EVIDENCE

Standing Committee on Health NUMBER 018 2nd SESSION 43rd PARLIAMENT Friday, February 12, 2021 Le vendredi 12 février 2021 Standing Committee on Health CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE February 12, 2021 Committee NUMBER 018 NUMBER 018 NUMÉRO 018 18 12 02 2021 2021/02/12 11:05:00 House Of Commons Comité permanent de la santé Standing Committee on Health HESA Chair Mr. Ron McKinnon 2 43

(1105) [ English ]

The Chair (Mr. Ron McKinnon (Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, Lib.)) :

Good morning, everybody. As we know, the weather across the country is varied, but we're here today and ready to do some good work. Welcome to meeting number 18 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. The committee is meeting today as requested per Standing Order 106(4) and a letter dated February 9 by four members of the committee to discuss their request to undertake a briefing on the emergence of COVID-19 variants in Canada. Ms. Rempel, I believe it's your motion, if you wish to move it. I believe we all have copies of the letter, so I don't think you need to read it unless you wish to. Please go ahead.

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill, CPC) :

Thanks, Chair. This has been another week in the health committee during the pandemic, and there have been big changes. In the last week, a few concerning things have happened. First of all, we have had more reports of the British variant in Canada, and I will remind colleagues that this variant was detected in a very tragic and severe outbreak in a Barrie area long-term care facility. Through that tragedy, I think we all saw what this variant could do in Canada. The South African variant has also been detected in Canada.

I think a lot of Canadians are bearing with these long dark days that are cold, but they're also bearing with, in most parts of the country, a second significant lockdown. With provinces looking at potentially lifting some of these restrictions, I think it's incumbent upon our committee to get a briefing on some very pertinent technical information. In the last week, countries around the world have started to report their concern with this, particularly regarding the ability of domestic vaccination programs to outpace the spread of the variant.

Without getting overly partisan here, I think everybody would agree that Canada is behind the rest of the world right now in terms of vaccinating our population. CNN is reporting on Canada's vaccination status. We have less than 3% of our population vaccinated, while the Americans are at over 10% now, on track to have over 150 million people vaccinated within the first 100 days of President Biden's administration. The U.K. is at 20%. I think we really need to know a few things.

We need to know what the federal government is doing to detect and monitor variants and how they're communicating with the provincial governments on this. With regard to the efficacy of our vaccine portfolio, in terms of when these vaccines are scheduled to be approved, or the assumptions, we know that the regulator does that.

Politicians don't do that, but we need to know what assumptions the government is making with regard to approval of different vaccine candidates in the context of their efficacy, including against some of these variants, particularly given that epidemiologists around the world are concerned that these variants could become dominant strains. I know that the Americans are particularly concerned that the British variant could become the dominant strain by the middle of March, which is why they're accelerating their vaccination plan. I'm looking at reports. There are concerns.

I know there are different schools of thought. I've seen different reports in the last week about whether or not the AstraZeneca vaccine is effective against the South African variant. It's incumbent upon the health committee, to put it mildly, to understand what the federal government is doing.

There hasn't been a lot of information from our government put forward yet with regard to these issues, and I would hope that we could all ask the federal government if it has put sufficient resources in place to monitor these issues and what the curve is, or what it's anticipating in terms of our capacity to vaccinate the population versus its modelling for the spread of the variant. That was the genesis of using Standing Order 106(4). I know that with Family Day on Monday, we weren't scheduled to meet until Friday next week, but every day counts right now, and our committee is in the belly of the beast.

For the record, Chair, just so that it is moved according to all procedure here, I move:

That the committee invite the following representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada to give a joint presentation of no more than 15 minutes:

Roman Szumski, Senior Vice President of the Vaccine Acquisition Branch

Gina Charos and/or Stephen Bent, Director General level official for the Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases

Bersabel Ephrem, Director General of the Centre for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control,

Cindy Evans, Acting Vice President of the Emergency Management Branch

Kim Elmslie, Vice President of the Immunization Branch

That Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization be invited to give a presentation of no more than 7 minutes;

(1110) That the above witnesses be asked to present on the following:

a. current outbreaks, occurrences, and modelling for COVID-19 variant spread in Canada as it relates to projected vaccination rollout timelines;

b. capacity to surveil the emergence, prevalence, and spread of variants;

c. current federal government assumptions regarding vaccine effectiveness on variants in the context of the federal government’s vaccine portfolio;

d. Canada’s procurement of variant related booster shots;

That the witnesses remain available for question rounds after their presentations, that the meeting be no less than two hours duration, and that it be held no later than February 19, 2021.

I have a few things to say to, hopefully, pre-emptively answer questions colleagues might have. We've asked for specific director general-level persons within the Public Health Agency of Canada, because I'd like to get more technical-level information than what is typically provided at high-level media briefings. This is why we'd like to have representatives who we know are actually doing the technical modelling and the technical work right now on the ground.

Chair, with regard to putting the time limits on the presentations of 15 minutes and seven minutes, we've asked for a lot of witnesses, and we don't want to eat up the whole two-hour meeting with presentations. We would hope that the people who are requested to come to committee will be able to provide written briefs to the committee in both official languages prior to the committee meeting as well. Really, what I'm trying to get at here is information.

Beyond the high-level messaging that reporters and parliamentarians are getting on a daily basis, I really want to know what the federal government is doing with regard to this. I've also heard from provincial colleagues across the country that they would like to hear this as well. I really think that this is where we need to be managing to as a committee.

I think the context of the rest of our COVID-19 study also needs to be urgently framed out into this information, given the level of urgency that has been expressed by media and by epidemiologists around the world and the fact that, frankly, putting it mildly, we are behind in vaccinating Canadians. Given that provinces are looking at lifting provincial restrictions in the coming weeks, and given that we are behind in vaccinating Canadians right now, I would like to know how that fits with the spread of variants.

I also think that we have to start giving Canadians some hope that Parliament is finding a way out of this. I know it's a shifting situation, but people who are at home and who are being asked to sacrifice a lot, be it their jobs or their mental health, and in many situations, front-line health care workers.... We need this information. I think this is fairly non-partisan.

I think this is in the best interests of Canadians, and I think this is what our health committee should be doing: being nimble and watching where the pandemic is going and coming up with smart motions that provide information to Canadians so that we can provide a path forward. We're a year into this now. We should have systems in place to deal with these issues. If we don't, it's incumbent upon Parliament to ensure that we do, and that's the job of each of us here. Thank you, Chair.

I hope that all of my colleagues of all political stripes will support this motion today, that we can quickly pass it and that we can move on with business.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner. We will undertake debate on this motion. I have Mike.... Sorry, Mr. Kelloway, please go ahead.

Mr. Mike Kelloway (Cape Breton—Canso, Lib.) :

You can call me Mike any time, Mr. Chair. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I understand that there's going to be a birthday soon. Happy birthday this weekend, MP Rempel Garner. I don't disagree with this motion. It's something that I'll support. I think what I'd like to talk about a bit—and I think Michelle highlighted some aspects of it—is just about the committee.

My experience over the past year and a half—and, for that matter, over 30 years in community development—is in terms of the ability to work collegially and respectfully together to get to a particular item, in terms of picking up the phone and establishing a rapport with each other individually or collectively offline. In this case, we have an existential crisis that every country is battling, and every country is doing its best to ensure hope, health and safety. As for what I see here—again, in my

interpretation of this—what I'd like to see is more of the collegiality in terms of the connectivity between each other, and not to even get to this point of issuing a 106(4), even though it's the right of every parliamentarian to do so. I think that when you have an existential crisis like this, Canadians expect us to get together and to iron out this particular item—the one in question—together. I don't know if it needs to get to this point, because we all have a stake in it. It's not a political issue. It's not a Conservative, New Democrat, Bloc or Liberal issue. It's a Canadian issue.

This is a war that the world is fighting. Canada is fighting it. We're active participants in that battle, and we're trying to do our best to help each other. Again, my hope is that we can do a lot better on that front. Instead, I think we're doing a lot of talking, but I think we need to do a lot more sharing in terms of looking at the shared ideas and common paths. That could be a Zoom call offline with Michelle or John—sorry, MPs Rempel Garner and Barlow or MP d'Entremont or whomever.

I get a sense that—again, it's my opinion—sometimes we're over-politicizing this, and I think what we need to do is bear down and do a lot better job so that we don't get to this point before meetings. That's my take on it, Mr. Chair. I'm not against this motion at all. No one would be. When I see this motion, I'm not against it. We'll support it, but it seems like, I don't know.... There seems to be some degree of political posturing and whatnot, and I think we can do better than that. I think we need to do better than that in going forward, for the betterment of Canadians.

Whether it's the inner workings of managing...our personal management of each other and the committee and looking at the things that are related to hope, we can do that, in my opinion, without a 106(4), but it's the right of every parliamentarian to do so. I think we can get more accomplished by doing that, so that we're not at this point. Again, everyone has the right to do so, but I think that on this committee we're sometimes politicizing what's not political. We can ask the tough questions.

We can debate each other, which it is our job to do, to do the best for Canadians, but there seems to be an over-politicization of it that I wish we would change. I wish we could move forward from today and make a renewed commitment to work better together, to work together in dyads and triads with the common purpose of putting things together that do not require this. There are times when they will, but I think we need to do a better job on that front. I'll leave it at that, and I thank you for your time.

(1115) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. We go now to Mr. Davies. Go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP) :

Thank you. I think I can be quite brief, and I'm hoping that the meeting can be brief. It appears to me that we have broad agreement on the substance of the matter. I wholly support the motion, for all the reasons that Michelle went through. I would also just note that the variants, as I think we're all starting to become aware, are becoming a much more prominent and much more concerning issue. I personally don't know a lot about it. At the time we put in our priorities to continue the COVID study, I don't think the issue of variants had prominence, or at least it didn't in my mind.

Similarly, even with our vaccine witnesses—although I'm interested in part of the variants issue, besides understanding what they are, how deeply they have penetrated Canada and what the considerations are—even though there is an aspect of vaccines and whether or not the vaccines will be successful or partially successful against variants, I don't think we knew that at the time we put in our witnesses, so I think having a special meeting on variants is really timely and really important. That's all I have to say on the substance of it. I have just a brief comment on the process.

The Standing Order 106 process is a completely legitimate process. I think it's really appropriately used in this kind of situation. In fact, I think this is exactly the kind of situation it's used for. We have a period of time when we're not sitting and it appears to four members that the health committee should be called together. I think it's an important right that all of us have. Any four of us together can exercise that right. As a matter of right, the meeting is called to put business before the committee. I think in this case it is very appropriately used.

One thing that's been going through my mind is that for quite a long time, we have not used the subcommittee on agenda. That has representatives from each of the parties. In answer to Mike's comments, I am wondering if that might be something worth revving up again. Maybe the subcommittee on agenda should be meeting somewhat regularly. When we come to that committee, of course I for one bring the full agreement of my caucus. Luc can speak for himself as well.

If the Liberals and the Conservatives come to that committee with the agreement of their colleagues, we can actually determine these things at the subcommittee. I know that maybe we have to come back to the meeting and formally pass it quickly, but if we have the agreement worked out in advance, we can save these kinds of meetings and have it done in a subcommittee way. That's just a suggestion for folks to think about. Finally, I have a question for Michelle. I am not clear on how long the witnesses have to speak at this meeting.

Am I understanding correctly that all of these witnesses together, collectively, will have 50 minutes and then we move to questions? I want to make sure we have lots of time for questions, so if Michelle could clarify that for me, that would be helpful. Thank you.

(1120) The Chair :

I just want to make a comment about the subcommittee. The reason we haven't been using the subcommittee is that it takes up a meeting slot, and we have a very limited number of slots. It takes up the same slot as a regular meeting. As a personal observation, all have the opportunity to participate in a regular meeting. In any case, that's just a by-the-way. Dr. Powlowski, please go ahead.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski (Thunder Bay—Rainy River, Lib.) :

Thank you very much. I support the motion. I think it's a good one. We have to be concerned about the variants. Certainly, there's a possibility with the variants, and specifically the South African variant, that they will knock us back to square one. I don't think that's the case, though. It seems like some of the vaccines are probably effective against it. Even Johnson & Johnson's, although only 50% effective in preventing disease, was 100% effective in preventing hospitalization and mortality. It is essentially going to be a big issue, because we thought we had this solved.

I would highlight a couple of things, and I don't know what witnesses you have and whether they're going to be answering these things. One of the questions I asked at the last meeting was what the regulatory process is going to be, because both Johnson & Johnson and Moderna are modifying their vaccines. It's fairly easy, seemingly, to do it, because you just have to modify a couple of sequences in a messenger RNA and change the spike protein. Otherwise, everything else is the same. Do they have to go back to phase one, two and three trials, which is obviously going to take a long time?

That's a big issue and I'm not sure any of these people can answer that. The second thing is having somebody discuss what the government may be contemplating in assisting studying the possibility of mixing and matching vaccines, like putting a booster from a second vaccine. I've heard that it's quite possible—even, from an immunological perspective, perhaps advantageous—but the companies aren't going to do it themselves. Moderna is not going to advocate a booster from Johnson & Johnson and vice versa.

My understanding is that we need to have the trials and be doing the trials with that kind of thing to see how much we can use boosters from another vaccine. I don't know if any of your witnesses would be able to answer that question, but I think it's an important consideration and a question we ought to be asking.

(1125) The Chair :

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. We'll move along to Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher, please go ahead.

Mr. Darren Fisher (Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Lib.) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As Don has said in the past, it looks like this might be an outbreak of “violent agreement”. I really like that term. It's been said that 106(4) is everyone's right, and it's absolutely everyone's right, but I think back to a mentor of mine when I was first elected, Bill Casey. He was the chair of the health committee and he talked about how collegial it was, even though it was all political stripes. It was so collegial, with everyone trying to get to a particular place and get the work done. I feel like we have the ability to get there.

I think this is a meeting to hold a meeting, and it might have been done as an email or, as Mike said, maybe a quick Zoom call or something. Whatever, that's fine. We all have lots of things that we would like to do in our constituencies today. The basis of this motion is fine, with a very founded rationale. I'm happy to support it. I think using 106(4) over and over again is something that.... Again, everyone has the right to do it, but we could get to the same place, that violent agreement. From the comments I've heard so far, we all think this is a good idea.

I am happy to support it, and I look forward to hearing the information that this motion is seeking. Again, maybe I'm an optimist. I would like to get to a point where we could all sit in the same room—virtually, in the same Zoom room—and get all the answers we need and have the witnesses we all seek and want to hear from. Don brought forward pretty much the only motion yet that we have been totally unanimous on, which was our work plan. It was a good work plan, and I'd like to make sure we get back to that work plan. I also remember that it was done on such a level of fairness.

Don, you worked very hard to make sure that it was very fair. I think about you and Mr. Thériault and your priorities. I hope we get to those priorities, because I want to make sure we put the same effort into the priorities you've chosen as the priorities we've chosen. I am happy to support this. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, assuming we're in agreement with this motion and we get the answers we want to get as a committee. Thanks, folks.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Fisher. I would remind everyone to please address their remarks through the chair. Ms. Rempel Garner, please go ahead.

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner :

Thank you, Chair. You know, I don't do passive-aggressive, I do aggressive-aggressive. I just want to address the comments, for people watching, suggesting that this isn't collegial. I find with colleagues from the Liberal Party that they often say we're not being collegial, or we're not working hard together. But that is actually code for saying, please don't question us when we're failing. It is my job and the job of everybody on this committee to get answers for Canadians. What's been happening during this pandemic is that we've had Parliament shuttered. We've had prorogation.

We've had the Prime Minister coming out of Rideau Cottage in the morning and giving out statements that even the media are criticizing him for now. They have to be walked back later in the day. Mr. Fisher, as the parliamentary secretary, you haven't reached out to me once in the entire time I've been health critic, so there's that. In terms of having a Zoom call, I've tried to have informal meetings and I've been shot down by the chair. You know what? The Standing Order 106(4) procedure—yes, I'm going to use it. I'm going to use it every single time to make sure we get answers.

If colleagues want to be more collegial and do better for Canadians, then I ask them to look inwardly within their own party. The Liberal members on this call—I mean, if there's chastisement about lack of collegiality—need to push back to their health minister and say, hey, I'm getting roasted in my constituency; people are tired of the lockdown and we need answers; it's not acceptable for the Prime Minister to go out and give false information to Canadians in the morning; I'm trying to do this on health committee and, you know, maybe Rempel's got a point.

If we want to work collegially, then the Liberals have to start demonstrating that they're committed to getting answers for Canadians. I am glad there's agreement on this motion and we're going to pass it, but frankly, we're half an hour in here. I've heard two Liberals talk about the need to be more collegial. Kudos to Mr. Powlowski for actually raising pertinent questions. But I have to push back. Yes, I am going to use every procedural tactic in the book to get answers for Canadians. I will do that. I am not going to just let the Prime Minister come out and give the Rideau Cottage thing every morning.

Chair, I just refuse to subscribe to the notion that it's somehow wrong or uncollegial for an opposition parliamentarian to be using parliamentary procedure to get answers for Canadians on the pandemic during the pandemic. You talked about how we can't use the subcommittee because we have only a certain number of slots virtually. Like, we should be meeting all the time. Anyway, Chair, I don't do passive-aggressive well, but I will do my job well. I think that's what we did today.

(1130) The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner. I just want to make a comment about informal meetings. The reason we can't do them is that we don't get translation when we do that, and that's not fair to our Bloc colleague. The only way we can really get simultaneous translation is through a subcommittee meeting or through a regular meeting. That's the way we're trying to work. Thank you for that. [ Translation ] We go now to Mr. Thériault.

Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with Mr. Davies, Mr. Kelloway, Mr. Powlowski, Mr. Fisher and Ms. Rempel Garner; I may have forgotten someone. The purpose of this meeting is to decide whether we are going to have a meeting about vaccines and variants. Everyone agrees on that. I don't think I would be misrepresenting Mr. Fisher and Mr. Kelloway's views if I said that the request for a meeting under Standing Order 106(4) could have been signed by a member of each party. That would have been a very collegial way to proceed. That is not a reproach.

That said, if we had wanted to proceed in a spirit of collegiality, we could have called a member from each of the parties to obtain the necessary signatures to request this meeting. That way, we would already be voting, right now, and we would be holding a meeting on Monday. And that is what I propose we do. Like Mr. Davies, I have concerns about the wording. On the one hand, there is talk of delivering a joint presentation of up to 15 minutes, and of inviting up to six witnesses. Is it a total of 15 minutes for all six witnesses or would each witness be allowed 15 minutes? Then it says that Dr.

Quach-Thahn could make a seven-minute presentation. So is it 22 minutes for all the witnesses, or do we have to add five or six 15-minute presentations to the seven-minute one? That should be clarified. On the other hand, I hope that the witnesses will be summoned as soon as possible and that questions can be sent to them. In fact, I hope that they have already been contacted, given the short deadline. Indeed, we should receive these witnesses on Monday and they should be able to address the issues that we want to deal with.

How many of them will refuse to speak because they consider that their opinion on these issues is not relevant? These are all questions we are entitled to ask ourselves. We will know on Monday, when we hold our meeting. Can we vote, once and for all? Yes, our schedules are very busy. Today, we are here strictly to decide whether or not to hold a meeting. We are not here to decide what topics will be discussed, even before we decide to hold the meeting. I would like us to proceed to the vote, since everyone agrees.

(1135) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Thériault. [ English ] I would like to just make a comment regarding your question about the speaking time. That is set forth I think reasonably clearly in the motion. Five of those witnesses would jointly present for a total of 15 minutes—that's 15 minutes for all five—and then one of the witnesses would have seven minutes. We'll go now to Mr. Davies. Mr. Davies, please go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thanks for that clarification, Mr. Chair. I have just one point, I guess, and a question. I've sat on many subcommittees over the years. We never meet during regular meetings. I'm just wondering, Mr. Chair, if you're correct on that, because it was my assumption that the purpose of a subcommittee is to deal with these agenda issues without taking regular meeting time so that we can facilitate the more effective use of committee time. Is it a question of you thinking that we can't meet outside of normal regular times? Or is it a question of resources?

If it's a question of resources, I think we should be going to our whips and getting the resources. I'm not talking about the subcommittee on agenda meeting all the time; I don't think we've met since this Parliament. To me, not using the subcommittee on agenda is part of the reason we find ourselves in these situations. It's there for a reason. It's there to work out these issues without taking regular meeting time, without taking the time of all the members.

Again, as I think Mike and Darren pointed out, the main point that I'm hearing them make is that if we can get more effective communication among ourselves, we can facilitate better use of our time. I guess my proposition would be that we should be using that subcommittee, and we shouldn't be doing this in regular time. The other thing I was just going to mention in terms of getting to the priorities of the NDP and the Bloc is that my first priority was vaccines. It turned out to be the same as the Conservatives' priority, so I've moved to my next choice.

I don't want to cloud the issue at this meeting today, but I think that maybe at one point I want to put the idea into our members' minds as to whether or not we may want to have another meeting or two on vaccines. It does take unanimous agreement, but to me, on vaccines, I think the entire country is waiting with bated breath on vaccines, right up to the Prime Minister . I think we all understand the importance of that. I think that would be one issue in the priorities that we may want to have a fifth or a sixth meeting on. I guess we can evaluate it as we get to the end of that.

I just want to get people thinking about that now to see if there are other aspects of vaccines that they may want to delve into. Again, I don't want to put this on the agenda at this meeting, because I'd like to have this meeting over with, with time to do some other things today for other people.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Davies. I'll just comment further on the subcommittee meetings. Mr. Davies is correct that in other times we would be able to meet much more freely outside the regular course of our scheduled meetings. However, in this COVID world, where we have very much more limited resources in terms of committee rooms and the availability of hybrid resources, the meeting slots are in extremely short supply. They have expanded quite considerably since we started doing this, but they're still not to the point where we were in pre-COVID days with in-person meetings. That's why we haven't been doing it.

During the spring, when we were first undergoing this virtual meeting concept, we did meet as a committee on an informal basis, and we were only able to arrange consecutive translation. Consecutive translation is extremely difficult. It's difficult for Mr. Thériault, and it's difficult for us when Mr. Thériault speaks, because by and large the meetings are conducted in English, so Mr. Thériault is way behind the eight ball on this stuff. It's really not fair. Anyway, that's kind of why we don't want to go back to informal meetings.

The informal meetings we had actually were not sanctioned by the House; they weren't covered under the provisions of the orders of the day. Now, we could conceivably do it, but in order to give full recognition to Monsieur Thériault and the right of every parliamentarian to speak in either official language of their choice, we have to have a meeting slot somewhere. That is the limitation. Thank you, Mr. Davies. We'll go now to Mr. Barlow. Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

(1140) Mr. John Barlow (Foothills, CPC) :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to reiterate—and I think you've clarified—that we do want 15 minutes total for PHAC and then seven minutes for Ms. Quach-Thanh. There will be plenty of time for questions to meet Mr. Davies...and I could not agree more with Mr. Davies that to have these folks at committee and to have the opportunity to ask some questions is critical. I do want to just quickly address some of the other concerns that have been raised by some of my colleagues. I find some of the questions somewhat surprising.

Now, I am reassured that it seems as though everyone is going to support this motion, but to be asking this committee to have these discussions behind closed doors or not in the open I think is misguided. We have to have these discussions in this committee, in the open, in public, so people know exactly what we're doing. I agree we were very unanimous in our support of the work plan at the get-go, but I think all of us have to realize that we cannot possibly be that naive, and we have to realize that we're going to have to be agile through this and we're going to have to be nimble.

Things are going to come up, as they have over the last few months, that we as the health committee will have to address. For us to say, well, you know, we've supported this work plan and we're going to go A, B, C, and D...when variants come up, there are travel restrictions, no delivery of vaccines, and failure after failure after failure.

I know that I am not the only member of Parliament on this call who is getting calls and emails every single day from constituents frustrated with the lack of information and the inconsistent messages and with not knowing when they're going to get a vaccine, how that vaccine is going to be delivered, what the distribution strategy is or whether there is a strategy at all, and what is going to happen with the variants.

I just have to say that when the Prime Minister announced these travel restrictions, for example, with no details, no timelines, and no assessment of who was going to be impacted and how, I hope everyone understands how his doing that is adding stress and anxiety to Canadians who just don't know what impact this is going to have on their daily lives. I asked the minister the other day how many people are going to have to be vaccinated before life can return to normal, and the minister was unable to answer that. Those are real, legitimate questions that Canadians have.

I understand that we did support a work plan at the beginning of the reinstatement of this health committee; however, I think it is absolutely imperative that all of us—and I am reassured that it seems as though everyone is going to support this decision today—will have to be nimble. When things arise, everyone looks to us to be the ones to react, and those of us on this committee have been entrusted to find the answers to those very important questions. I don't want us to delay having meetings anymore or delay decisions about how we should be meeting.

Our job is to find the critical answers that our constituents, all Canadians, are desperate to know. We've talked about mental health. I know Mr. Van Bynen isn't here today, but this lack of information and misinformation are having devastating effects on Canadians. We have to give them clear, definitive answers, and the only way we get those is by having the experts who can provide that information at committee in the most timely fashion possible. If we have to meet on Family Day or during a break week, giddy-up, I will be here.

During a pandemic, there is no time for a break, no time for a holiday—no offence intended. Canadians are looking to us to do the job they've elected us to be here to do. Whenever we can get a slot, I will be here to make sure that we find those answers. I appreciate my colleagues on this committee who are willing to support this motion, and who are coming here on a day when we did not have a meeting planned, and I hope we can continue to do that. If it means burning the midnight oil, then that is what we're going to have to do. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

(1145) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Barlow. Ms. Rempel Garner, go ahead, please.

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner :

I just want to clarify for Mr. Davies that, yes, in fact, PHAC would have a joint 15-minute presentation, and the other witness we've called would have seven minutes, so that we could go right into testimony. I hope we can vote for this motion so that we can get back to work for Canadians.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner. Mr. Davies, go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies :

I would like to make just one comment on when we have this meeting. The one thing I would say is that we don't have the meeting on Monday, which is Family Day in British Columbia. I know nobody means this, but I don't want anybody to think that the timing of this meeting is an indication of anybody's work ethic. The motion itself says to have the meeting anytime before next Friday. I don't think we should have this meeting on a statutory holiday in British Columbia when I, among other people, want to spend some time with my family. I, like everybody on this committee, have been working crazy hours.

Last week I did four committees. Here on the west coast, I was up at 5:30 in the morning four days in a row to hit those 8 a.m. meetings that are at 11 o'clock. I'm going to ask that we don't

schedule a meeting for Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday is fine. It's not because I don't want to work hard or I don't understand the pressing nature of this, but I think all of us, like all Canadians, deserve to have some time with our families and a little bit of mental health relief as well.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Davies. Seeing no other hands, I will ask the clerk to conduct the vote, please. (Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The Chair: Excellent. That brings our business to a conclusion. Thank you all. We are—

Mr. John Barlow :

Mr. Chair...?

The Chair :

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

Mr. John Barlow :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues for agreeing to support this motion, which I think is important, and for making the time to meet, under Standing Order 106(4), to have this discussion today. As everybody knows, I tabled a motion last meeting. As our committee continues to meet on the matter of COVID, it has become clear that much of the information surrounding the vaccines that Canadians and members of our committee seek may reside in the contracts the government has signed with the vaccine suppliers.

We've become aware that other countries have negotiated some better commitments and penalty clauses into their contracts that we have not. I think those contracts should be made public, or as public as can be. Canadians deserve to know this. We tried to get some relevant answers from the ministers last week. We were met with what I would describe as talking points and platitudes, not real information. The few answers we did get cannot be verified. Journalists have tried. Premiers have tried. MPs have tried. I think this needs to change.

As I said earlier, our job today is to get answers for Canadians and to hold the government to account during what I would describe as the largest health crisis in our country's history. We'll come back to the subject of vaccine contracts later, but we know that the law clerk has received more than 6,800 documents as a result of the order in the House of Commons. Of those documents, the law clerk has only been able to provide about 2,000 to the committee, due to the fact that those documents have to be provided in both official languages.

In terms of the documents provided on Friday, we found out that senior Liberal staffers in the Prime Minister ’s Office discussed withholding details about COVID-19 from Canadians. The main concern in the Prime Minister's Office revolved around the avoidance of accountability on spending announcements rather than providing real details to Canadians. This is extremely concerning and something we should not take lightly, especially when the government's response to these damning documents has been to blame the public service.

It was also revealed that staff members from the procurement minister 's office discussed delaying the scheduled release of information in hopes that more favourable numbers, in terms of PPE procurement, would come as a result of the proposed obstruction. The minister's director of communications, James Fitz-Morris, replied to an email, saying that the plan was “crazy enough it might just work”. He then added, “If journos ask where it is—we can say that [Saint-Jean-Baptiste] Day delayed some reporting—so we are holding to early next week.

Which also has the benefit of being mostly true!” He said “mostly true”, Mr. Chair. We had two ministers before this committee last week, on record, saying that their government has been transparent with Canadians during the pandemic whether it's bad news or good news. They said it multiple times. We now know this is false. Politically inconvenient facts have been purposely left out of the public domain, and a pattern has started to emerge. I want to come back to my motion and the vaccine contracts.

I've just outlined two disturbing situations that members of this committee should take seriously and that I hope all of us will reflect upon. We've been told that revealing vaccine supplier contracts would jeopardize our vaccine supply. As I've said, I can't independently confirm this one way or another. However, what we can confirm is that one of the documents provided by the law clerk has revealed internal policy guidance on how to block the release of details related to the government contracts, including sole-source contracts authorized under a national security exemption.

This document reads, “The application of an NSE does not absolve a department of its obligation to proactively disclose contracts; however, the Access to Information Act contains provisions that provide heads of organizations discretion around disclosure”. This should underscore why the House motion adopted on October 26 was necessary, and perhaps why Liberal members are so opposed to passing it. The government can no longer hide behind

section 18 of the Access to Information Act on these contract details. On a final note, there's another document that was released on Friday, a PMO email, that shows the government was able to negotiate a penalty clause into a contract for PPE from China. It reads, “The supplier agreed to pay a penalty fee if they don't deliver in 15 days which is rare but good to see”. I trust that knowledge of this detail hasn't put our PPE supplies from China in jeopardy. So we should have the same information when it comes to vaccine procurement and distribution. With that, Mr. Chair, I move the following:

That the Chair of the committee write to the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel inquiring on whether or not the contracts for Canada’s seven vaccine agreements with suppliers have been provided to his office as part of the motion adopted on October 26, 2020 by the House of Commons.

(1150) Should the law clerk have copies of any of these documents, that the committee instruct the law clerk to prioritize the translation of these documents and that these documents be published as soon as possible in accordance with the parameters set out in the house motion.

If the law clerk does not have such documents, that the committee request from the government the contracts for Canada's seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee, that the documents be vetted in accordance with the parameters set out in the house motion, and that the members of the Standing Committee on Health review these documents in camera.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This outlines the importance of having the details on what these contracts entail. How were they negotiated? Why were they negotiated on a quarterly basis, rather than monthly or weekly as in other countries? What are the obligations of these vaccine manufacturers to deliver these vaccines? Are there cash penalties or any other fines if they do not meet their obligations? We've seen a substantial reduction in the number of vaccines that have been distributed to Canadians, and we now hear that we may get a massive dump at the end of the quarter.

What implications is this going to have for the provinces? Do they have the resources to distribute these vaccines? What are the implications for Canadians going to be? This, again, Mr. Chair, is just a request to get what I would consider very pertinent information on the negotiation and agreements of these contracts between Canada and the seven vaccine manufacturers. I hope to have the support of my colleagues for some transparency around these contracts, because Canadians deserve to know how these contracts were negotiated and what the details are within them. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

(1155) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Barlow. It's contrary to our normal practice of dealing with a 106(4), but the clerk advises me that it is in order and is committee business. You certainly gave notice, so the motion is in order. I will go now to Mr. Davies, please.

Mr. Don Davies :

I had put up my hand previously because I wanted to get agreement or find out where we were on the timing of our meeting next week. I've been texting back and forth with some members and I understand that there is agreement not to hold the meeting on Monday. I don't think we came to a decision on that, so I would like to have that clarified—that the meeting next week, the 106(4), won't be on Monday. If not, I would probably move that, unless we all agree. I wasn't really prepared to speak to John's motion, so I'll just let my colleagues speak to it first and maybe come back to that.

I would say that I'm broadly in agreement with what John has said. I have to say as well that I'm not going to move anything at this meeting, but I plan on coming back and reading very carefully the motion of the House on production of documents. It seems to me that the government has not complied with what we passed. I'm going to go back and read that very carefully, but there were set deadlines for production of documents. We were told there were millions of documents from the Clerk of the Privy Council, and we have had only thousands that have gone to the law clerk.

That is not in compliance with what the House ordered. I know there was an amendment to the House order to help the government prioritize the production of certain documents, but it didn't eliminate the obligation of the government to comply, with those documents. The other thing I would say is that it's pretty apparent to everybody that the first tranche of documents that came to the committee was utterly useless. The first tranche was no more than public speaking notes that were probably accessible to any Canadian at any time.

Now, though, we're starting to see documents released to the law clerk that actually have real information in them that is, frankly, as John just pointed out, revealing some troubling aspects of the handling of the COVID issue. Anyway, my inclination would be to support John's motion. The more information we have before this committee in unvarnished fashion, the better we as parliamentarians on the health committee can carry out our duties. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Davies. Ms. Sidhu, you are next, please.

Ms. Sonia Sidhu (Brampton South, Lib.) :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Having concluded the business we came for here today, I move that we adjourn today's meeting. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu. We have a motion on the floor to adjourn. I'll ask the clerk to take a vote. (Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

The Chair: Thank you. We go now to Ms. Rempel Garner. Go ahead, please.

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner :

Well, Chair, so much for working collegially, I guess. To my colleague Ms. Sidhu, the business of the committee was not complete. There is a motion on the floor that is of material import to every Canadian, given the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic that has shut down most of our economy and we are behind most of the developed countries in the world in terms of the receipt of vaccine. I think what my colleague has done with this motion is to put forward a very elegant solution that respects various issues that have been brought up with regard to the release of the contracts.

It is in alignment with motions that we've already put forward to this committee and on which we've seen some obfuscation, to put it mildly, from the government. To my colleague Mr. Davies' very correct point, we have spent a lot of time in this committee trying to compel the government to release information that is of material import to Canadians on how we're getting out of the pandemic. I think Mr. Barlow has begun to address the deficiencies in information that we have received in this committee. I cannot believe we tried to shut this motion down. I really can't. It's shocking, actually.

That said, I am in full support of this motion. I certainly think every provincial government, most of the press gallery and everybody is asking for this. It's done in an elegant way. I think it's really smart. I commend my colleague Mr. Barlow for putting work into finding a solution, which I will be strongly supporting.

(1200) The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner. Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

Mr. John Barlow :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. To my colleague Ms. Rempel Garner, I don't know if I've ever been called “elegant” before. I will definitely be putting that on my resumé. To my colleague Ms. Sidhu, we have talked for the last hour about how important it is to get this information and get to work and answer questions for Canadians. To me, your adjournment attempt means that this is something you don't want to talk about. I want to be clear that we are not asking for anything that is not going to come out eventually.

We are asking in this motion if the law clerk has already received the contracts or the documents that are part of the contracts. If he has, this motion is asking him to prioritize the translation and the release of those documents to the committee for us to review. If he has not received those documents, this motion is asking that the government put a priority on providing those documents, those contracts, to the law clerk for review, translation, and again, to come to this committee. We are trying not to prolong the inevitable. We're actually trying to speed it up.

We have now seen that this is a critical issue for Canadians when we see just how far behind other countries we are in terms of accessing vaccines. Even more so, what are the [ Technical difficulty—Editor ] of these manufacturers if they do not meet their obligations with the Government of Canada? Are Canadians assured that the manufacturers are going to meet their obligations and...not do their best but actually have a hammer in those contracts that ensures that Canadians get the vaccines the government has promised them? If not, then what next?

Really, this motion is just to put a priority on the documents that the law clerk is already going to receive. If he hasn't, it ensures that he gets them as quickly as possible and we get them in front of committee. That's really what this motion is. It is not asking for anything different or over and above. This is just trying to expedite or accelerate access to those contracts. I am sure they will be heavily redacted, but some information, as my good friend Mr. Davies says, is better than no information.

I think what Canadians are asking for right now is some insights and some transparency on what these contracts entail. I hope that clarifies a little bit what this motion really entails. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Barlow. [ Translation ] Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

Mr. Luc Thériault :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with the substance of the motion. However, its wording may mislead us as to the intent of our colleague. I would not want it to allow the committee to circumvent the Official Languages Act or to compromise the ability to obtain documents in both official languages. According to the motion, "should the law clerk have copies of any of these documents," they should be translated and produced as soon as possible.

"If the law clerk does not have such documents," we will have to ask the government to produce them and give us access to them, but nowhere is there any mention of translating them. This could be interpreted as a roundabout way of getting around the obligation to translate them. To avoid this, I would like this obligation to be clarified in both cases: if the law clerk has these documents, he will have to have them translated quickly and give us access to them; if the law clerk does not have these documents, the government will have to table them, have them translated and give us access to them.

The motion is interesting in that the secrecy of industry information will not be an issue, because it says that we will review these documents in camera. That said, Mr. Barlow would need to clarify his intention. If his motion is that the committee be given access to documents in English only to examine them in camera, I will oppose it unless he decides to make an amendment. I can also propose one, but I would like to hear his response first.

(1205) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Thériault. [ English ] Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.

[ Translation ]

Mr. John Barlow :

Thank you, Mr. Thériault. [ English ] Yes. I'm more than happy to have that as a bit of clarification. It was my understanding, in the committee's routine motions, that no document could be submitted to the committee without being translated first. However, I certainly see your concern with the motion, so I am more than happy to put that clarification in the last paragraph: that once the law clerk has those documents, they be vetted and translated prior to being submitted or distributed to the committee. I'm fine with that clarification, if the clerk can add that into the motion, or if Mr. Thériault wants to make a friendly amendment. I'm fine either way, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Barlow. I'll let Mr. Davies make that an amendment when he next speaks, if it is his wish to do so. Mr. Davies, go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies :

So moved. Before I get to that, there are two points I want to make. One is just to remind all of us that in the text of the main motion that ordered the production of the documents, the criteria were very clearly laid out to the law clerk as to how redactions would occur, including one specifically to allow redaction to not interfere with contractual relations. I don't have the exact words. I just want to make that clear. The other thing I want to put on the record is the fact that the translation issue has been commented on by the law clerk.

As we all know, the government is sending documents to the law clerk by the thousands and refusing to translate them, leaving that job to the law clerk and the law clerk's very limited resources to translate. Now, if one were cynical or conspiratorial of mind, one might think that this was a way for the government to slow down the production of documents to this committee, because we know that the law clerk is sitting on a mountain of documents and has had to hire extra staff to do the translating. The law clerk has gone on the record and stated....

I don't have the legislation in front of me, but with him being the law clerk, I would imagine he knows what he's talking about, being the chief legal officer of Parliament. He has indicated that he believes the government is in violation of its obligation to do the translation and to produce documents to the law clerk in translated form. I want to note that on the record and raise my concern on that. I do think the government with its [ Technical difficulty—Editor ] as well as other legal obligations—

(1210) The Chair :

Mr. Davies, I lost you for a few seconds. Can you maybe back up a couple of sentences?

Mr. Don Davies :

I'm sorry. Sure. I was just saying that the law clerk is the chief legal officer of Parliament. I think it should be pointed out that we're concerned that the law clerk has had to say to the government that they are in violation of their obligation [ Technical difficulty—Editor ] under both the Official Languages Act and other legal obligations to the law clerk, and that this is slowing down the process. I agree completely that Mr.

Thériault has every right to have these documents at the same time as we do in both official languages, but I don't think our committee has had a chance to weigh in or comment on this decision of the government, through the Clerk of the Privy Council, to refuse [ Technical difficulty—Editor ]. I was saying that the government, of course, has vastly greater resources with which to do the translation than the law clerk does. I think that's something we should be expressing our alarm and concern about. By the way, I will move the motion that Mr. Thériault and Mr. Barlow both commented on.

The Chair :

Would you please do so explicitly, if you will?

Mr. Don Davies :

I don't have the words. I'd defer to Mr. Barlow's words or Mr. Thériault's.

[ Translation ]

Mr. Luc Thériault :

I have a proposed wording.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Let me just clarify this with the clerk. Mr. Clerk, do you have the wording of the amendment that Mr. Davies wishes to move at this point?

The Clerk of the Committee (Mr. Jean-François Pagé) :

Is it to ensure that the documents are in both official languages? Is that the amendment?

The Chair :

We seem to be in agreement—

[ Translation ]

Mr. Luc Thériault :

Mr. Chair, I have wording to propose for this part of the motion:

If the law clerk does not have such documents, that the committee request from the government the contracts for Canada’s seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee in both official languages, that the documents be vetted in accordance...

This is where I would introduce "in both official languages". This clarifies that the obligation to produce these documents in both official languages is the responsibility of the government, as Mr. Davies mentioned, and not of the committee. That is the amendment I propose. Is that all right with you?

[ English ]

The Chair :

Mr. Clerk, are we square on what the amendment is?

The Clerk :

Yes.

The Chair :

Is the committee square on what the amendment is? Therefore, the discussion is on the amendment. Is there any discussion on the amendment? Mr. Kelloway, Dr. Powlowski and Mr. Thériault, you have your hands up. Is this on the amendment or is this otherwise?

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

Could I clarify what exactly the amendment is? I'm sorry. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.

The Chair :

Mr. Clerk, would you be able to read that back to us, please?

The Clerk :

Yes. In Mr. Barlow's motion, in the last paragraph, we'll make sure that the documents are tabled in both official languages. We'll have, in the second line of the last paragraph, “that the documents, in both official languages, be vetted in accordance”. It's to make sure that those documents will be in both official languages.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Go ahead, please, Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Mike Kelloway :

It could very well connect to the motion and the amendment. I'm just looking—for my purposes, in thinking this through—for clarification on whether these things.... Are we suggesting that these go in camera? Is that what I'm hearing? I just want clarification on what it looks like when we consider these documents in camera. I'm just looking for some clarification through you or through the clerk or from whomever.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. Dr. Powlowski, you're next.

(1215) Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

I was going to speak to the motion itself, but I can speak to the amended motion and we can talk all day—no, no, I'm going to address the amendment that—

The Chair :

Just let me clarify, please. We're not talking about the amended motion, because the motion is not yet amended. We're talking about the amendment now.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

Still, I'm going to speak to the same thing. Again, we have all day. There is genuine concern about revealing the details of the contract. Many of you are aware that I believe in the importance of transparency of government. I believe, as much as possible, in revealing unredacted documents. However, with respect to the vaccine contracts, this is obviously a very difficult area. Certainly, the pharmaceutical companies and the producers of vaccines don't want these documents revealed. Where they have been revealed, and we've heard that there have been instances where other countries....

The EU has revealed details of its contracts, but in fact those were heavily redacted. There is also the concern that if a vaccine producer finds out the details of the contract provisions of another vaccine producer, they're going to want their contract changed and they're going to want better provisions as well. This is a very sensitive issue, because we're at their mercy. We don't produce vaccines ourselves. We have put down a lot of money and down the road we probably will put more....

I know the Conservatives have supported some initiatives to produce vaccines in Canada, and it was certainly the desire of Canada. We have put over $200 million into various producers—I count at least four or five different vaccine producers in Canada—to try to develop our own vaccine. However, we're not there yet. It was a global race. In fact, a whole bunch of companies won the gold medal, but unfortunately none of them were in Canada. We are dependent on the vaccine producers.

It doesn't seem to me very prudent right now to be doing something that could undermine our position with respect to the vaccine producers. We've heard it repeatedly today, and I certainly agree that this is by far the most important issue facing not only Canada but also the world. We want to get this right. I'm not sure this is a really good idea right now—when we're dependent on other people for a very necessary good that all Canadians want—to be doing something that's going to potentially jeopardize our relationship with them. We're not going to support this underlying motion.

I said, I would eventually get to the amendment. As to it being in French, sure. Of course. Everything should be in both official languages; that's important. We can debate this, and then we can go on to the other motion and debate that for a long time as well. For genuine reasons, because this is of concern, I don't really think this is an issue that we ought to be politicizing. I don't think this is a good way of scoring points off our government in fighting this fight, because I don't think it is in the best interests of Canadians right now to have this revealed and to create this controversy.

In the last paragraph of your motion as it is, to require the companies to—

The Chair :

Dr. Powlowski, I advise you to please direct your comments through the chair.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

Okay, Mr. Chair. You're perfectly correct. I would point out that the last paragraph of the motion is requiring the vaccine companies, I believe, to produce the details of the contract. We still have to work out the details of national security interests, about translation and about holding things in camera, but this is going into the bull arena and waving a red flag at the bull that says we want your contractual obligations revealed to the health committee. Do you really want to do that when we're all depending on the vaccines? I mean, you're all telling us how important it is.

(1220) The Chair :

Please direct your comments through the chair.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

Mr. Chair, I would question whether it's really in the interests of Canadians to be antagonizing the vaccine industry at this time. We want to be really prudent on this. I'm not sure this motion is really a good idea and something to support. In terms of making it in French, absolutely. Let's make it in French. Thanks.

The Chair :

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. [ Translation ] Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

Mr. Luc Thériault :

Mr. Chair, I would not want to do your job, but I remind you that we are dealing with the amendment. Yet, you tolerate a lot of comments that relate to the motion itself. [ Technical difficulty—Editor ] I don't want to keep people from talking, but it seems to me that we should focus on the amendment. Also, I don't know if the clerk has read the amendment correctly so that it is clear where the proposed wording is inserted. I just didn't hear him. As a courtesy, he was speaking French. Since I too use the French channel, that is probably why the volume was not adequate.

My amendment is inserted immediately after the word "suppliers," then there is a comma, and the text continues. Is that where it is inserted?

The Clerk :

Yes, that's right. It will be "in both official languages."

Mr. Luc Thériault :

It's perfect. Then I am ready for the amendment to be put to the vote.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Monsieur Thériault, my understanding—and perhaps I didn't hear correctly the wording the clerk read—is that in English the paragraph would be modified to say “seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee in both official languages, that the documents be vetted”, and so forth. Is that correct, Mr. Clerk?

The Clerk :

Yes. That's in the French. I'll have to check the English, but the spirit of the motion is to make sure that everything will be in both official languages. For the French version and the English, I will make sure that everything will be okay.

The Chair :

Thank you. Monsieur Thériault, are you okay with that?

[ Translation ]

Mr. Luc Thériault :

Yes.

[ English ]

The Chair :

Thank you. We go now to Mr. Fisher. Mr. Fisher, please go ahead.

Mr. Darren Fisher :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Still on the amendment, I know these motions and the amendments are read off the floor, but they're not necessarily circulated through email in English, let alone in French. I often think of Mr. Thériault, who, being the sole francophone on the committee, always has to be so patient on this committee with things coming off the floor in English. I have done this in the past as well. I've moved amendments off the floor in English and, of course, not had them written down. Not to go back and forth with Mr. Thériault, Mr.

Chair, but I don't have a sense of what the amendment is saying and where it comes in. Mr. Thériault said it comes after the word “suppliers”. I think Mr. Thériault has a handful of motions that he is hoping to move someday at this committee as well to make things more fair and level and to balance the playing field to make sure that everything is in English and in French. I ask you, Mr. Chair, or to the clerk through the chair, is this amendment, in English and in French, presented to us and to Mr. Thériault? It has been said a few times, but I am not scribbling it down as it's being read.

Is there a way of having this sent out in English and in French, or is Mr. Thériault confident in what's there in the amendment?

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Fisher. The motion was moved orally and read orally, so because we have simultaneous translation, there is no requirement that it be produced in writing in both official languages. If it had been submitted in writing, it would have been translated by the translation services—by the clerk probably—before it was distributed to the committee, but there is no need for that when it is given orally.

The motion basically reads, in the last paragraph, as I understand it, “If the law clerk does not have such documents, that the committee request from the government the contracts for Canada's seven vaccine agreements with suppliers be tabled with the committee in both official languages, that the documents be vetted in accordance with the parameters set out in the house motion, and that the members of the Standing Committee on Health review these documents in camera”. Does that clarify things for you, Mr. Fisher?

(1225) Mr. Darren Fisher :

Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Fisher. We go now to Ms. Rempel Garner, please.

Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner :

Thank you, Chair. Of course, I support the amendment. I believe also, procedurally, in terms of how the standing order works, that any documentation that is circulated to the committee has to be in both official languages. I think this amendment just re-emphasizes a requirement that's already there but, of course, we provide it. Just with regard to what would be tabled in both official languages through this amendment, I think my colleague Mr. Powlowski suggested that we shouldn't be supporting this motion because we would be mean to big pharma. Something's wrong here.

We haven't received doses of the mRNA vaccines that the Prime Minister promised. We're nowhere near being on schedule. It is our job as parliamentarians to be scrutinizing why this happened. The information that we need to do that is in these contracts. It is preposterous to me to be arguing, “Well, you know, the vaccine manufacturing companies might not give us the vaccine if we ask questions.” Think about that for a second. Think about what an average Canadian would think listening to a parliamentarian argue that we shouldn't be looking for information on whether or not a company has broken its contract.

It's really one or the other. It's either that the Prime Minister is lying, or that the companies are delivering on

schedule and the Liberal government just negotiated a poor delivery schedule. It's really one or the other. That's the real reason colleagues here are hesitant to support this. I don't care about the politics of the situation; I just want a vaccine. I actually would like Justin Trudeau to get vaccines for Canadians at this point in time. Our job as parliamentarians is to scrutinize information like this so that we can put pressure on the government to rectify situations that aren't working. Mr. Powlowski also stated a very good fact: We are at the mercy of every other country in the world right now.

As a committee, we should be finding out exactly how much we are at the mercy of other countries and then coming up with solutions to solve the problem. In order to solve the problem, we need information to know how bad the problem is. The argument that we should somehow be bending over and not asking questions because big pharma might get mad at us is preposterous, given the scale and gravity of the situation we're facing right now. Yes, I support the motion. I support the amendment. I hope we can just get on with business so that the law clerk can start producing these documents. Thank you.

The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Rempel Garner. I would remind you of Standing Order 18, which prohibits us from impugning the integrity of other parliamentary members. To imply that the Prime Minister is lying, I think, breaches that requirement. We go now to Mr. Kelloway. Please, go ahead.

Mr. Mike Kelloway :

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I'll allow Mr. Powlowski to respond to some of those comments. You know, everybody on the face of this planet wants a vaccine. Canadians want more vaccines. What worries me about loaded words like “lying” is that words matter. We've seen that happen around the world...when you say “someone has lied to me”. I think that is a dangerous and slippery slope to play. When I look at today, I believe the Prime Minister talked about 400,000 vaccines this week right to the end of March. Yes, we then need to discuss and work with the premiers of our country, of our provinces, to get them out.

Canadians across this vast country continue to feel the grief and anguish brought by COVID-19. During these exhausting months, more than 20,000 people have died of the virus in Canada. Let that sink in: 20,000 loved ones. They're your neighbours, whether you're in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec or the Atlantic provinces. We've all been impacted by it. In my neck of the woods in Cape Breton, we're often told that now is the time to step up, to stand together, to focus our efforts. We've done that on the Island of Cape Breton and in northeastern Nova Scotia for centuries.

I think we all can agree, everyone on this panel, that this pandemic has to be one of the longest moments any of us have had to endure, but the seemingly unending nature of this pandemic is precisely why we have to work together as a team. As MPs have said, debate, critique and work together; it can all happen at once. That goal for us here in Canada is a goal for every country around the globe, in terms of ensuring that we have rapid and safe vaccines and other tests. It's every country. The people who are listening today know that every country wants to protect its citizens.

Every country wants to get through this pandemic. Every country wants to kick-start the economy and get through it and restart our lives and continue our lives. Those common goals, folks, are not just a team Canada effort. I know we've talked about that in the past. Some people say there is not a team Canada effort. Some people, like me, say there is. But I think it's actually a global effort. I think we need to be reminded of the enormity of the many scientific and logistical achievements that have brought us to this place today.

From the moment the first novel coronavirus sequence was made public and was discussed in January of last year, scientists across the world have worked day and night to develop a safe vaccine against COVID-19. From the completion of trials to the rapid ramping up of vaccine production, so many individuals have pulled together. We know there is a worldwide shortage of vaccines, but let me go back to that team approach. It's kind of my zone in terms of forming teams and working with teams.

We also know that the companies producing these vaccines are working day and night to ramp up production to levels never achieved before, at least not before this pandemic. We know that the way to get to the other side of this pandemic is to follow the public health advice alongside a successful vaccine rollout. From the early days of this pandemic, Mr. Chair, the government has had the clear objective of securing safe, effective vaccines for Canadians as rapidly as possible.

During this global pandemic, the quickest route for our government to get the COVID-19 vaccines to Canadians was to pursue a diverse portfolio of potential vaccines as early as possible. The plan was led by science. The work was guided by our COVID-19 vaccine task force. With that expert advice, the government managed to gain access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines from seven different manufacturers, resulting in one of the most robust portfolios in the world. We've heard that before. I won't get into greater detail other than that.

Following Health Canada's approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we've already received about 1.4 million COVID-19 vaccines to provinces and territories. Between those two companies, we're on track to have enough vaccines for everyone in Canada who wants to be vaccinated by the end of September. Mr. Chair, we also need to continue to follow developments concerning the vaccine candidates of the five other manufacturers we have agreements with. That's exceptionally important.

(1230) When it comes to supplies, from day one our government has worked hard to secure the supplies needed to administer the vaccines. As an example, we purchased millions of syringes of varying sizes from a range of suppliers. That included 64 million low-dead-volume syringes, which are extremely limited around the world. A million, I think it is, of those specialized syringes have arrived in Canada. Canada has a robust plan, which we're rolling out. Yes, there are delays and there were delays. We all know that, in every country across the world, the demand for vaccines outstrips the current supply.

Yes, production is ramping up, but we know there have been and will continue to be, as mentioned, bumps on the road, particularly as the production ramps up. We know that in the short term the number of vaccines available will fluctuate a bit. In some cases, in all cases, that's not a good thing. We want to see vaccines come out fast and furious. Once the higher levels of production become the norm—and this is the reality check—our expectation is that there will be a more stable supply of vaccines. I know that being told there's a delay in delivery is the last thing anyone wants to hear.

However, I believe that when you're open and transparent you take the good, but you also need to know about the bad. The promise that we made as a government was to give Canadians the latest vaccine news, whether it was good or bad. News of a temporary short-term delay in the delivery of the Pfizer vaccine and a temporary reduction of Moderna vaccines has been frustrating for everyone on this panel. Has it been frustrating for everyone in opposition and government? Yes. Every Canadian is frustrated by this.

Let me repeat, and this is important, especially in this world where you can put out any statement you want on social media and anyone can do that. We have six million doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in Canada—we will have them—and 80 million doses by the end of the year. That's important to remember and it's important to repeat. The government's comprehensive and very well-thought-out vaccine strategy means that, when we experience delays such as the one we experienced two weeks ago, we have the capacity to respond.

In closing, because we feel that getting vaccines means that surely an end to this pandemic must be in sight, any delay in the rollout, however short-term, adds to our worry and exhaustion. We're tired and everyone is tired, but there is light at the end of that tunnel and there is a plan in place. Keeping ourselves, our loved ones and our communities safe, from coast to coast to coast, right now is critical in making sure that as many Canadians as possible will benefit from the vaccine rollout.

As the Prime Minister has said, and we've talked about this today and I appreciate the comments from all parties, none of us wants a political battle. All of us want to focus on a solution. Our strategy of implementing a diverse portfolio and receiving commitments early on from the manufactures—that's my contention at least—is one that will deliver for Canadians. I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thank you.

(1235) The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Kelloway. It seems that everybody is determined to speak on the main motion, as presumably amended, but we still have the amendment on the floor. Can we get unanimous consent on the amendment? I see unanimous consent. (Amendment agreed to [ See Minutes of Proceedings ])

The Chair: Thank you to the committee. We will resume discussion on the motion as amended. We will go back to Dr. Powlowski, please. Dr. Powlowski, go ahead.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

That fine, eloquent speech by Mr. Kelloway was very well said and very succinct and to the point. I really have to credit him for that. It may not have been sufficiently succinct, though, because I'm having trouble remembering what Ms. Rempel Garner's accusations were against me. If I remember them correctly, I was being accused of being too sympathetic to the poor old vaccine industry and was told that Canadians wanted to know the details of this agreement.

As I recall, in our recent meeting about the PMPRB, it was I who accused the poor executive from the pharmaceutical company of holding Canadians hostage to their demands that we withdraw the changes to the PMPRB. I don't think I heard the Conservatives having similar concerns about the motivation of the pharmaceutical industry. I'm certainly not a blind supporter of everything big pharma does. In my past life, in the work I've done in global health, I have at times been led to the conclusion that big pharmaceuticals are not always....

Sometimes pharmaceuticals are great, but there are some bad actors out there, and there are some pharmaceutical companies that aren't always acting in the best interests of humanity. Here I'm being accused of being too sympathetic with the pharmaceutical companies that don't want their contractual relationship with our government revealed. Maybe I am, but you know what?

When I talked to the ministry of health, they had, it seemed to me, genuine concerns that having to reveal the contractual relationships with the vaccine companies could jeopardize our relationship with the vaccine producers and jeopardize our supply. Maybe they're lying. Maybe that's not true. I don't know, but you know what? The pharmaceutical and vaccine producers seem pretty worried about revealing these contractual obligations. They haven't made them public anywhere, so maybe the ministry of health isn't in fact lying to us.

Maybe there is genuine concern that this is going to harm the interests of Canadians. The Conservatives can stick their chests out and be really macho and say, “Come on. All Canadians want to reveal the terms of this contract.” Being macho—which ends up hurting all Canadians because it's jeopardizing our vaccine supply—is not, in my opinion, a good idea. I go back to the last paragraph of this motion, where you're requiring vaccine producers to—

(1240) The Chair :

Mr. Powlowski, address your comments through the chair, please.

Mr. Marcus Powlowski :

I'm not sure how to make that through the chair, but I go back to the last paragraph. You're requiring vaccine producers to forward their contracts to a process in which it has yet to be determined what's going to be redacted and it has yet to be determined how this is going to go in camera. The pharmaceutical industry and the vaccine producers are not going to like this. Again, I don't really know how important it is to the vaccine producers. My understanding is that this could jeopardize our vaccine supply.

Does the opposition really want to roll the dice? “Maybe it will; maybe it won't, but let's roll the dice because we're Conservatives and we're macho. Let's play hardball with them.” I don't think this is the time to be playing hardball.

The Chair :

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski. Mr. Barlow, go ahead, please.

Mr. John Barlow :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. When I put this motion together, I was hearing from constituents about the concerns they had when they were seeing countries like the United States and the United Kingdom having much better access to vaccines than we had here in Canada, but I had some faith in the Government of Canada and our bureaucrats to be negotiating the best agreement possible. However, after listening to Mr.

Powlowski's comments over the last few minutes, I am extremely concerned by the idea that now, all of a sudden, we're worried that antagonizing the vaccine manufacturers might jeopardize the delivery of vaccines. What kind of agreement did we sign if we have to worry that if we question what is in the agreement they can somehow arbitrarily cut us off if they don't like the tone of the opposition or the government? Are there zero obligations in these contracts for the pharmaceutical companies to meet their contractual agreements?

If there is somehow a bad tone from the Canadian House of Commons, can Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca or Moderna say they didn't like the tone and thank goodness they signed ridiculous contracts with the Government of Canada and can just withhold vaccines? That is incredibly short-sighted. If we indeed have these incredible agreements, these iron-clad agreements with these pharmaceutical companies, they should be open for scrutiny.

If my colleague is saying that if we antagonize them it could jeopardize the delivery of vaccines, I'm just thinking, holy smokes, what kind of agreements did we actually sign if a tweet or a Facebook post or an Instagram post is going to cause Johnson & Johnson to cut off our delivery of vaccines? Now I am all the more ardent that this motion be supported by the committee, because I want to know what is in those agreements. Are there cash penalties? Are there obligations in terms of meeting the agreement on the quotas that the Government of Canada has reached with these pharmaceutical companies?

Is there something more stringent or stronger than “best efforts” to meet our agreements? I agree with my colleague Mr. Kelloway about the number of deaths we've had in Canada. He's right. Obviously I'm a passionate and fiery person, but I don't like to overblow things and say these agreements could have an impact on saving lives, but Mr. Kelloway is right. He nailed it. We are about trying to save lives. I spoke to some friends of mine in the United Kingdom yesterday. My aunt in Scotland is getting her second dose of vaccine today.

I can't help but wonder, if we had been better out of the gate, how many Canadian lives we would have saved if we had had access to vaccines. I know what the Prime Minister said today, but we can't treat this like we're ordering something on Amazon and say, “We've made all kinds of orders. We have a bunch of orders from all these different vaccine companies. We have these contracts.” The question is, do we actually have the vaccine? That's what we don't have. I get that we have the largest portfolio in the world in what we've ordered. That's great, but how many vaccines do we actually have?

That is the biggest disappointment, the biggest failure we're facing right now. We don't have those vaccines. I get it that they may be coming, but to reassure and reassure.... As I say that about reassurance, I'm going to read a quote from my colleague Mr. Powlowski, which came up in some of the documents that were found. I know you are laughing, Marcus, but I just have to call you out a little bit on this one:

I, and I think a lot of people, would have more faith in our ability to do this quickly, and effectively, if we know there is a transparent process as to how we are doing things. As I have said it is hard now to accept reassurances that we are prepared, that we are doing all of the right things, when we can never, ever, get any specifics as to what we are doing and how we are going to do it. Compare what we hear about the health response to what we get in terms of the economic response on things like EI, taxes, student loans, business assistance. There we get specifics not just “we assure all Canadians that we are doing the things necessary....”

That's right. I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Powlowski. Assurances aren't enough, and even the Liberal members of Parliament wonder why, if our agreements are so good, we are dipping into COVAX to get vaccines.

(1245) I know we're going to get the spin that this was part of the agreement and that this is normal. It's embarrassing. It has tarnished our reputation on the global stage—there is no question about it. You cannot spin that. The fact that a G7 country is dipping into COVAX for vaccines that were meant for developing and poorer countries and we are taking those for Canada.... I'm sorry, but as a Canadian citizen, as a proud Canadian, I say that is embarrassing, and there is no question that it has tarnished our reputation on the global stage. I want to know what is in those contracts.

I want to make sure that we are saving Canadian lives and that we don't leave this to reassurances from the government. I think Canadian taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent. We are spending tens of millions, of billions.... Well, now we're getting close to a trillion dollars on this COVID pandemic, and I think the vaccines are an integral part of that. Canadian taxpayers have the right to know what agreements were signed on their behalf.

Saying that we're going to antagonize these pharmaceutical companies and jeopardize deliveries I think is extremely short-sighted, and a horrifically poor argument for patting the Canadian taxpayer on the head and saying: “You know what? You don't need to know this. It's too important for you to know about this. Just sit back and take the assurances of the Prime Minister .” That's what we've been doing. I'm sorry, but it's just not good enough. Mr. Kelloway, you talked about the syringes. I spoke to the Alberta Minister of Health this week, and the Saskatchewan Minister of Health was at committee.

They are getting less than 50% of those six doses out of the vaccine vials, even with the label change. As for what we are asking of Canadians, we don't know when the vaccines are going to be here, but for the vaccines that we do have, we're asking them to portion that out, to do everything they possibly can, but at the best of times, in Alberta and Saskatchewan, they're getting 50%. They're getting that sixth dose out of that vial 50% of the time. Not being able to tell them what's going to happen, how do we ask provinces to ration the vaccines they have? This is just getting worse and worse.

I'm not trying to make this a partisan issue, but, no offence, the Liberals are in government. The Liberals have to wear this. This is your strategy, for lack of a better term, but I would argue that there isn't a vaccine strategy whatsoever.

(1250) The Chair :

Through the chair, please.

Mr. John Barlow :

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I would argue that the current Liberal government does not have a vaccine strategy. On the contracts and what we're able to see, as Mr. Powlowski said, all the information we're looking for may not be there. We've structured what can and can't be redacted by the law clerk, and I think it's imperative that Canadians have the answers they want. That is the job we have here. I will conclude with this, Mr. Chair. I appreciate everybody's insights on this.

The arguments that have been put forward for why we can't support this motion—because we may antagonize pharmaceutical companies and jeopardize delivery—I think are ridiculous. If our agreements on those procurements of vaccines are strong, then we shouldn't worry about that. The second argument is to just be “reassured”, and it just doesn't hold water anymore. I certainly don't hear from my constituents that they are pleased with “Hey, we just want a reassurance that we're going to get a vaccine.” No, they want to know in detail, or the best detail we can get, what agreements have been signed.

Are there cash penalties? Why did we negotiate those on quarterly rather than monthly quotas? What are the ramifications for those pharmaceutical companies if they don't meet their obligations? I think that is fair. These are taxpayers. These are Canadian citizens whose lives are on the line. I want to know, for me and my family, where they stand as well. We are talking about Canadians' lives. To just pat them on the head and say that this isn't something they are worthy of or deserve to know I don't think is fair. I'm hoping that my colleagues on this committee will see that.

We are not asking for anything that we're not going to get eventually, but we're asking, in terms of what we have seen over the last several weeks, that this be prioritized. The law clerk should have access to these documents, if he does not have them already, and should get them translated and submitted to this committee as quickly as possible for us to review and to provide Canadians the answers they so rightly deserve. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Barlow. Ms. Sidhu, please go ahead.

Ms. Sonia Sidhu :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have all heard very clearly that the terms of the contracts are to remain confidential. The opposition may choose to ignore it, but it has been made clear that disclosing certain details will compromise our bargaining position with the manufacturer and their position with other countries. If we were to be in breach of contract and lose vaccines, it would be damaging for our country and for Canadians. This seems pretty clear to almost everyone except the opposition members, who are apparently not understanding that neither the European Union nor other countries reveal their contracts.

Note that violating our agreement could repudiate the contracts. Our opposition members have their turn to ask the companies when they appear before our committee. They could have invited the companies to appear and asked them questions directly. Last meeting, two ministers, General Fortin and Dr. Tam were in attendance. Canadians have been assured repeatedly that we have a secure vaccine

schedule before the end of September. We know there have been delays. It's a bumpy road. Pfizer is expanding their plant. These delays have been explained. We remain committed to securing six million doses by the end of March. We know what the timeline is, and we have been very transparent on this matter. There are things that cannot be disclosed from the contracts. I know that the opposition likes to wave around contracts from other countries as props, but those are very heavily redacted. That is just a fact.

It's not that our government is withholding information they are allowed to give us and are just choosing not to. Has there been a slowdown of delivery for a few weeks? Yes. But we also have a firm commitment that we will receive more than 400,000 doses every week. We all know this is an evolving situation. There will be bumps. I can understand why that can be frustrating, but we are still on track to deliver enough doses to vaccinate almost half of the country by the summer.

We provided to the provinces today confirmed numbers that more than 400,000 doses a week will be delivered, which does get to four million doses. Once again, starting next week, we'll be receiving tens of thousands of doses of the Pfizer vaccine, with several million more on the way with Pfizer and Moderna alone. We remain on track to receive six million vaccines by the end of March, 20 million between April and June, and a total of 70 million doses by the end of September, just as we promised Canadians. Mr.

Chair, we also continue to follow developments concerning vaccine candidates of the five other manufacturers we have agreements with, including Sanofi, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, with a view of getting more Health Canada-approved vaccines into Canada as quickly as we can. We need these vaccines quickly. We all know that. You all know how much Brampton has been affected by the pandemic, as has the whole country. It got so sad that the armed forces had to come in. They reported deplorable conditions in our long-term care homes in the first wave of COVID-19. It is without a doubt a tragedy.

We all know we are facing that. I think the majority of us can agree with this fact. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

(1255) The Chair :

Thank you, Ms. Sidhu. Mr. Davies, go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've lost my video. Can you hear me okay?

The Chair :

Yes, I can hear you fine. I can't see when you nod and so forth, so I will miss that dimension, but I'm sure you'll overcome that. Go ahead.

Mr. Don Davies :

Thank you. I have to say a number of things on this. First, the contracts are coming. That is the will of the House of Commons. We had this debate, and the motion was duly moved and passed in the House of Commons ordering the government to disclose all of the documents. That includes the vaccine contracts. Really, it's academic at this point to argue about whether the documents should or should not come; they are coming. If we're all democrats here, the majority in the House of Commons voted in favour of that, so I think we need to respect that. The only question really is when those contracts will come.

What I appreciate about this motion is that it posits the thesis that we should have those vaccine contracts sooner rather than later. I support that. The basic issue, of course, that is underlying this is whether someone believes the contract should or should not be disclosed. I have a ton of respect for Dr. Powlowski, my good friend. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he seems to be suggesting that it's his opinion that the contracts should not be disclosed, and he gave some reasons why. Again, that ship has sailed.

Those arguments were made, and the majority of parliamentarians decided that we did want to see them. On the issue of redaction, I will repeat that everybody agrees. I think we all understand that there is sensitive information in the contracts that are properly redacted. The motion that was introduced by Michelle Rempel Garner acknowledged that and it allows the law clerk to redact for those purposes, so that issue is already taken care of. I want to point out again—and I know the Liberals don't seem to like this or they tend to minimize this point—that other countries have released contracts.

The United States has released the Moderna and Pfizer contracts. The EU has released the AstraZeneca contract. Brazil has released the AstraZeneca contract, and there are varying degrees of redaction. In the U.S. it's true that the two contracts that were released were significantly redacted, but they were still released and there was still some information disclosed to the public in the U.S. Brazil's contract was not so heavily redacted. There was a lot of information that the Brazilian government allowed its public to see.

The EU, as we know from the minister, last week confirmed that the EU and AstraZeneca had negotiated the release of the document. To Dr. Powlowski's point that this will anger the pharmaceutical companies, that is contradicted by Minister Anand 's own revelation that one of the pharmaceutical companies did agree to release part of the document. I would hasten to point out that this is not a contract between two private individuals in a commercial transaction. This is a contract signed by the Government of Canada on behalf of the Canadian citizens and it should follow normal procurement rules.

No one negotiating a contract with the Government of Canada, which is doing so on behalf of taxpayers, has any expectation that their agreement is totally secret. I would also point out—I still can't get an answer, and I tried to push Minister Anand last week on this—that, surely, the delivery schedules are in the contracts. Surely the number of doses that have been contracted for are in the contracts. If the Liberal government has revealed those details, how is it not in violation of the confidentiality clause in the agreement? Do you know what that tells me?

It tells me that the government is selectively revealing information about the contracts, information that it wants Canadians to know that might make the government look good, but it doesn't want to reveal and is not revealing any information that might reveal the converse. On that, by the way, I understand why Pfizer and Moderna may not want the prices to be revealed. I understand why they may not want any technical information that might reveal their production, although I highly doubt that's in the contracts to begin with.

(1300) But why would Pfizer and Moderna have any objection to Canadians knowing what the delivery

schedule is or the number of doses we're going to get and when? Why would they have any objection to our understanding what the consequential provisions of the agreement in terms of breach of contract say or don't say? Why would that be a matter of secrecy to them? It doesn't make any sense at all. By the way, I asked Minister Anand last week if she would disclose the confidentiality clauses themselves. Let's see those, because she claims that the confidentiality clauses prohibit the release of any and all information in the contracts.

Now, I'm a lawyer, and I was a contract lawyer for 16 years, and I'll tell you that it's not usual that a confidentiality clause imposes a blanket confidentiality restriction on everything in the agreement. Usually, there are sensitive parts that are not...but I may be wrong on this. Let's see the confidentiality clauses. Surely we can see that. I think Mr. Barlow made an excellent point. The government can't speak out of both sides of its mouth.

It can't say “We have secured these doses to the point where we will get six million doses by the end of March and every Canadian who wants one will be vaccinated by September”, and then say “If we reveal any parts of these contracts, the pharmaceutical companies may cut off the supply.” We either have a contract that secures our obligations or we don't. I'll tell you what I suspect, but before I get there, I'll just say this. It came out today that Canada is now 47th in the world on the administration of first doses of vaccines.

The source of that is Oxford, so I think we can all agree that it's probably a fairly reputable source. I remember that when we were 16th, the Liberals were saying that's not so bad, and then when we were 24th and then when we were 35th.... Now we're 47th, and even as we're slipping to 47th, I still hear people say, “Just wait, it's coming.” The facts are that we have gone from the Prime Minister saying that we have the best portfolio in the world to not being able to get these vaccines into Canadians' arms. I hope that changes. I suspect it will change. I suspect we will get millions of doses.

We're not going to be 47th forever, but let's face it, this is not where Canadians expected us to be. This is not where the Prime Minister represented we would be in the middle of February. I want to say what my suspicion is. I'm curious, because the Prime Minister and this government said repeatedly in 2015 that it would be “transparent by default”. They went to great lengths to distinguish his government from the previous Harper government: that they would be science-focused, that they would unleash the scientists and that they would be “transparent by default”. But you know what?

They're not being transparent here. With great respect to Ms. Sidhu, Mr. Chair, and her comments when she said the government has been very transparent.... Really? We're sitting here having a fight over revealing even a single word in a single contract that we've signed, and we all know that there are things in those contracts that can safely be revealed. That's not being transparent. That's being the opposite of transparent. Here's my suspicion. I think there's a reason the government doesn't want to release these contracts and is fighting so darn hard not to do so. It's because of this.

Prime Minister Trudeau has given his word on a number of occasions that we will have six million doses by the end of March: four million from Pfizer and two million from Moderna. He repeatedly says that. He has also said, as I said earlier, that every Canadian who wants a vaccine dose will have one by September. By the way, it's not “in September”, but “by September”. Incidentally, he's been a little slippery on that. First it was that all Canadians will be vaccinated, then it was all Canadians who want to be vaccinated, and now I've even heard him say that all Canadians will get a shot.

It's a bit of a muddy target, but in any event, what has been absolutely firmly stated is that we will have doses by September for Canadians who want one.

(1305) My suspicion is that if we were to see these contracts, we would see that these contracts contain provisions that are much shakier than that. I think we're going to see provisions that say that these companies will provide doses of vaccines to Canadians, subject to production, subject to availability, subject to all sorts of things, and I think that is understandable and reasonable. The political problem the Prime Minister has gotten into is that that's not what he told Canadians. He didn't say that subject to a number of things, we expect to have six million doses by March.

He has not said that subject to a number of exigencies we expect and hope that people will be vaccinated by September. So he's made his bed, and now he's stuck in it, because he can't make a bold claim about the firm receipt of doses and then at the same time refuse to produce the documents that would back that up. I think they will show that his very firm commitments are simply overstatements. That's my suspicion as to why the Liberals are so reluctant to release what taxpayers have every right to see.

The other thing I want to mention is that there are a few other issues that make me curious about why the government is being so reluctant. This government has repeatedly said that we will have enough vaccines secured from Pfizer and Moderna alone to vaccinate every Canadian by September, but then a week and a half ago, as we all know, it tapped into the COVAX fund—the main function of which, let's be honest, is to provide vaccines for poor and middle-income countries in the world—for 1.9 million doses, which we will receive in June. Remember that COVAX is over and above the seven contracts.

That is the eighth source of vaccine that Canada has secured. The seven sources we have include 20 million doses from AstraZeneca, and the 1.9 million doses through COVAX are also from AstraZeneca, so I scratch my head and wonder why that is. If we have enough doses from just Moderna and Pfizer alone, and then we have another five vaccine manufacturers, including AstraZeneca, from which we have secured 20 million doses, why would we need to tap into 1.9 million from COVAX on top of that?

All these facts together come and spell one thing for me—that the political commitment that's being made by Prime Minister Trudeau is not backed up by the behaviour and the actions of this government. If he came clean and said that maybe he overstated things, that he can't be sure we are going to get those vaccine doses by March, or by September, that would be honest, but it would also show that the commitments he has repeatedly made, up to now, have not been entirely truthful.

For all of these reasons, we, as health committee members, are asking the law clerk to receive the contracts, to redact them according to the criteria that have been given, and to send them to the health committee here so that we can see that whatever is unredacted is absolutely responsible. Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would argue against that.

Certainly I've seen no evidence that any of the vaccine manufacturers have withdrawn supplies from the EU or from the U.S. or from Brazil because they have released redacted contracts, so that academic fear that's been expressed is actually completely belied by the evidence we have seen. With great respect to all of my colleagues, there are many reasons why we should be in support of this motion and see these contracts in redacted form, and there are, in my view, very few reasons that would properly ground opposition to this motion. It's quite clear to me that the government doesn't want to pass this motion.

(1310) At the end of the day, I think we come to the fundamental question of whether or not Canadians have a right to see any part of these contracts. What I'm hearing is that Liberals are taking the position that Canadians don't have a right to see a single word of these contracts. The opposition, for our part, is saying that this is not a tenable position. I am happy to take that discussion to the public and get their views on that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair :

Thank you, Mr. Davies. We will go now to Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Darren Fisher :

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I always enjoy listening to Mr. Davies' rationale, but there has been a lot of talk about the House motion. Let me read the following from the House motion:

(

y) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, e-mails, documents, notes and other records relating to the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force and its subcommittees;

(

z) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, e-mails, documents, notes and other records relating to the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution and monitoring strategy, including, but not limited to anticipated timelines for the distribution of an approved COVID-19 vaccine across Canada and the prioritization of population groups for vaccination;

(aa) all documents issued pursuant to this order (

i) be organized by department and be provided to the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within 15 days of the adoption of this order, (ii) be vetted for matters of personal privacy information, and national security, and, with respect to paragraph (

y) only, be additionally vetted for information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with contractual or other negotiations between the Government of Canada and a third party, by the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within seven days of the receipt of the documents, (iii) be laid upon the table by the Speaker, at the next earliest opportunity, once vetted, and permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Health;

I don't want to put words in Mr. Davies' mouth, but I thought I heard him say something along the lines that the House motion was going to dictate that we would get these anyway. I am not a lawyer. I know that Dr. Powlowski and Mr. Davies are both lawyers, so those statements would have meant a lot more to them than they did to me, but I don't see the mention of contracts in there. Mr. Chair, transparency and accountability, as we've said many, many times, are extremely important to this government.

Minister Anand and others have also said that we're committed to releasing as much information as possible on all of our efforts throughout this pandemic, without putting access to supplies, including vaccines, at risk. We're providing information publicly on the vaccine delivery schedules. I have to tip my hat, if I may, to Major-General Dany Fortin. Every day he is in front of the press and in front of Canadians, stating that, with the best information he has, this is what's coming out this week and this is what's going to be sent, as working numbers, to each province and each territory.

I understand that there is not a single country out there doing that level of work. I don't think that's something he had to do, but I do think it's something he chose to do so that provinces could be as prepared as possible, knowing full well that there could be bumps in the road and knowing full well that the numbers were working numbers. Speaking of numbers, we hear now that after the 15th we'll start to get 400,000 to 470,000, or something like that, per week until the end of March so that we can hit those totals that we need to hit.

Providing those deliveries week by week to provinces and territories gives them a chance to plan for their delivery operations. Again, no other country is putting out publicly the weekly delivery schedules. The minister spoke about this heavily at her appearance and she explained why. I think she also mentioned, although I don't want to put words in the minister's mouth, a non-disclosure agreement. We've heard comments about copies of contracts in other countries that were released.

I was told by someone that the entire contract was just about completely redacted and blacked out to the point that there was very little information in that contract. A contract is an agreement between two parties. One party can't choose to arbitrarily, in my opinion, share that information until the other party suggests that is okay. I believe there is a non-disclosure agreement within that. Mr. Chair, we've all lived our lives in the shadow of this virus over the past year. Canadians have experienced isolation, uncertainty and heartbreak.

All of us on this committee can talk about how we've missed seeing our friends. We're all type A personalities. We're huggers. We're high-fivers. We're handshakers.

(1315) Like all of you, I'm locked in a small room and on Zoom all day long. I miss family. I miss friends and extended family. We have communities that have lost businesses or have businesses that have trouble making ends meet. We've seen communities band together. Here in Nova Scotia, we have our own little bubble, and we've been very successful, because the members of our communities bought early into public health guidelines. They truly did, because they love their neighbours, they love their communities and they love their families.

They're taking it so seriously that we've had extremely low numbers, but again, many businesses have gone out of business or have had trouble making ends meet, and we have lost many loved ones to this horrible pandemic. We're seeing the pandemic continue, and we're seeing it continue to take a toll on Canadians, but we are seeing the numbers go down. We're seeing the numbers go down since the increase in January—and that's a good sign—and we're seeing safe and effective vaccines being rolled out across the country. We know how difficult this has been, and we all just want this pandemic to end.

As vaccinations roll out among those in our communities who are most at risk of infection, we need to keep following the measures that prevent the spread of this virus and its variants. We know what worked in the first wave. We just need to buckle down and continue to do that. Mr. Chair, from the beginning of this pandemic, the government has been keeping Canadians safe by acquiring PPE—we've talked about that at our committee in the past—and supplies in a very competitive worldwide market.

I think we all heard very clearly that every country was staking out their territory to get as much PPE as they possibly could in the early days. We continue to work non-stop in negotiating access to hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines. We heard Mr. Kelloway talk about this, and we heard Mr. Barlow reiterate what Mr. Kelloway said with regard to the portfolio of vaccine companies that we've dealt with, and again, in an atmosphere that is very volatile and very complex, with a bunch of countries staking out their claims. Mr.

Chair, Canadians across the country have been taking to heart the guidance from our public health officials and, as I said for Nova Scotians, truly putting it into action. This spirit of co-operation has been crucial as our first line of defence to keep our neighbours and communities safe. We all know that the only way to get us through this marathon of the pandemic is to get vaccines to all Canadians who want one. Every member of this committee understands that and knows how important that is.

That has been the goal of our strategy: making sure that safe and effective vaccines can be delivered, distributed and administered as soon as we could acquire them. Mr. Chair, it's a strategy that we've been putting into action for a long time. The fact of getting these vaccines to Canadians in a timely manner means that we are competing with that entire world, that market, that competitive market of countries of the world again staking out their claim to vaccines, showing that vaccines are such an incredibly precious commodity. We've been approaching companies from around the world.

As soon as their vaccine candidates began to show some promise, we would ink a contract with them, knowing full well that there could be bumps in the road and not knowing in advance, way back in the early days of the pandemic...because, Mr. Chair, I don't think there's much evidence in history of vaccines being developed, approved and sent around the world and to the provinces and territories 11 months after a pandemic has hit. Again, I'd like to give some kudos to the scientific world.

It's absolutely incredible what this world was able to accomplish in getting vaccines developed, approved, manufactured and sent out to countries all around the world. We knew that an approach based on the most recent scientific developments...and thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine task force, we had access to advice from leading experts in vaccines and immunology to alert us to the best candidates. Of course, we've signed with seven of those best candidates. We got commitments and signed flexible agreements with seven vaccine manufacturers, starting with Moderna in July, a long time ago.

Again, I'm going back to the point that it was July, six months after a pandemic hits. That's absolutely amazing. This government then went on to get access to millions of doses, to put in options on our purchase agreements for millions and millions more. By ensuring access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines from seven different manufacturers, our strategy is set to deliver for Canadians.

(1320) Mr. Chair, I'm proud to say that experts across Canada and around the world agree with this approach. These include Dr. Zain Chagla of McMaster University, Dr. Jason Kindrachuk of the University of Manitoba, and health law professor Lorian Hardcastle at the University of Calgary. Susan Athey of Stanford University has called Canada a “role model”. By building, as Mr. Kelloway says, that diverse portfolio of vaccines, we have positioned Canada to be able to deploy vaccines as quickly as possible. Mr. Chair, this approach is providing much-needed security to communities across Canada.

Shipments of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been arriving. Our most vulnerable people in long-term care homes and health care workers are being vaccinated. Workin