Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 6th, 2023

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I will pick up where we left off earlier, Mr. Lucas.

You said the vaccine approval date depends on when the authorization period for the vaccine began. You then handed it over to Ms. Lourenco. I am not sure which of you can answer my question.

Can we get information about how long it took to approve each of the vaccines so we can draw a comparison?

It seems like it took longer to approve the Medicago vaccine, but that might not be the case.

Do you have that information? If so, can you send it to the committee?

[Dr. Celia Lourenco]

Yes, I can talk about that a bit. If necessary, we can provide further information later on.

For the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it took three months for us to evaluate all the data and approve the vaccines.

It took much longer for the Medicago vaccine because the company was very late in providing all the data. The evaluation began in April 2021. We did not receive the data for phase 3 until December 2021, and we approved the Medicago vaccine in February 2022.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much.

We would be very grateful if you could provide all the details you have on this, Ms. Lourenco.

Ms. Hogan, there is something I have a lot of trouble with: the confidentiality of vaccine supply agreements.

First, I would like to know if you obtained information during your evaluation to which we do not have access.

[Karen Hogan]

If I may, I would even add some information. Item 9.1 of our report provides the initial application date of each company and the subsequent approval date. That will probably be helpful for you.

Yes, we had access to all the contracts, all the information, all the corrections and all the amendments.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

So that was not a problem in your audit work.

[Karen Hogan]

No, not at all.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

As I understand it, you cannot provide that information to the committee. If the committee were to meet in camera—and I am asking the chair at the same time—, would you be able to provide that information to us then?

[Karen Hogan]

I have to maintain the confidentiality that the government assigns to a document. The information is confidential for reasons of competition. I would have to consult a lawyer. I can say though that I don't think I can provide that information to you.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

If that possibility could be explored, I would perhaps...

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Sorry to interrupt you again. Your speaking time is up.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to begin with Dr. Kochhar.

As part of the effort to draw lessons learned from managing the COVID-19 vaccine stockpile, has the Public Health Agency of Canada measured how our efforts in vaccine donation compare to peer countries like the United States or the EU?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, we constantly work with the international donation organism, COVAX. We also have a good line of sight internationally in terms of the donations. The donation market is saturated, Mr. Chair, given that there are many countries that are trying to donate and also that the receptivity to those vaccines is limited to a certain extent. We have a comparison, but that is an open-source comparison as such.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

In relation to some of those, when you do that analysis, when you're looking at where Canada is in relation to our peers, are we ahead, are we behind, or are we in the average in terms of donations?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, the donation aspect is based on the availability of the doses each country puts forward.

Canada mentioned very early that we would be donating 200 million doses to COVAX.

There are other countries that have greater access. For example, the U.S. went out and said they would deliver one billion doses of Pfizer. It is not a comparison among the different countries. It is the availability of the doses that are surplus and that we can donate.

We also made efforts in the very beginning to donate those vaccines very early that we deemed we would not be using at all. Those did go to COVAX. We also made bilateral arrangements on that.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

In terms of finding ways to accelerate Canada's ability to donate, while also coming up against timelines.... There are real timelines to the expiry of these vaccines. We can make it any number. We can say we'll donate all of the vaccines, but the reality is there's a real time limit and viability to that.

How many has Canada donated in a timely fashion, of the 200 million that have been committed?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I need a very tight answer here, please.

Mr. Desjarlais, you will have one more round.

Perhaps you could just keep it very focused, please.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

We have actually achieved close to 200 million doses. This is in terms of what we offered, which my notes say is around 196 million.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. We turn now to Mr. Genuis.

You have the floor for five minutes, sir.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

This is International Development Week. I want to recognize all the development organizations that are doing great work around the world seeking justice and fighting poverty.

It's topical that we look at this report, which includes some discussion of Canada's failure, I think, to do what was required to assist developing partners around the world when it came to getting vaccines to people.

I had always thought that the intention was to overbuy and to distribute vaccines to other countries to help make up the shortfall.

Throughout the course of the pandemic there were very low vaccination rates in certain countries, yet we are disposing of and destroying massive amounts of vaccines that could be given to countries that are struggling. Some of those donations that happened were when there was very little shelf life left on the vaccines—they were virtually unusable.

Madam Auditor General, I wonder if you could just share your thoughts specifically on the question of vaccine donation, and what you found in terms of why the government has thrown vaccines in the garbage that could have been given to other countries.

[Karen Hogan]

It was actually an area that was a little difficult for us to look at.

Global Affairs Canada plays a role. When donations were needed, the government explained to us the difficulty—how the market was saturated and how long it took, at times, to agree with foreign countries about how many doses would be sent and when they would be sent.

I'm sure the government would probably be able to provide you with more information, but that's the extent of where we stopped during our audit.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

In terms of what was difficult, I don't think we have any officials here from Global Affairs Canada. Are you implying they weren't forthcoming with information that you needed? I don't want to put words in your mouth, but was that the difficulty, or something else?

[Karen Hogan]

No, I'm sorry, not at all. Please don't read that into my comments.

They just said it was a difficult process, because there were so many other countries trying to donate at the same time.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

In a context where many African countries have relatively extremely low vaccination rates...I wonder if one contributing factor was the fact that we were telling Canadians not to opt for AstraZeneca, while we were trying to give it away.

Does one of the officials from the health department want to weigh in on this point?

[Dr. Stephen Lucas]

Mr. Chair, what I would say just at the outset is that Canada is one of the top donors to COVAX, financially. We—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

That's not what I'm talking about, sir. I'm talking about wasted doses that could have been donated.