My understanding of the early warning system, the Global Public Health Information Network housed at the Public Health Agency, is that it was to do open-source research to determine what we call “low signal” potential pandemic issues. This was an organization that was very much looking at early warning from an open-source perspective. As for your question specifically regarding PPE and the use of UFWD maybe to obscure the sourcing and procurement of some of the PPE in Canada to export back to China, this would not have been in the remit of the Global Public Health Information Network.
On November 2nd, 2020. See this statement in context.