Science and Research Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2025

[Kurt Holman, Conservative, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Is Canada reliant on foreign countries to manufacture cures?

[Dr. Henry Skinner]

I think the short answer is yes, and I think that is true for the U.S. as well.

Innovation has been moving to other jurisdictions, where it exists at all. China is becoming ever more active in research and development in antimicrobials as well as the manufacture of drugs. That is the challenge we see with some frequency in shortages around the world for antibiotics, due to a number of factors. It could be a storm that damages a factory in the U.S., Europe or Canada, and that may be one of two factories that produce this drug for the world. If we damage one, the supply chain is fractured, and it can take months or years to rebuild that.

We've seen that with shortages, and I think we see that with branded pharmaceuticals as well, particularly in the anti-infective space.

[Kurt Holman, Conservative, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Do Canadians have access to enough cures and antibiotics? How does Canada's access compare to the AMR cures and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry, but your time is up. Thank you.

We will now proceed to MP Noormohamed.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Let me start with Dr. Nguyen.

You struck me with what you said. This is for all of you, but I would like to lead off with you, Dr. Nguyen, in terms of the solutions that we need to be thinking about and the way in which we need to be thinking about this problem.

If there are concrete, specific things you think we should be doing differently or that Canada should be doing, what would those be? Maybe you could give us your top one or two, so we can take those back.

[Dr. Dao Nguyen]

In terms of the solutions, first I would like to emphasize that it has to be a holistic and multipronged approach, including stewardship, better access to antibiotics, diagnostics and better surveillance.

What I wanted to highlight was that throughout all of those major interventions, there needs to be innovation. Just better using the tools that we have today wouldn't be enough. From that point of view, we need to have better innovation to show that the surveillance can be rapid and in real time, and to have diagnostics that do not take three to five days—rapid diagnostics. It's the innovation we need to invest in so that these multipronged interventions can work.

I do not think there is a single silver-bullet answer to that, so if one were to have one intervention, it would be to increase the resources so that we are able to implement these multipronged interventions.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

You enumerated other countries and other regions where things are being done or where there is an opportunity to collaborate. Who would you say is our best comparator? Which country would you say is the gold standard in how to address AMR? Are there lessons we should be taking away from that?

Through these conversations, we're hearing a lot of interesting recommendations. We've heard that Canada is last in certain areas and leading in certain areas. That is core. I think our job and our objective is really to figure out how we take what others are doing and what we've learned to figure out exactly how we end up leading on this. If there are gold-standard countries or best practices that you think we're missing in Canada, I would love your thoughts on that.

Then I'm also going to go to a couple of the others with the same question.

[Dr. Dao Nguyen]

An example we could perhaps find inspiration in is probably Scandinavia. There are many parallels between Canada and Scandinavia, like universal health care, a relatively modest population-to-geography ratio, and the ability to integrate different sectors, whether we view it from the one health perspective sectors of human, environmental and animal or as sectors where academia and the public and private sectors have been able to work together.

Perhaps it's not at the avant garde, but it certainly has been a strong proponent in advocating for the role of the countries and the importance of AMR within their policy.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I'm going to go to Dr. Skinner next with that question, but before I do, Dr. Nguyen, do you think the complexity that we see in Canada versus the Scandinavian approaches to some of this is because there are 13 different jurisdictions that are trying to also play their own individual roles in the management of AMR? If so, how would you think about this in the context of the federated system that we have, such that we can alleviate some of those issues and risks without, of course, the federal government saying, “We're taking over health care,” which, of course, nobody wants us to do. I'm just thinking about how that would work.

[Dr. Dao Nguyen]

Absolutely. I think that our federate structure is the core of the incredible complexity that we're dealing with in the separation of health care versus animal health or drug approval, etc.

I do not know that I have a solution, but as food for thought, in 2021 there was a report chaired by Dr. Wright and Dr. Andrew Morris about the idea of what the AMR network might look like. One of the proposals was to have this hub-and-spoke network structure in which there is leadership both at the provincial level and across provinces, and each province with its own leadership would come together under a larger umbrella of leadership.

This is a complex structure but something that is really worth thinking about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up for MP Noormohamed.

We will now go to MP Blanchette-Joncas.

Go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. de Lagarde, you studied antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance in dairy herds in Quebec. Quebec's a leader in this field with its 2022‑25 interdepartmental action plan on AMR, which extends an initial plan adopted in 2017. The goal is to apply the One Health approach by integrating human health, animal health and environmental health.

In this context, to what extent could the importation of animal products, whether dairy or poultry, from countries with different standards from ours compromise Quebec's efforts to combat AMR?

[Maud de Lagarde, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Université de Montréal, Deans Council - Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine]

That's an excellent question.

It's difficult to answer it because we don't import a huge number of products yet. We'd need to compare the different products to find out which resistance genes they contain. This would need to be done prospectively.

We don't have enough data to answer this question yet.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

In your opinion, if Canada were to defend a supply management system that promotes local products and better regulates the use of antibiotics, would that also be a way to protect public health?

[Maud de Lagarde]

Regulating the use of antibiotics in animals will ultimately help public health.

Even though the link between the use of antibiotics to treat farm animals and antibiotic resistance in humans is relatively weak, and only a small portion of human antibiotic resistance is due to the use of antibiotics to treat animals, this small portion could still be targeted by this type of measure.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

Now we will end the panel with two minutes for MP Mahal and two minutes for MP McKelvie.

MP Mahal.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would address my question to Dr. Nguyen.

You just mentioned during your testimony that AMR is as critical as HIV and other life-threatening diseases. I think that also resonates with the concern that Dr. Bettina Hamelin raised the other day when she was saying that AMR is a present threat. It's not something we can leave to the future.

My question for you is this: How satisfied are you with the current funding that is available for AMR research in Canada when it comes to the development of medicine and its availability and marketability to Canada and Canadians?

[Dr. Dao Nguyen]

I think it is grossly insufficient. Just as a point of comparison, since we're talking about HIV, currently in 2025, where the HIV epidemic is, we are at $43 million per year for research in HIV and hepatitis, whereas for AMR, since 2021, there has been $28 million plus $6 million over five years. It is almost multiple orders of magnitude.

The resources are grossly insufficient.

[Jagsharan Singh Mahal, Conservative, Edmonton Southeast, AB]

We understand that when we talk about drawing a comparison between a single jurisdiction and multiple jurisdictions.... From your practical experience, do you see an actual cause, or is it just simply explained by the situation or the lack of will, as you mentioned in your previous statement? It's not about the research and talent that we have at the lab level but a lack of political will and a lack of leadership.

Which one is it?

[Dr. Dao Nguyen]

Are you talking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

The time is up for MP Mahal, so if you can respond to this in writing, that would be really great. It will be circulated to all the members.

We will now end this panel with MP McKelvie for two minutes. Please go ahead.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Dr. de Lagarde.

I know that you study antimicrobial-resistant E. coli in animals. I was just wondering if you could speak to the interface with the environment, environmental reservoirs and waste water.

Our colleague mentioned climate change and changing environments and how those might have an impact. Do we need to do more research in that regard?

I point that out because I realize that we're these nice, warm, nutrient-rich bodies, and typically these organisms have not liked our Canadian environment. How does that interface with international travel in other environments as well?

[Maud de Lagarde]

We definitely need to do more research on the role of the environment in the spread of resistance genes. E. coli is truly a good sentinel bacterium. It's everywhere, in humans, animals and the environment.

We have very little data on the role of the environment and the impact of new climatic events attributable to global warming on the spread of genes within microbial populations, either within or outside hosts. We really need to do a lot more research at this point.

Environmental aspects should indeed be added to surveillance programs. Currently, environmental samples aren't being studied, either in Canada or in most surveillance programs around the world.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

With that, I want to thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee today. If there is anything you want to bring to the committee's attention, you can always send it to us in writing. We always incorporate that, and it will be distributed to the members.

Thank you once again to the witnesses. If you want to leave, you can leave. I have to make some announcements for the members for the upcoming meetings. I will take two minutes.

Our next meetings will be on Monday, October 27, and then on Wednesday, October 29. We will commence and continue our study on how best to promote and grow private sector investment in research and development in Canada.

I want to thank all those members who have submitted their partial list of witnesses. I want to remind members that the committee adopted a motion to receive the full list of the witnesses by tomorrow, that is, Thursday, October 23.

I want to let everyone know that we are in touch with the chief science adviser to schedule her, but currently she is out of the country. She is in Paris, and then she is going to Japan. We are in communication and are trying to schedule it for as early as possible. I will update you once I have some more news.

The last thing I wanted to bring to everyone's attention is that the documents received by the committee for the criteria study have been sent to the translation bureau. A very early assessment estimates that it could take them no less than six months. They will come back to the clerk with a more precise time frame as soon as they can.

Those are the updates I wanted to bring to your attention.

Is it the will of the committee to adjourn the meeting?