Debates of Dec. 2nd, 2022

Question No.877—

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport]

Mr. Speaker, Health Canada has authorized several COVID-19 vaccines for use in Canada. Each of these underwent a careful scientific review and met our standards for safety, efficacy and quality. Information about all of the authorized vaccines including the regulatory decision summary can be found on the COVID-19 vaccines and treatments portal: https://bit.ly/3EH07IB. Users must click on the individual vaccine names and then the “all resources” tab.

For each of the vaccines that have been authorized, you can access detailed information such as the product monograph, which is the prescribing information for both consumers and healthcare professionals, or manufacturer insert; the summary basis of decision, which provides a detailed overview of the data considered by Health Canada; and the terms and conditions placed on the authorizations, which are the requirements for further data submission that manufacturers are required to meet

Note that information in the portal is being updated regularly. Users can also find all the clinical study reports related to the approval of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine on Health Canada’s public release of clinical information website: https://bit.ly/3GFvDHE. Specific details related to various aspects of the review, including the summaries of the clinical efficacy and safety, can be found there.

As the federal regulator, Health Canada requires that clinical trial results be generated from properly designed protocols so that safety and efficacy of vaccines can be well demonstrated. Health Canada also requires manufacturing data demonstrating consistency and quality in the production of the vaccine. These requirements are informed by science and are aligned with international standards, including the World Health Organization, or WHO, guidelines.

With regard to Health Canada’s approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines and part (a) of the question, Health Canada followed the internationally accepted guidelines from the WHO for vaccine evaluation stating that the “Pharmacokinetic studies (e.g. determining serum or tissue concentrations of vaccine components) are normally not needed”.

Pfizer conducted non-clinical pharmacokinetic studies that evaluated the biodistribution as well as the metabolism and excretion of the BNT162b2 (V9) LNP formulation. Results of the biodistribution study in mice demonstrated positive biodistribution data. Metabolism studies demonstrated slow metabolism by hydrolysis and also showed formulations to be excreted.

With regard to part (b) of the question, clinical pharmacokinetic studies were not required for this vaccine evaluation. For vaccines, only dose-immunogenicity studies are performed. This is because vaccines are meant to directly induce immunogenicity by locally recruiting immunocytes that will carry on with the pursuing immunogenic processes. Thus, the clinical outcome from vaccines is determined mainly by an immunological response phase.

With regard to part (c), the product monograph notes that genotoxicity studies were not considered relevant to this type of vaccine. Genotoxicity studies are normally not required based on section 4.2.3 of the WHO guideline:

Part (d) of the question is not applicable.

With regard to part (e), the product monograph notes that carcinogenicity studies were not considered relevant to this type of vaccine. Carcinogenicity studies are normally not required based on section 4.2.3 of the WHO guideline.

Part (f) of the question is not applicable.

With regard to part (g), toxicology, developmental and reproductive studies were conducted on animals prior to the clinical studies. No safety concerns were identified from the non-clinical toxicology, developmental and reproductive studies. As per these findings, there were no recommendations for further toxicology, developmental or reproductive studies to be conducted on humans.

Furthermore, the vaccine safety component was further studied in human clinical trials. The human clinical trials indicated that the vaccine was well tolerated by participants and there were no findings of important safety concerns.

The product monograph indicates that non-clinical data revealed no special hazard for humans based on conventional studies of repeat dose toxicity.

With regard to part (h) of the question, the clinical trials for Pfizer vaccines were not designed to test transmission. The vaccine effectiveness for prevention of COVID -19 was tested and demonstrated in clinical studies. It is important to note that the clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccines were designed to measure vaccine safety as well as efficacy against the prevention of severe illness, rather than transmission, which involves becoming infected and then passing the virus on to another person. Although not a part of the clinical trial process, evidence with respect to effectiveness against transmission was established by a number of peer-reviewed studies from domestic and international sources, such as the U.K. and Israel, along with other sources as noted. Further, the public health and published post-authorization real-world data have demonstrated the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines in reducing the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. For example, Public Health Ontario published a literature review including both Canadian and worldwide data showing that COVID-19 vaccines can reduce transmission by 50% to 90% to other individuals, including transmission within households and long-term care homes.

Question No.880—

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

With regard to Health Canada and psychedelic drugs: (a) how many people have been authorized by Health Canada to prescribe psychedelic drugs, broken down by province or territory, and by type of drugs authorized (LSD, psilocybin, etc.); and (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by profession of authorized person (researcher, psychiatrist, etc.), and by reason for authorization?

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, under the Food and Drugs Act, Health Canada authorizes the sale of drugs by manufacturers, not the prescribing of drugs. Once a drug has been authorized by Health Canada, provinces and territories make decisions about who can prescribe the drug in that jurisdiction. At this time, ketamine is the only psychedelic drug that has been authorized by Health Canada to be marketed in Canada.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, furthermore, if the government's response to Questions Nos. 876, 878, 879 and 881 could be made orders for return, these returns would be tabled immediately.

Question No.876—

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

With regard to government statistics on court-imposed sentences for those convicted of crimes which carry a maximum possible sentence of 10 years or more, broken down by type of crime or criminal code violation, and by year in which the sentence was given, since January 1, 2016: (a) how many people were convicted; (b) what is the breakdown by length of sentence, including those sentenced to (i) no incarceration period, (ii) less than a year, (iii) one to two years, (iv) two to five years, (v) five to 10 years, (vi) over 10 years but less than the maximum possible sentence, (vii) over 10 years, but less than the maximum sentence, (viii) the maximum sentence; and (c) if the government breaks its statistics down using a time period other than that listed in (b), what is the breakdown by each of those time periods?

(Return tabled)

Question No.878—

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

With regard to the trip by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and her entourage to participate in the G20 Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting, held in Indonesia in September 2022: (a) what was the size of the Canadian delegation; (b) who were the members of the delegation; (c) what was the total travel and hospitality expenditures related to the trip; (d) what is the breakdown of (c) by amounts spent on (i) airfare, (ii) accommodation, (iii) meals and per diems, (iv) hospitality, (v) other expenditures, including land transfers; and (e) what was the minister’s itinerary on the trip?

(Return tabled)

Question No.879—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

With regard to the development of applications for smartphones by the government or for the government, since January 1, 2017: (a) what amount has been spent developing applications; (b) what is the list of applications developed; and (c) for each application developed, what are the details, including (i) the amount spent on development, (ii) the date of launch, (iii) the current usage rates, (iv) the monthly download statistics, (v) the list of operating systems for which the application is available, (vi) whether the application is for public or internal usage?

(Return tabled)

Question No.881—

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

With regard to the ArriveCAN application: (a) what are the details of all contracts the government awarded in relation to the development or operation of ArriveCAN, including, for each, the (i) date, (ii) vendor, (iii) amount, (iv) description of goods and services provided; (b) for each contract in (a), was it sole-sourced or awarded through a competitive bidding process; (c) for each contract awarded through a competitive bidding process, how many qualifying bids were received; (d) for each sole-sourced contract, why was it sole-sourced and who made the final decision about which vendor would receive the contract; (e) what measures, if any, were in place to ensure that the government was being charged a fair market value; and (f) does the government plan on recovering any of the amounts that it paid which were higher than fair market value in relation to any of the ArriveCAN contracts, and, if so, what are the details, including which contracts and what amounts it expects to recover?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, finally, I would ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand at this time, please.

[The Acting Speaker, Bloc, Gabriel Ste-Marie]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-23, An Act respecting places, persons and events of national historic significance or national interest, archaeological resources and cultural and natural heritage, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Historic Places of Canada Act

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's intervention on Bill C-23 today. I have been to his area, to Camrose, having grown up in the Prairies and having family there. I heard about his passion for the area of Neutral Hills, which I actually have never visited, and he spoke about the first nations teepee rings, arrowheads and other cultural objects there. He also expressed concerns about the provisions for law enforcement within Bill C-23 and the enforcement capabilities covered.

If the Neutral Hills or areas like it were a national historic sites, would we not want to have appropriate designation for the protections of the objects within it? Would the member be willing to support the much needed measures in Bill C-23 for law enforcement to help protect the treasures found within federally owned national historic sites, protections that currently do not exist?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke at length to this in my speech, including with many references to the historic sites and monuments across my constituency, but I think the key here is that we need to make sure we get it right. Neutral Hills is a great example. There is agriculture ongoing in that place that actually has a significant connection to the land. In fact, there are some ranches that were established shortly after the disappearance of the buffalo from the plains. As well, there is responsible resource development.

With the mechanisms regarding enforcement and the ability for extraordinary powers to be vested in the hands of the Minister of Environment, we have to be able to do it right, because the last thing I think that member and I would want is for the heavy hand of government to displace anything economically or prohibit the collaborative work that needs to be done to ensure the preservation of historic sites, whether that work is done at different levels of government. I did not have the chance to get into the specifics of all the collaboration needed between different levels of government here, but we have to make sure we get it right.

I am concerned about wide sweeping powers being vested in the hands of a minister of the Crown without there being appropriate guardrails in place, and I hope the construction of those guardrails would be something the member would support.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Battle River—Crowfoot for his speech.

I want to come back to the issue of the additional powers over contraventions, limits on the right of passage, searches and seizures that the member talked about. I have a two-part question.

First, I want to confirm that he does not necessarily want to do away with the part of Bill C-23 that makes it possible to take such actions, but rather just set parameters on them. If so, can he give me an example of an amendment he would like to see in committee that would set parameters on the minister's sweeping powers?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, after looking through the bill, I think one of the very clear examples of an appropriate path forward for amendments would be to ensure that there are clear guardrails set. This would ensure that, when it comes to enforcement, there would be appropriate enforcement, which would also be guided by the dynamics that exist within a particular region, working with other levels of government and ensuring that we do not have the ability for activism that may have a negative impact on the local communities. They often rely on the lands, monuments and institutions associated with national historic sites, which is why we have to get it right.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, seeking truth is an essential component in ensuring justice for indigenous communities that have suffered because of the Indian residential schools. I would like to hear from my colleague his thoughts on ways he believes the knowledge of elders and the knowledge keepers could be used to conserve indigenous history across the country.

Also, maybe he could speak about the important roles of elders, survivors and their families and how they can be incorporated into the Historic Sites and Monuments Board to ensure that the genocide at Indian residential schools is never forgotten.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not have a chance, because of course there is so much that could be discussed on this topic, but when I worked for former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party government, one of the things I had the opportunity to do was work with the Minister of Parks, Culture and Sport to see the cemetery that was associated with the former site of the Regina Indian Industrial School designated.

I spoke about it before in this place, but that very powerful process was certainly impactful for me. The preservation of the history of that particular site, and I know there are many others across Canada, ensures we have those real conversations. It also ensures that we use, as in that case, the provincial historic sites registry to keep that history preserved, which ensures those stories are kept alive, so we can have those conversations today and they can be remembered in the future.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in his speech on the national historic sites and monuments act, my colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot made mention of the importance of teaching and celebrating our Canadian history, not burying it or cancelling the less than savoury characters in our history.

I think of John A. Macdonald, a very flawed individual, but a man who had a great vision for a Canada coast to coast, and I wonder if my colleague could comment on the importance of teaching Canadian history from a balanced perspective.