Official Languages Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Lalonde.

I'll check with the clerk to make sure that everyone, including the technical team, has access to the meeting.

Don't worry, Mr. Blaney, I've stopped the clock until the problem has been dealt with.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

I'll rephrase my question. What has Health Canada learned from its missteps in managing official languages during the pandemic, and which were pointed out by the Commissioner of Official Languages, to ensure that they are not repeated in the likely but unwelcome event of a new emergency arising?

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Please wait a moment.

I'm stopping the clock again, because I am waiting for a sign from the clerk to know whether the problem has been dealt with.

[The Clerk]

Give me just a moment, please, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm going to check that everything is working before continuing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We're going to pause the meeting until the situation has been corrected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

We are now resuming the meeting.

Mr. Blaney, you've used one minute and 50 seconds of your six minutes of speaking time. You asked a question and I would therefore ask one of our two witnesses to answer it.

You have the floor, Ms. Aung Thin.

[Pam Aung Thin]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll answer first, and then hand over to my colleague.

Communication in both official languages is always a priority for us at Health Canada. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we found ourselves in a new situation, and it was definitely a challenge to answer all the requests for documents.

We have nevertheless worked hard to increase capacity to make sure that we can continue to communicate in both official languages at all times. We've added more translation services within the department. We also have purchase orders with several translation companies for additional services. We are continuing to look into all possible ways of facilitating communication with the public in both official languages.

I would also like to mention that when we publish documents or send out news releases for the public, whether online or elsewhere, they are always published in both official languages at the same time.

I will now give the floor to my colleague.

[Manon Bombardier, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you, deputy minister.

As a regulatory organization for health products, Health Canada is required to communicate on a regular basis with regulated industries and others, to inform them of some of the measures we introduced hastily to allow ready access to essential health products to combat COVID-19.

We also have to communicate quickly with consumers if, for example, any products are a health risk. We do this through our website. We also have to communicate such information to health professionals, those who administer these health products or who work in hospitals and long-term care facilities, so that they have the information they need to protect themselves and their patients.

All information is available on our website in both official languages. We also email bilingual information on new policies to the industries we regulate.

I can therefore assure you that we take our role of regulating health products in a bilingual environment seriously, and that we comply with the requirements of the Official Languages Act.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Thank you.

We know that you are committed to providing services to consumers and industries in both official languages, but our study is on the pandemic. In this instance, the people of Canada were your public, and they were and still are exposed to a risk. As you know, we are near the end of the second wave, and would like to avoid a third.

Now during this critical period, the person in charge of health communications had trouble expressing herself in French. I would suggest that you come up with solutions to avoid situations like this. We need to learn from the mistakes that were pointed out by the Commissioner of Official Languages. In a crisis, as you have acknowledged, people turn to words that they have in common, and their mother tongue is extremely important.

What I mean to say is that if you normally communicate in both official languages, but neglect one of those languages in a crisis, this constitutes a threat to the health and safety of some citizens. That is what we understood from the commissioner's words. We want to avoid the possibility of this situation occurring again and francophones being treated like second-class citizens in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

There are 15 seconds left for an answer.

[Manon Bombardier]

Dr. Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, gives her presentations in English, but Dr. Howard Njoo, the deputy chief public health officer, does so in French.

So even though it's not the same person, the messages are delivered in both official languages by two Public Health Canada senior officials, to ensure that all Canadian citizens are updated on COVID-19 news.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Ms. Bombardier.

Mr. Arseneault, you have the floor for the next six minutes.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I note that 12 minutes went by between the first and final questions from my colleague Mr. Blaney. I would like to have the same amount of speaking time, please.

Ms. Aung Thin, you said something at the very beginning that struck me, a francophone outside Quebec from the bilingual province of New Brunswick. At the very outset, you said that for Health Canada, communicating in both official languages was a core communications practice and not just a legal obligation.

That means a context of proactive offer, in which one does not need to be whipped, pinched or have one's knuckles rapped to fulfil one's linguistic obligations. You do so proactively even before the legal obligation is there.

To return to my colleague Mr. Blaney's comments, the Commissioner of Official Languages did in fact single out Health Canada in connection with its capacity to communicate in both official languages at the very beginning of the pandemic. However, the commissioner also said that Health Canada promptly corrected the situation and he seemed satisfied.

Nevertheless, we can ask what went wrong. How can essential products like those mentioned have been labelled in only one official language?

The products you mentioned included disinfectants, hand sanitizers, household cleaners and soap. Why was it impossible, even in a pandemic, to obtain such essential products from the usual providers who make the bilingual labels?

My question is perhaps more for Ms. Bombardier.

[Manon Bombardier]

Yes. Thank you for that question.

I'll give you a bit more background. As my colleague mentioned, at the beginning of the crisis, there was a huge demand for these products, particularly hand sanitizers. Compared to 2019, for the same period in March, demand was seven times higher; in May and June, it was 11 times higher.

I'm sure you noticed that there were no hand sanitizers, and very few surface disinfectants, on supermarket and store shelves. At the time, foreign exporters wanted to export products like these to Canada, but they were refusing to export them with bilingual labels, because they didn't have the capacity to produce them at the time.

Concurrently, many small Canadian businesses, like distilleries and breweries, changed their business model temporarily to contribute to the cause. Most of them were small enterprises that distributed locally in their neighbourhoods. We allowed these small businesses to distribute their products in the official language of their region. For example, if they happened to be in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, they could distribute their products with French labels. If they were in a bilingual region, they had to have bilingual labels. If they were in a unilingual English region, the labels could be only in English.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Ms. Bombardier, am I to understand that the usual suppliers we were doing business with before the pandemic continued to send us products labelled in both official languages at the usual rate?

Is it because of the shortage and increased demand for products that we had to go to foreign suppliers?

[Manon Bombardier]

That's right. Demand had increased by as much a factor of 11.

In Canada, there was not enough production capacity, not only to fill the shelves, but in particular to protect front-line health professionals who had to provide treatment to patients in hospitals and residents in long-term care centres. We had to make sure that these products were available.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Can you remind me how we managed to solve the problem? Is it because demand went down? Is it because we began to translate the labels ourselves or told people to order them online?

[Manon Bombardier]

Well, Health Canada closely monitors supply and demand. That's what it did for antiseptics. From the very beginning of the pandemic in March, we closely monitored market supply and demand. We found, particularly for imports, that the supply was increasingly able to meet market demand.

It was in May that we abandoned the policy allowing unilingual labelling. We let Canadian companies that had labels in French only, for example, use up their stocks. They were entitled to a month-long transitional period. However, as of June 8, all Canadian companies and all importers had to provide label information in both official languages.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

I have a minute left to ask Ms. Bombardier or Ms. Aung Thin a question. I believe once again that it's more for Ms. Bombardier.

Ms. Bombardier, how will what we have just gone through prepare us for a possible repetition of the situation if demand for essential products like disinfectants becomes 11 times higher than normal? What are you planning to do? How would you prepare for this eventuality?

[Manon Bombardier]

Several factors are taken into account in making decisions on a policy like that. It's not taken lightly.

In this instance, we were closely monitoring supply and demand. Foreign exporters were interested and had the capacity to send us the products. Distribution in Canada was nevertheless limited, and more regional or local. It was all of these factors that lead us to make this policy decision.

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Thank you, Mr. Arseneault and Ms. Bombardier.

Mr. Beaulieu, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

I'd like to return to the matter of labelling on public health products. It's not uncommon for companies that receive a product with English-only labelling, to translate the information themselves and add it to make the labelling bilingual. That might have been one option.

[Manon Bombardier]

Thank you for the question.

As of June 8, foreign importers could continue to ship products with a unilingual French or English label, but at the point of sale, they had to provide a website address where the information in both languages could be obtained. This information had to be readily available to consumers at the point of sale, whether in the form of a sticker directly on products like disinfectants, or on a sign mentioning the website that had the information in both languages.

We allowed this flexible arrangement to make sure that Canadians could have the information in both languages.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

People who don't have a computer don't have access to this information in both languages. That complicates things somewhat.

Let's take Canadian Tire, for example. If it had received a unilingual product like that, would it not have been easy for them to translate the label and add the French text? Could that have been a solution?