. There is concern from a lot of the front-line workers, from the nurses and from whoever is working in the seniors' homes. Some of them have received their first vaccine dose, and now they're waiting for their second. With these backups that we're seeing today, do you know how many people now are waiting for that second dose?

The follow-up question would be this. General, is there a plan for how we're going to deal with the fact that over that time period when people are supposed to get the vaccine if it perhaps goes past that point in time...? Will that change your whole rollout of how you're going to get the vaccines out to people? They'd almost be obsolete, perhaps. I'm curious to know if you could give me some insight into that.

[MGen Dany Fortin]

I understand that the immunization programs in provinces and territories depend on the supplies. We do everything we can to bring supplies in country. There is no strategic reserve. There's no pool of vials or vaccine doses that we're holding onto to cater for shortages in one particular area faster than another to ensure that we don't have a gap between the first and second dose that is beyond what the national advisory committee on immunization has issued in terms of guidance. All doses that arrive in country are pushed as effectively as possible, as rapidly as possible, to provinces and territories that administer their own immunization programs.

As to how many are waiting for their second dose in a particular province or a particular jurisdiction, I can't really comment on that. That would have to be asked of the Province of Ontario in the case of the member, but what I can tell you is that on the Canada.ca portal there is a breakdown as provinces report on their immunization plans. There is a breakdown of how many people have been vaccinated, who have received at least one dose, and we can go from there.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

As it stands now, those individuals who do have that first shot aren't guaranteed the second shot in a timely manner, so it would change the whole amount of vaccines we need, the whole rollout of the plan. I know it's in conjunction with the provinces and that's probably not only a huge issue to those individuals, but it's a huge issue logistically.

[MGen Dany Fortin]

I understand the concern for sure, and it's very much looked at in detail in our projections, but by February 15 we'll have a significant increase in quantities and be moving forward in Pfizer shipments. We expect that provinces will be able to manage that and stick to the NACI recommendation for up to a 42-day interval and specific problems can be flagged by provinces and we can see how we can readjust.

It's a zero-sum game so we'll have to shift from one jurisdiction to another prior to arrival to ensure we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have an extended period without the second vaccine. The CMHOs and Dr. Tam's office federally are also looking at that, but really it's the provincial and territorial public health officers.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Thank you, General.

How many doses did we receive this week?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

This week we received zero doses.

[Terry Dowdall, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

To follow up, how many doses should we be expecting next week?

[MGen Dany Fortin]

Next week we expect to receive 79,000 doses of Pfizer product, as I announced yesterday at the press conference, and, starting in the later half of next week, we now expect to receive 180,000 doses of Moderna. That will be distributed across the country over the coming days through to February 9.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karen McCrimmon]

All right, thank you very much.

Mr. Robillard, please.