Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance

Issue 10 - Evidence

The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 9:34 a.m. to continue its study of Canada's Emergency and Disaster Preparedness.

Senator Lowell Murray (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: Honourable senators, this morning we are resuming our study of Canada's emergency and disaster preparedness. Our first witnesses are from Natural Resources Canada.

I will call on Mr. Ron Brown to proceed with the presentation.

Mr. Ron Brown, Acting Director, Applications Division, Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Natural Resources Canada: Mr. Chairman, I will begin by telling you about some of the things that are going on within Natural Resources Canada as they relate to disaster mitigation and management. I wish to thank the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation and expand upon some of the information that you have already received. I know that RADARSAT International and the Canadian Space Agency appeared before you a few weeks ago. Our presentation should expand somewhat on theirs.

Today, I will speak briefly about some work that is being done in Natural Resources Canada on floods, fires, earthquakes, landslides, our mapping program and our global positioning system. I will conclude with some background on new developments that we believe will impact on disaster management in the future.

In the presentation of RADARSAT International, there was much talk of the use of multi-sense data for mapping flood areas. We are now looking at going beyond mapping to bringing a predictive component to flood forecasting. There is on the slide before you a RADARSAT image of the basin of the Mississippi River just outside of Ottawa. With this, we are bringing together information from the overall inputs into a predictive model. That includes information on land cover, models of terrain, drainage patterns, precipitation, soil moisture content, snow cover, and also ground radars. Terry Pultz of our organization is deeply involved in the development of this.

Another area of significance in Canada is bringing databases on line. The Canadian government has a major initiative working toward that. As well, through our centre, the National Atlas of Canada is being brought on line, which is a very dynamic initiative. Therefore, as the inputs from remotely sensed data go into these systems, we have a distribution mechanism for them.

Significant development is also occurring in the area of fire monitoring. Our program called Fire M3 provides daily coverage by satellite of all of Canada and identifies hot spots for fires. That is done using the same sensor that collects data for the weather forecasts that you see on television. Rather than looking at clouds, we use it to look at fire hot spots. Models have been developed by the Canadian Forest Service that help us predict how fire will move.

Fire M3 has run from May to September over the last couple of years. It is run in conjunction with the provinces and the Canadian Forest Service. We make our images available via the Internet. This slide shows an example of the type of data that come out. Here we have an image of a part of an area where we do have fires going on. You can see smoke plumes and the hot spots or the burning areas.

When we began work in this area, the provinces commented that this is a significant input to their planning with regard to the need to evacuate communities if there is a fire in the area. It is important not only to get the predictive component on how the fire will move but also to look at how the smoke plumes are moving and what the impact will be on the communities.

Another component of this fire work is that after the fact we have partially burned areas. There is a high commercial value still associated with much of the wood that is in there. We have been working with logging companies and with the provinces to identify those areas where the vegetation or the wood lots are still good for salvaging. It has a significant economic impact.

One of the components of our work is that it is not just using raw data, but it is important that we get the data into the hands of different agencies and in a usable form. The RADARSAT was used very successfully to identify the area of flooding and to monitor the flooding in Manitoba several years ago. We really went far beyond that in that we integrated the data from the satellite into topographic maps. On this slide we have an example of an image on a topographic map. On here, you have the information on the roads and communities that can feed back into disaster management operations.

In the area of search and rescue, we have been involved in coordination with the Rescue Coordination Centre. They have been using digital data developed by Natural Resources Canada, particularly the aeronautical and technical services people. We have significant savings by integrating the maps and the overall programs. Now, if an emergency locator alarm goes off -- and these can be triggered by events like the crash of an aircraft but also by hard landings -- we are able to identify within two to three minutes what caused the alarm. Hence, there is a significant savings in cost by not sending out aircraft and not mobilizing people to go out and investigate a false alarm.

Global positioning systems are becoming a very important aspect of overall mapping. This slide shows a little comment cartoon of what can happen if you really do not know where you are. Truly, that does not happen in practice. However, global positioning systems are a major tool for locating communities and people before, during and after an emergency.

There are some significant changes happening in this area. Recently there was an announcement from the U.S. that the resolution available to anyone who has a $300 locator has gone from about 100 metres down to 10 metres. We have now moved into an area with a significant increase in resolution. With NRCan, we have also developed a system called GPS Corrections -- or GPS-C -- which allows us to get even better resolution on locations. Hence, we have the ability to identify down to about one metre the location of crews in the field fighting fires and other entities associated with disaster management.

Our National Earthquake Hazards Program is in place. We have approximately 100 stations associated with this program, which has a real-time component to it. It will give us information on how big earthquakes are, where they are, how strong they are and what the associated impacts will be.

Our Canadian National Seismograph Network is a Web-based system. We find that before earthquakes there are many things we can do. NRCan has had a significant input into the building code, resulting in savings associated with the actual buildings. During an earthquake, information could be sent out to trigger automatic valve shut-off of critical facilities that can have an impact on further damage. Immediately after earthquakes, rapid maps of shaking intensity could help to target resources to areas of greatest damage.

Another aspect, both on its own and associated with earthquakes, is landslides. We have a considerable component within NRCan looking at that aspect.

NRCan has a significant role to play in disaster management. There are new technologies coming along that will have an impact on how we manage disaster responses. I mentioned GeoConnections briefly. That is bringing government databases on line. Landsat 7 is a U.S. satellite. They have a brand new data policy, which is a new copyright, and as a result, Natural Resources Canada will be putting on line a complete coverage of Canada of satellite data at about a 30-metre resolution, which will formulate a significant database from which to operate in putting on information associated with disasters.

Another significant point is that if you are going to use data within managing a disaster it is usually brought into a geographic information system. Microsoft has just come out with a new product called MapPoint, which is likely to have a very significant impact on geographic information systems in general. We have gone from software programs that cost thousands of dollars to one that costs hundreds of dollars and will get into the operations down at a wide range of levels of communities.

High spatial resolution sensors are coming along with resolutions of about one metre and will have a big impact on documenting what is happening within disasters.

My next point is local access to information via hand-held devices. When one reads the business pages of national papers, one finds information about Cybernet and getting information to people through their hand-held displays. That is all very fine for tracking stock markets, but there are also huge spinoffs for our people in the field fighting disasters as they can now link directly back to databases that are held within a central facility.

Last is RADARSAT and ENVISAT. ENVISAT is a satellite sent up by the European Space Agency. RADARSAT 2 will be going up shortly as a follow-up to the present RADARSAT 1 within Canada. However, by working with two of these, we will increase the time it takes to image a particular area. We will have significant increases in GPS and GPS-C, which will also have a feedback to our overall program.

Senator Stratton: Thank you for your presentation. High technology is a fascinating field in which things happen fairly quickly. Resolution down to one metre is incredible.

When you are dealing with the different technologies, such as RADARSAT and others, is there any overall coordination of efforts to ensure that the appropriate information flows to where it needs to go, or does each federal agency operate independently?

Mr. Brown: We are making a major effort to integrate development within an agency like ourselves. The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing is really a development agency. However, we are formulating development plans with Emergency Preparedness Canada. We are also working with the provinces to try to bring in a mechanism. We have a program within our centre that looks at disaster management and the integration of data types. We have a prototype underway that works with RADARSAT International, the Canadian Space Agency, to bring data sets together.

There is also an international effort in this area. A memorandum of understanding has been signed by agencies in Europe. Canada is likely to sign it as well. That will make data available very quickly around the world in times of disasters.

Senator Stratton: It appears that we are beginning to get some good information that will help immensely, thanks largely to your efforts and those of others. This will help Canada to be more properly prepared for the next disaster when it occurs.

Where do you think all this is heading? With the technology changing so quickly, what do you see in terms of the future? If you are moving this quickly in your area, do you have a sense of what will transpire as we go down this road? The international efforts are remarkable. For example, RADARSAT provided data concerning the flooding in Mozambique. So that Canada can be better prepared in the future, where do you think all this is heading?

Mr. Brown: I see things going in two areas. The first is data integration. I mentioned before that data are not the only thing. We must get at the information. The second area is implementing information into the decision-making process that is associated with disaster management. I see the biggest growth over the next couple of years in this area. In other words, how do we make the jump from technology information to knowledge and get the information into the decision-making process? I see that happening in the area of disaster management. As well, we have looked at getting the information into the decision-making structure in different areas of application. In the flooding in Manitoba in 1997 we managed to take some steps in that direction. As a result, we have identified areas where we were weak.

I also mentioned that we are working on a predictive component as well. That is because we want to bring in the now cast of geomatics or multi-sense data with the predictive component associated with models. Those models are fed not just by remotely sensed data but by a variety of information on, for example, the likelihood of landslides and in situ measurements associated with flooding. It is really the predictive component we are moving toward.

Senator Stratton: Are you comfortable with where this is going? I sense from you that this is a very positive thing. Is something lacking that is needed to make this predictability work better in the future?

Mr. Brown: Within NRCan, we are doing an overall assessment of what must be done to bring things more on line. Paul Egginton can bring us more insight into that area.

Mr. Paul Egginton, Director, Terrain Sciences Division, Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada: Certainly we would like to get to predictability, but it involves three things. The first is to identify the hazard and where it will occur. The second is understanding the process we are dealing with. The third is finding out what we can do collectively with others to mitigate or to avoid whatever is there.

In some areas, we could be a little better advanced than we are. I refer in particular to the area of landslides. It looks like a relatively small item, but literally hundreds occur year in and year out. In the U.S., for example, landslides are viewed as the most expensive geohazard. Losses from landslides are estimated to be in the order of $2 billion per year. There are other things that are much more pronounced and cover larger areas, such as the seismic risk, which is very real. We need to improve our monitoring network in that area in particular.

I suggest that John Adams address this issue, because it is one area in which we need to invest more.

Dr. John Adams, Head, National Earthquake Hazards Program (east), Geological Survey of Canada, Natural Resources Canada: Mr. Chairman, as seismologists, we do not think we are able to predict what will happen. However, we do think that we can mitigate the results. We aim to do that by building safer buildings. Collecting the proper information enables us to do that better.

The way we see things working over the next decade is considerably more recorders of seismic activity together with the analysis of what is going on. We need to understand scientifically how and where those earthquakes are happening and what the shaking will be like in order to predict how strong to make the buildings.

The real-time network gives us the ability to respond very quickly. Within about two minutes we have records from anywhere in Canada coming that we can feed out to other agencies, such as Emergency Preparedness Canada. In the United States they are generating shaking maps that show how strong the shaking is within about five minutes of the earthquake taking place. That allows you to target your emergency reactions. In that way, you mitigate the effects of the disaster, even though it has already happened.

Senator Moore: I was interested in Mr. Brown's remarks about the GPS and the May 2 announcement by the President of the United Stated whereby they took out the wobble. I know this is important for the benefit of the chairman, Senator Murray, because he has a GPS in his golf cart and this may have an impact on his game. Can this be put back in easily? When it was taken out, was a commitment made to announce to all interested users that it would be restored, if and when the occasion warrants it?

Mr. Walter Gale, Corporate Clients Coordinator, Natural Resources Canada: Yes, the U.S. has full control over GPS. They could ostensibly reintroduce selective availability, wherein they degrade the signal, which results in reduced accuracy. Just over one week ago, we were plus or minus 50 to 100 metres. Now we are getting in the range of 10 to 20 metres.

GPS is improving as rapidly as are computers, in conjunction with the advances in computers and other technologies. The U.S. military has designed many other more effective methods for targeting GPS to certain areas so that, in the event of hostilities, they will fully control GPS for those regions. They are indicating to the world that in times of peace it is guaranteed to be available everywhere in the world and they have take off the degradation of the signal.

Senator Moore: Were any other countries developing this type of positioning system, or was the United States the only one? How does one nation get to control such an important thing?

Mr. Gale: GPS has cost the U.S. approximately $10 billion to produce. There is a competing system, so to speak. The Russians have a GLONASS system that is operational. The problem is that they have not been able to keep enough satellites in place for it to be as fully functioning as is the Global Positioning System. It is based on slightly different technology, but it is satellite-based positioning.

In the press recently, Europe acknowledged their concern about the control of the GPS system in the U.S., because of all the commercial advances that are expected as well as the military aspect. They are currently moving toward establishing a system called Galileo, which will compete with GPS while being fully functional, interoperable and compatible with it. It will be a complementary system. It will be another system for the world to use, if it goes ahead as planned.

The announcement by the U.S. with regard to degradation of accuracy was made only last week. Over the next month, we may hear what the repercussions of that will be, because these systems are very expensive.

Senator Moore: Could a computer hacker interfere with this system?

Mr. Gale: As a personal opinion, I believe that, since it is run by the U.S. military, it would be extremely difficult for an outside hacker to influence GPS. However, if you can break into the Pentagon, perhaps you could hack into GPS. I think there are many other concerns that would take precedence over that.

The Chairman: Several departments and agencies of the federal government would be involved in natural disasters. Am I correct that the coordinating body is National Defence?

Mr. Brown: Yes, that is correct.

The Chairman: How does that work on a day-to-day basis? Is there an interdepartmental coordinating committee? I want your assurance that the left hand always knows what the right hand is doing in these matters.

Mr. Egginton: In the event of a disaster or an occurrence, calls go out very quickly to various departmental representatives, and teams are put together as required. Certainly, there are contingency plans for all regions of the country.

There are very good interrelationships. Different departments bring different things to bear. For example, Mr. Brown spoke earlier about satellite imagery. As an example, in the Saguenay flood, people in the field were in contact with people in Ottawa directing the required satellite imagery. There was contact two or three times a day between the field and the office to provide the required information. The players are well known to each other.

The Chairman: The players are well known to each other. All of the agencies or departments that would have a piece of the action understand their own part and the part to be played by the other agencies and departments. Is there effective and well-understood coordination in terms of the planning function?

Dr. Adams: We are in contact with groups like Emergency Preparedness Canada, but there are also exercises such as those done in Vancouver for reacting to an earthquake. Those are very important for showing deficiencies in the system and also for ensuring that people work closely together. Our role in those exercises involving Transport Canada, all the other departments, the Red Cross, and so on is ensuring that the exercises are designed sensibly and then monitoring the activity. Every time you do one of those exercises, you learn something new.

The Chairman: Tell us about the exercises in Vancouver with regard to a potential earthquake there.

Dr. Adams: I cannot testify on that from personal knowledge. The main people involved were our Pacific Geoscience Centre and the Emergency Preparedness people on the West Coast. I know also, although again not from personal experience, that Quebec has had an exercise for preparedness for earthquakes.

The Chairman: Was that run by the Quebec government?

Dr. Adams: Yes, the Quebec government ran an exercise.

The Chairman: Were federal government departments involved in that?

Dr. Adams: I know that one of our seismologists was involved because it was an earthquake scenario.

The Chairman: Are you suggesting that the involvement of the federal government would be less in Quebec than it would be in British Columbia? That is what it sounds like.

Dr. Adams: I would not say that. The federal government provides virtually all of the earthquake expertise in Canada, and the provinces of B.C. and Quebec have been quite happy with that situation. Our role in terms of planning for earthquake disasters is mostly ensuring that the information is available. That information is gathered here on a nationwide basis and given to Emergency Preparedness Canada, which carries it forward.

The Chairman: Is it the case that the presence of the federal government in the Quebec exercise was no less than its presence in the Vancouver exercise?

Dr. Adams: I really cannot say.

The Chairman: Of whom in the government could I ask that question and hope to get an answer?

Dr. Adams: I would suggest contacting EPC in the first instance because they are the group that does this. If you contact me later, I can try to find some names.

Senator Cools: That is an extremely important question. It is a question that the committee should pursue because it raises a vast number of other issues. I would be happy to support the pursuit of that particular question and the answers to it.

The Chairman: Do you feel comfortable saying a word about coordination at the political level -- talking only about the federal government now -- in terms of political authority, your political masters in the various departments? How does that work? There is no a special cabinet committee on emergency preparedness, is there?

Dr. Adams: I would say that there is good grassroots communication between the scientists doing this in EPC and the other government departments, but I would pass the question on to Ron Brown.

The Chairman: In the case of a disaster that brought into play the various agencies and departments I have mentioned, would the lead minister be the Minister of National Defence?

Mr. Brown: That is outside of my expertise and knowledge. I cannot comment on that.

Senator Moore: I thought it was said earlier that Natural Resources Canada was the coordinating agency. Did I not hear that earlier?

The Chairman: No, I think Emergency Preparedness Canada is DND.

Senator Mahovlich: You were talking about exercises. Would it be similar to 1938 when Orson Welles was on the radio and everyone panicked? Is that the type of thing you are talking about, with everyone out in the streets? I believe we need that sort of thing.

Dr. Adams: I have to repeat, I was not involved in those exercises.

Senator Mahovlich: Do you not know anything about them?

Dr. Adams: I will tell you roughly how they work. Emergency Preparedness, or whoever is coordinating the exercise, comes up with the scenario. In Vancouver, we talked about managing a 6.5 earthquake south of the city. We then gave them advice on what would happen: for example, would this bridge be down or not. That is the scenario that played out. Over a period of three days we get together with the Red Cross, Transport Canada, the City of Vancouver, for example, and we sit them in a room and then in real time say, "We found out the bridge is down. We found out the earthquake has happened." They will do the coordinating, finding out if they can actually talk to the people who can go and respond. It is largely an exercise in a number of rooms like this. It is played out in real time. There is a very high public awareness.

Senator Mahovlich: I was wondering if the public is involved.

Dr. Adams: The public is not involved. I have never seen the sort of scares that came out of the War of the Worlds exercise. I believe the public, on the whole, is very happy that these planning exercises happen. I have heard that you learn a great deal by doing it, such as whether the radio frequencies are right.

Senator Finnerty: I am thinking about the forest fire aspect and the hot spots you find. Who is notified when the fire breaks out? Are preventive measures taken? Do the water bombers go in before the fire breaks out?

Mr. Brown: Hot spots are where the fire has started already. Because we have nationwide coverage and given the resolution of our sensors, the area we are looking at is about one kilometre in size. In addition, we interact with the provinces because they coordinate their resources within the province. That is how we feed back to them.

Senator Moore: If DND Emergency Preparedness Canada is the coordinating agency, in every instance is that your first call?

Dr. Adams: I can tell you how we work for seismic. We have real-time systems. They give us, the seismologists, quick warning. We also have an alert system whereby when a number is rung we get contacted at home. We are not on 24-hour standby. Our response is to look at what the system has done, determine what has happened and then call EPC. EPC is our first call.

Senator Moore: That is your first call. When you get information of a pending disaster, your first call is to EPC and then it flows downward and outward from there; is that correct?

Dr. Adams: We confirm that an earthquake has happened. EPC is usually aware of it because they get a lot of information from people calling in, the way we do. We will confirm to them 20 minutes to an hour or perhaps 90 minutes later how big and where it was. In parallel with that, we inform many other people, including Canadian Press, which gets the information out to the public.

Senator Moore: Who would notify the province? Would you or would EPC do that?

Dr. Adams: We do have some contacts with emergency measures.

Senator Moore: I wonder what the protocol is here.

Dr. Adams: For us in Ottawa, the protocol is EPC, and they then tell the provincial emergency agencies. On the West Coast there is a much closer relationship with the B.C. provincial emergency preparedness organization, and they usually get notified immediately.

Senator Moore: By EPC?

Dr. Adams: No, by the West Coast office of Natural Resources Canada.

Senator Moore: EPC is not notified immediately if it is something on the West Coast?

Dr. Adams: They would be notified at the same time but, if you like, we take that one link out. That is because of close relationships between the people working there. The key really is to get the information down to the level where it can be used as fast as possible.

Senator Moore: Exactly.

The Chairman: I hate to lose an opportunity to ask this question when we have a group of experts in front of us. Did you see the report on CNN several days ago to the effect that the Americans have discovered some crack in the ocean floor that will possibly lead to tsunamis?

Dr. Adams: Yes. There was an article in a scientific journal about the mapping of cracks along the edge of the continental margin. They are worried they will slide off. We had one of those disasters in Canada in 1929, the Grand Banks earthquake south of Newfoundland, which triggered a large slide causing a tsunami and seismic sea wave that washed up into Newfoundland and killed approximately 30 people.

I will tell you what we know about. We would know about the earthquake fairly quickly. We probably would not be able to tell you how big it was because after it gets to a certain size it is difficult to tell. If it were an earthquake happening along the edge of the continental margin where submarine landsliding is a possibility, we would have a bit of time to give a tsunami warning.

A scenario like that on the East Coast is not highly probable, but right now tsunami warnings for the Pacific Ocean are at a high state of development. There are initiatives in Alaska, working together with Natural Resources Canada, to make tsunami warning systems work for the Pacific Coast. A West Coast tsunami is much more likely than an East Coast tsunami.

Mr. Egginton: Part of our work, speaking now for the Geological Survey of Canada, is trying to put those events into context. How frequently does an event like that happen? Part of our research is looking for past tsunami events on the East Coast and the West Coast to get an idea of their frequency. Can you expect them once every 5,000 or 10,000 years or every 300 years? The latter is more likely, depending on the cause. Dealing with the sort of thing that John is talking about is certainly part of our work as well, putting it into a longer-term context.

The Chairman: With that, thank you for a very interesting morning.

Honourable senators, we will now hear from representatives of Health Canada.

Dr. Michael E. Shannon, Director General, Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, Health Protection Branch, Health Canada: Mr. Chairman, as you can see, there are a fair number of branches and directorates represented here this morning. Hopefully, we will be able to provide some additional insight into this complex area.

The structure of my presentation is shown on the slide before you. It includes a discussion of mandates. We operate in a mosaic of mandates. There are elements of the analysis system set out that include not only response but surveillance issues. Specific threats will be dealt with. I understand there are specific issues of interest in this area. Although my remarks will centre on disease-related emergencies, including those that arise as a result of bioterrorism, and on our capacity to respond to those emergencies, I must begin with a general commentary on Health Canada's emergency response capacity and how we can react to current and emerging threats and illustrate that with selected examples.

I will start with the mandate assigned to the department. The mandate assigned to Health Canada requires that we play a leadership role in some areas and a supporting role in other areas. We are the lead agency in matters where we have been assigned regulatory authority, such as therapeutic products, medical and radiation-emitting devices and consumer product safety. Also, we are the federal lead department in the areas of international and national public health surveillance and nuclear emergency response. In all other areas, we provide support and coordination as required by circumstances. In the previous presentation, there was much discussion about whether or not the federal government was involved in some of the provincially led exercises. Perhaps as I work through my presentation it might become clearer why we were or were not part of those exercises.

Frequently, our involvement is on the basis of being requested to provide assistance. In particular, we advise and support the provinces and territories whose mandates include actual delivery of health and social services within their own jurisdictional authorities. That is to say, they deliver the health care while we provide the support.

As you can appreciate, the partner mosaic in the delivery of health and social services is very complex. Frequently, the Health Canada mandate is carried out in the context of large civil, rather than pure health, emergencies. In many cases, other federal departments are involved. In these cases, federal coordination is often provided by Emergency Preparedness Canada.

The diagram at the top right of the slide illustrates the partnership relationship that existed in the Kosovar refugee operation of 1999 wherein the lead responsibility was exercised by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, while Health Canada and DND played supporting roles. Provinces and municipalities normally bear the responsibility for first-line service delivery. In that particular event, Canada brought in over 5,000 Kosovar refugees, and I believe we did so very successfully. That event was very telling in terms of what is required to manage a complex operation, which demands a thorough understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each of the partners. Service delivery is also augmented, as it was in the Kosovar situation, by various non-government organizations such as the Red Cross, St. John Ambulance and the Salvation Army.

Before I address the specific emerging threats that you have shown some interest in, I want to spend a few minutes talking about response systems in general and Health Canada's response capabilities. Any response system must demonstrate five capabilities: a surveillance capability that generates data on the health risk to which the population is exposed; a capability to analyze the data presented by the surveillance subsystems; a capability to develop contingency plans based on the analysis; a response subsystem to mitigate the effects on health when a health crisis arises; and, finally, some system of intra-operation and post-operation review that evaluates the effectiveness of an operation and captures lessons learned in all areas of response. This is not an after-the-fact process. It is an ongoing, real-time, evaluative process that might be seen, if there are engineers present, as a servo-mechanism, where it self-corrects as we go and where we are constantly evaluating the efficacy of the intervention.

I will take a few minutes to deal with each subsystem and indicate where we are and where we are going in Health Canada. First is the surveillance subsystem. The effectiveness of a response system depends in the first instance on the information available to the system and its managers. The globalization of health risks as a result of ever-increasing air and sea travel requires that health risks be identified offshore before they arrive in Canada.

Canada has developed -- and this is very noteworthy -- a state-of-the-art tool based on Web browser technology to continuously scan news wire services and the Internet for indications of health issues that have arisen globally. The information generated from GPHIN, the Global Public Health Information Network, is shared with the World Health Organization -- in fact, it is co-located in Geneva -- and with other Canadian health care partners as required. It is noteworthy that WHO recently categorized GPHIN as "an indispensable daily tool for monitoring global events." Last year the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, through GPHIN, was aware of a large number of outbreaks around the world, including some anthrax outbreaks, before any of the intelligence organizations anywhere in the world were aware of them. This tool in itself constitutes an excellent hurricane watch, if I may use the term, that allows us to be better prepared in the off chance that something hits Canada.

The issue of domestic surveillance is far more complex, largely because of the number of partners whose mandates include pieces of the overall surveillance pie. Domestic surveillance must begin at the lowest service provider level and extend upwards through regional and provincial laboratories and provincial and territorial public health structures. The large number of partners, different data collection methods, non-standard terminology and the lack of a standardized data transfer protocol make this a very complex area.

Health Canada has taken the lead in developing a network for health surveillance in Canada through a major project aimed at fielding the tools and protocols that will support the truly national domestic surveillance capability. We anticipate having provincial partners representing more than 50 per cent of the Canadian population by the end of this year.

The next subsystem I wish to discuss is analysis. The Health Protection Branch of Health Canada currently has the lead departmental responsibility for analysis of output from surveillance systems. It is not good enough just to get the data. You must convert them into an information product that can be used by decision makers. In addition to our own analytic capability, we rely heavily on the analytic capabilities of our internal and external partners in specialist areas. We recently developed a contingency plan to address the possibility of an outbreak of West Nile encephalitis, a mosquito-borne pathogen that can cause serious problems in humans. The surveillance and analysis elements of the project depended heavily on a partnership of disciplines such as epidemiology, entomology, veterinary medicine, wildlife science and laboratory expertise at different levels of government and the private sector. Health Canada does not have all the expertise to deliver or even begin to manage on its own one of these national emergencies. We rely on a partnership relationship, and in essence become a virtual organization similar to what you might find in the United States.

An important output of the analysis function is risk assessment. That is a bread-and-butter issue to LCDC and to the entire department. We attempt to determine not only the likelihood of occurrence of a health emergency but also the potential severity of such an event. Those two elements of risk are vital to the development of courses of action to be adopted in response to a health emergency, bearing in mind that, more often than not, Health Canada provides the risk assessment and develops the options for intervention, but it is frequently the provinces that actually intervene.

With respect to contingency planning, our planning capability has been the subject of some criticism, both external from the Auditor General and internal from after-action reviews of real emergencies and exercises. The recurring themes of such criticism focus on the completeness and the comprehensiveness of our emergency plans and preparations. These shortcomings stem from two main sources, the first being the paucity of dedicated emergency planning staffs within Health Canada and the second being the time requirements associated with the development and articulation of the standards, protocols and detailed procedures that must be reflected in effective contingency planning.

Regarding the lack of dedicated staff, our upcoming realignments, which you may have been advised of, will see existing staff concentrated mainly within a single branch, which will add both cohesiveness and mass to our emergency planning efforts. The second issue, that of the time required to develop standards, protocols and procedures, can be partially addressed through the addition of resources. However, no amount of new resources will solve the problems related to the simple, basic requirement for time applied to the job. We will talk about that later.

With respect to response itself, the key elements of emergency response by Health Canada are the crisis management, assessment and advice, coordination, regulatory action, and material support that we provide to our government and non-government health care partners who actually deliver the services. From time to time, we act as the lead agent in response to crisis. In that role, we assume a leadership responsibility for crisis management in the broadest sense. Usually, that occurs when the responsibility for crisis management is clearly a federal as opposed to a provincial or territorial matter. An example of that would be a quarantine issue.

Health Canada acts as a national clearing centre for information on health care issues. With the inputs available to us from the World Health Organization and other organizations, as well as federal health care sources, we are in an excellent position to synthesize data and provide warning, advice and risk assessment to the provinces and territories. In addition, we have a unique capability to provide advice in situations with a major impact on emergency social services. For example, we advise routinely on evacuee registration and inquiry, and on the provision of emergency clothing, lodging and food. Further, since we have a very good relationship with other government departments involved in response to health and social emergencies, we are well placed to act as a coordinating or facilitating partner on behalf of the real service deliverers.

Health Canada, through regulations, can facilitate the importation and distribution of therapeutic products to address health emergencies. In many cases, the products that might be required in an emergency are not actually present in the country and may need to be brought in through emergency drug acts. Equally, we can assist in the removal of suspected or contaminated products. We also maintain limited stocks of emergency resources under Health Canada control and have access to additional resources controlled by other partners. For example, Health Canada maintains approximately 40,000 beds packaged in 200-bed hospital units, and these are spread out across the country in depots, some of which are managed or maintained by the provinces.

Unfortunately, Health Canada has no reserve of off-duty or off-shift scientists or medical personnel, so generating a response requires that personnel be withdrawn from their normal duties to address the needs of the emergency. Further, since we have limited depth in our staff, a prolonged emergency quickly exhausts our resources. Throughout the course of the Kosovar situation, which was protracted over three or four months, we were running almost at the limits of our capacity to continue without assistance from others. We were basically rotating the same people over shifts, but those people also had to carry out their normal jobs.

On balance, however, the situation is far from desperate. The fact is that we have been able to respond effectively to all crises to date. Our response has frequently been somewhat ad hoc, relying heavily on the intellectual and professional quality of our people. They may not be trained as a specialist disaster response staff, which is what you would find in the United States, but when placed in that role they apply their considerable skill to solving and addressing the problem of the moment. Each emergency is unique. I believe that an expert in emergency planning is a generic expert who requires the same expertise we routinely provide in order to solve the problem.

The final element of the response model is the intra-operation and post-operation review capability. The aim of that element of the model is to ensure that lessons learned during the course of an emergency are captured, consolidated and analyzed to enhance our response to both the current and future crises. I assess our capability in this area, particularly in the diagnostic sense, as good, again, largely because of the quality and intellectual curiosity of our people. I assess our capability to adapt during the course of an emergency as excellent.

Mr. Chairman, this is how I see the overall capability of Health Canada to respond to a health emergency. With regard to surveillance, our global surveillance capability is probably currently the best in the world and will likely remain so in the foreseeable future. Shortfalls in our current domestic surveillance capability are largely reflective of the lack of commonality of data, representation and reporting standards, which issues are being addressed. Overall, our real surveillance capability is probably better than indicated here, mainly because of high levels of competence and cooperation between Health Canada and our provincial and territorial partners.

With respect to analysis, the scientists in Health Canada and our partner organizations have an excellent capability and capacity to interpret and refine the data produced from our surveillance systems. They routinely identify trends and emerging threats in a timely and comprehensive way that permits us to anticipate health problems well before they manifest themselves in a major way.

With respect to planning, our difficulties in the area of contingency planning are real, but manageable. We are well aware of these difficulties and are aggressively taking steps to mitigate them. Some improvement will result from our impending realignment. In addition, we have a series of exercises planned to enhance our planning and response capabilities. Substantive improvement will depend, however, on the addition of resources to create a more comprehensive emergency planning capability, which I anticipate will be forthcoming.

I must add in this respect that I am speaking of contingency planning before the incident or emergency. Our capacity to plan on the fly during the course of an incident or emergency has proven very adequate in the past, again largely because of the quality of our people. "Planning on the fly" sounds somewhat derogatory, but in reality there is no country in the world that does not plan on the fly in a health emergency because, regardless of how many generic plans you have, each issue demands its own specific solutions. I will speak in greater detail about the contingency plans that we do have in my remarks on specific threats, and I can also expand in response to questions.

Moving on to response, our most important capability, to the average Canadian, is our ability to aggressively address crises that fall within our purview and to provide the management, advice, coordination and materiel to mitigate emergencies, and I have great confidence in this area. Because of our lack of depth in personnel, I am very concerned about our ability to manage a situation with two or more incidents occurring simultaneously. That problem would present itself as a serious challenge to any industrialized nation.

Finally, I will speak to review, which I do not believe to be a problem, although incorporation of the findings of our review and plans may be seen as a bit of a challenge. Certainly our ability to adjust the interventions as we go through a particular exercise is on par with that of the United States and United Kingdom, for example. They are no better or no worse.

I have spoken at length about our generic capability, but we should spend some time talking about specific threats. The first area of interest is pandemic influenza, but I will also address vector-borne diseases, emerging infectious diseases, and bioterrorism.

There has been much coverage in the media about pandemic influenza. We have developed a contingency plan to respond to the outbreak of pandemic influenza in Canada. The influenza virus is highly adaptive and changes constantly, with major changes occurring three or four times every century. New strains have the potential to impose a devastating impact on health. Our contingency plan is intended, first, to reduce influenza mortality and societal disruption; second, to provide a model for planning and preparation to address any influenza pandemic by health service providers; and, third, to articulate a program with the use of the influenza vaccine and appropriate antiviral drugs. That indeed was a major challenge. The plan assigns detailed responsibilities to our health care partners across the country in all different phases of a global pandemic. Bear in mind that Health Canada would not be isolated in this issue. It also assigns specific roles and responsibilities to the provincial, territorial and federal ministers.

The second area I should like to touch on concerns vector-borne diseases, one being West Nile encephalitis. I am sure that many of you read about an outbreak of that in New York last summer. The West Nile virus was first isolated in Uganda in 1937. It follows a mosquito-bird cycle. Humans happen to get in the way of the cycle and are infected. About 17 African and Eurasian countries have to date experienced epidemics: most recently Romania and Russia -- Russia as recently as 1999. In the New York incident in August of 1999, approximately 700 individuals were infected. Of those, 62 were seriously ill and seven died, including one Canadian.

The introduction of a well-known virus in a new ecology created serious scientific concerns and uncertainty about the potential for spread in this country. Recently, scientists have documented that the virus over-wintered in New York, something we were hoping would not occur. It over-wintered in mosquitoes and possibly in migratory birds. Thus, there is a possibility of the virus being introduced in Canada by infected birds migrating through the land mass.

To date, there has been no occurrence of the virus in Canada, but we have developed what I consider to be a very effective contingency plan, which is now being implemented in the event that a domestic outbreak of the disease occurs. The contingency plan is based on surveillance, there being several levels of surveillance; education, both public and professional; and mosquito prevention and control.

The WHO and the United Kingdom and European Union health authorities have recognized that emerging infectious diseases are becoming a serious problem. There are essentially three categories of emerging infectious diseases. The first category comprises the totally new pathogens. Looking back, HIV was one of those new pathogens. About 30 of these have been discovered in the past 20 years. Some of them were known previously but appeared to be confined to animal hosts. It was unusual, in fact in some cases unrecognized, that some of those so-called new organisms could jump from one host species to another, and in this case the worry is the human host. Several viruses causing hemorrhagic fevers provide examples of organisms that transferred from an animal host to a human host; probably the most notable is the Ebola virus.

The second category of emergent diseases involves pathogens that had previously defined ecologic niches and have recently emerged in new ones as a result of alterations to the ecosystem. The Hanta virus falls into that category, as well as the previously mentioned West Nile virus.

Finally, there are re-emergent pathogens such as antibiotic-resistant strains of known pathogens like tuberculosis. It is noteworthy that approximately one third of the population of the world is infected with tuberculosis. Multiple drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis are now sweeping across the world, and we must maintain the highest level of vigilance in this area.

Senator Cools: Did you say that one third of the world has tuberculosis?

Dr. Shannon: One third of the world's population is infected. There is a difference between being infected and having full clinical symptomatology. A percentage of those will ultimately come down with full-blown tuberculosis. A smaller percentage will be exposed to the multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis, and if that continues to grow it will constitute a major problem for this country.

Bioterrorism is the final area I wish to discuss. It is defined as the malicious use of micro-organisms to cause disease in humans. The RCMP has assigned a low probability to the use of bioterrorism in Canada. Nevertheless, should bioterrorism be used, it has potentially significant consequences. The Solicitor General's department has the lead in the prevention of bioterrorism in Canada because of the nature of bioterrorism as a criminal act.

Health Canada plays a partnership role in the defence of the Canadian population through risk assessment, laboratory diagnostics, which is a critically important area, therapeutic product regulation, and emergency health and social services response. Health Canada also plays a major role in the development of public health response standards and in fostering awareness of the threat in health professionals, who more often than not are not even aware or would not recognize the diagnosis, and the population at large.

Health Canada recently hosted a seminar on bioterrorism and public health to address our education and awareness roles. The attendance was quite staggering. We had a large number of major municipalities represented. We had all of the provinces and territories, as well as many federal departmental agencies represented, all of them very keenly interested in the requirement to, as a minimum, standardize our responses and educate our people on what to do in an emergency situation.

In concluding, I should just like to highlight, first, that we are operating in a very complex area with many and diverse partners whose mandates and roles sometimes overlap and change with the situation of the moment. That presents occasionally opportunities, but oftentimes difficulties. Second, new diseases, the reappearance of old diseases, and the fact of constantly mutating pathogens increase the potential for a serious emergency in this country. The good news is that, to date, we have effectively managed all crises that have arisen.

Our general response capability as measured by the quality of our surveillance, analysis, contingency planning, response and review capabilities to date has been good. Realignment of existing resources and the addition of new resources will improve it. Our ability to respond to emerging threats is developing and will improve with time. There is always the potential of having multiple simultaneous threats, which would be a challenge to any industrialized nation.

I should like to close by saying that notwithstanding the deficiencies that have been identified, I have every confidence that the health and safety of Canadians are not at risk. Our ability to respond to major global biological threats such as pandemic influenza must be seen as being at least equal to the ability of any other industrialized nation. Moreover, in a year's time, Canada will be one of a very few countries in the world with an adequate supply of vaccine to meet this threat. Health Canada, along with its federal, provincial and territorial partners, is aggressively pursuing the further development of surveillance systems that will act as the hurricane watch and provide us with the time to mount a timely, comprehensive and highly effective public health response to any threat. I should like to assure the public in this regard that we are and will remain second to none in the world.

Senator Stratton: As you may or may not be aware, in our study of disasters we have frequently been asked about pandemics -- the event of a pandemic influenza hitting the world. We have backed off on that simply because it enlarges the scope of the current study, and we are looking more at what we call natural disasters or, for the most part, climactic disasters. However, because we have been asked on a continuing basis, including requests from provinces to have hearings with respect to this, we feel it is appropriate that I ask these questions of you.

You have stated unequivocally that we are among the best in the world as far as preparation for the outbreak of a pandemic influenza. As I recall, in 1918, it took four months for that pandemic to girdle the earth, and the estimates now are four days for one virtually to circle the earth. We are as prepared as any other nation for that. The concern I have is that once it starts and happens so devastatingly quickly, it is difficult to get the appropriate information, drugs and resources out to the communities. Do you feel absolutely confident? What is the state of planning for such an event with respect to emergency drugs and resources?

Dr. Shannon: I will introduce it, and then perhaps I will turn the question over to Dr. Spika, who has the lead in our department on pandemic influenza. This issue will be a challenge to any country. There should be no doubt about that. With global travel being what it is, you are absolutely right. We could be faced with a serious problem that, up to a few days before, was totally unrecognized. All of sudden, it lands within the boundaries of Canada. What do we do about that?

Some measures have been taken. There is an international surveillance system that, by and large, will identify the problem well before it hits the Canadian borders, but then we have serious decisions to make about travel. You may remember the avian flu outbreak in Hong Kong a number of years ago. That was very worrisome in that it seemed to have jumped an intermediate stage. It was quite virulent with what appeared to be a high mortality rate. Our plan required that we begin to discuss interventions, and we were very close at that time to activating the plan. As it turned out, it was not necessary.

Having said that, I would ask Dr. Spika to highlight where we currently are in our planning, which would include the preparations for the availability of vaccine supply in this country.

Dr. John S. Spika, Director, Bureau of Infectious Diseases, Laboratory Centre for Disease Control, Health Protection Branch, Health Canada: Pandemic planning demonstrates many complexities that one must face when discussing planning for emergencies and planning for disasters. At this stage of the game, we are probably as well prepared as anyone in the world, but that does not mean we are as prepared as we should be. If I could take a few minutes to show three transparencies, I should like to demonstrate where we are at, some of the complexities we must approach, and how we are proceeding.

A pandemic is caused by a major change in the influenza virus. It occurs three to four times a century. At least, if one goes back the last 500 years, that appears to be the case. As has been mentioned, one of the characteristics is that the virus spreads very rapidly. In 1957, the virus was here in Canada in five months.

Senator Mahovlich: The Asian flu.

Dr. Spika: The Hong Kong virus was 1957 and the Asian one was 1968.

Senator Mahovlich: I caught that.

Dr. Spika: Most everyone did eventually. In 1957, we estimate there were 9,000 Canadian deaths. It has been 32 years since the last pandemic, and most experts feel it is very likely that another pandemic will occur in the next five to ten years.

Use of vaccine is our primary intervention strategy to try to mitigate the impact of the disease. Specifically, it is a vaccine produced against the new strain. It is not something that you can stockpile. In Canada we have approximately one third of the vaccine production capacity we feel we would need in the situation of a pandemic, and Canada is not unique. In effect, there are 18 countries in the world that can produce vaccine and we estimate that only two or three of them would be considered self-sufficient. Therefore, at the time of a pandemic there would be a major global shortage of vaccine.

Another aspect of vaccine production is that current vaccine requires the use of hens' eggs, and these hens' eggs are available on a cyclical basis depending on the production requirements of the manufacturers. Once they shut off their hens, it takes them six months to crank up their hens again for the next year, and to get enough eggs of sufficient quality. Therefore, in order to have adequate planning, one needs to have an ongoing supply of hens' eggs.

The other aspect is that the numerous jurisdictions and groups -- emergency responders, volunteers, local, provincial and territorial levels of government -- need to have well-coordinated actions at the time of a pandemic, and those linkages need to be established in advance. In a pandemic, all communities will be affected, and that is a much different situation than in other disasters. It is not as though you can ship resources from one community to another to cover off their problem. You can expect that all provinces across Canada would be affected.

Deputy ministers of health have asked us to develop a memorandum of understanding, which would be signed off at the ministerial level, that would define roles and responsibilities at the time before, during and after a pandemic. In September, the ministers of health agreed to what we are calling the "national coordination approach," which primarily is an enhancement of current federal, provincial, and territorial activities in the areas of surveillance, training and planning, but which specifically takes on two new federal functions: one, the federal government would be responsible for creating the vaccine infrastructure that would be required at the time of a pandemic to meet our vaccine needs; two, the federal government would have a role in allocating vaccine, which would be in scarce supply -- an equitable allocation of the vaccine to all the provinces and territories. Money has been committed at the level of Health Canada to take on those functions.

Another aspect that still requires more work is the whole issue of antivirals and their availability and whether or not stockpiling is necessary. There may be significant costs associated with that. In addition, as was mentioned from the standpoint of vaccine, we are in the process of going out for a multi-year contract for vaccine supply. Hopefully, this contract will be out on the street soon. The focus is to increase Canadian-based production capacity for vaccine. Additional actions are in progress with respect to planning activities that will be required at the local, provincial, territorial and federal levels related to contingency planning development. One area that needs more discussion is the financial cost of this potentially catastrophic event.

We have been working on the concept of a threshold. The normal annual influenza epidemics have a cumulative cost. Some years are worse than others. We would estimate that, at the time of a pandemic, those costs could be markedly increased. Therefore, we are trying to define a threshold; in other words, while annually the provinces and the territories have responsibility for those costs, once that threshold was reached there would be joint federal, provincial, and territorial responsibility. That concept is, in a way, incorporated into the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangement program. However, that is viewed as a very reactive program, whereas what we want is to create something more proactive, define in advance what kinds of costs would be covered and perhaps use the same schedule used in the DFAA as a way of sharing those costs.

Another issue that has come up is whether or not we need to look at a contingency fund where the provinces, territories and Health Canada could have money set aside. What would be attractive is that once the contingency fund has reached its maximum, the income from that fund could potentially be used to support ongoing training that will be required for emergency response, not only from the standpoint of pandemics but for other events as well. In an effort to define what that threshold level would be, we are working with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy & Evaluation, which has an extensive database on the yearly impact of influenza, in order to see if we can define what a capacity would be at a provincial level. Another option that has been suggested is to take 10 per cent more than provinces normally spend on flu as that threshold.

Those kinds of ideas will be taken forward to the deputy ministers of health this June in order to seek their direction on how we pursue them. As I mentioned, further work will be done in defining what that threshold might be. We point all those out to demonstrate the complexities that are actually involved in pandemic planning.

Dr. Shannon: Dr. Spika mentioned, as did I, that very few countries in the world will be self-sufficient or have the capacity to produce the necessary amounts of vaccine for their own purposes. Canada is being very positional in terms of our requirements for self-sufficiency. Accordingly, a requirement for the contract that Dr. Spika mentioned will be the capacity to produce this vaccine nationally. If it is produced internationally, we feel that the Canadian population will be placed at risk by virtue of embargoes placed on the product in order to protect foreign national interests.

Senator Anne C. Cools (Deputy Chairman) in the Chair.

The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much. You have presented some very thoughtful and extremely interesting testimony, and you have raised important questions. This committee will be reflecting on what you have been saying for quite a while.

I should like you to clarify a point that you raised. In the presentation someone said that the federal government has a role to allocate vaccine that is in scarce supply. A few moments ago Dr. Shannon raised a very important issue related to that, which is that this country should have the capacity to produce the vaccine that it may need in these very distressed circumstances. I wonder if you could amplify what you said in that regard, what you think should be the appropriate and proper federal role, and what your thoughts are on this question about the capacity to produce vaccine. It seems to be self-evident, but I think it needs some expansion for the record.

Dr. Shannon: Decisions regarding the distribution of the vaccine, once we have it, will be done in partnership with the provinces and territories. We always operate that way, and there will be targets within the population that will be given very high priorities initially. As more supply becomes available, decisions will be made regarding who is next on the list, so to speak, bearing in mind that, if we need to go to a two-dose approach, we will not have 60 million doses of vaccine all at the same time. It will come off the assembly line, so to speak, and as it does in perhaps 7 million or 8 million dose lots, they will be strategic about the utilization. Obviously, health care workers, the elderly, the police and so on will be first on the list. That is done in partnership. In fact, everything is done in partnership.

The most important issue is not who will receive the vaccine but whether or not we will have vaccine in a timely fashion. My biggest worry is that, although we might get the vaccine, it will be too late.

The Deputy Chairman: As important as it is, this is the sort of thing that many people will not think about until a crisis is upon us. Please put as much of this on the record as you can.

Dr. Spika: One of our basic principles is that there will be a shortage of vaccine worldwide. At that point, it will not be possible for us to import it from other countries because almost all countries, even if they have a vaccine production capacity, will themselves be in short supply. Right now, for example, Canada receives half of its influenza vaccine from offshore. Representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade have told us that we cannot be assured that this vaccine will be available in Canada because other countries, in their own national interests, will want to maintain their own vaccine supplies for the protection of their own residents. In that setting, then, our only alternative is to establish the necessary vaccine capacity here in Canada.

Even if we do have that vaccine production capacity here in Canada, because of the kinetics involved with vaccine production there will be a shortage of vaccine at the start. For that reason, we have had discussions about priority groups -- that is, who will receive it first. Along those lines, we have developed some objectives for our flu program. The first objective is to maintain social services -- that is, maintain the functioning of the society -- and then to prevent deaths and then to prevent the morbidity associated with the disease. That has helped us to prioritize to whom we should be giving vaccine first. The first group would be the essential service and health care workers -- the ones who will keep things moving. Because we do not know what the pandemic will be at the time, that could be subject to change.

As part of our planning process we have developed a pandemic influenza committee that will have representation from all jurisdictions, as well as some outside experts. At the time of a pandemic, that group would make recommendations to the Minister of Health about how vaccine should be allocated initially. It would then be the responsibility of the Minister of Health to make the decision as to how the scarce supply of vaccine would be allocated to different jurisdictions. That is how we see the process unfolding. Again, we must accept the fact that no matter how much vaccine production capacity we have in Canada, initially there will be a shortage.

Senator Stratton: They really did quite a remarkable job in Hong Kong. There was an interesting article in Time that summarized how this global effort prevented that outbreak.

Should an outbreak occur and should it become pandemic, what steps will Canada take to trigger what will happen?

Dr. Spika: First, the detection of the outbreak is dependent upon surveillance. As part of our planning process, we want to invest money in improving the international surveillance activity through WHO, in particular in that part of the world. We feel from previous experience that that is where these strains are most likely to occur.

Once a new strain is detected -- potentially a pandemic -- the first question will be whether it can be transmitted from person to person. If it can be transmitted from person to person, can that be done efficiently? Those are the kinds of things we would be looking at.

In the case of Hong Kong, it is not clear yet whether one person may have acquired the strain from another person. Most of the disease was being transmitted from birds to humans. The strain itself did not have the capacity to move efficiently from person to person as our normal flu does. Therefore, in that situation, although we were waiting on the edges of our seats, a pandemic was not declared. One of the reasons for moving in and destroying the birds as they did was that there was concern that the human influenza was about to start circulating in Hong Kong, and if people were co-infected with a human and a bird strain at the same time, we might have got what is called a genetic reassortment, which potentially could have been a pandemic strain. That was some of the thinking that led to the slaughter of birds.

The Deputy Chairman: You have just raised an important point, which I think was not properly understood by my colleagues. As you continue your remarks, perhaps you could speak to the whole question of genetic reassortment, that is, where the whole pathogen mutates and combines with different strains.

Dr. Spika: The technical term deals with the abilities of certain viruses, in this case the flu virus. If you infect a host with two viruses at the same time, those viruses can exchange genetic material and you can come out with a hybrid. That technique is used now to produce flu vaccine. It is not as though this is something out of a science fiction book. Because we know certain strains of flu virus grow up better in hens' eggs, we use that technique to take an existing flu strain that we think will be most common and do a reassortment with something we know grows well in hens' eggs to create the vaccine strain that was used. It definitely occurs and we are well aware of it. The ways this virus mutates are of concern.

There are criteria that both we and the World Health Organization would use for saying a pandemic is here and it is time to gear up and get going. The criteria are that it is a new strain; it is infecting humans; and there is evidence of efficient spread from person to person.

Senator Stratton: If a pandemic is here, what happens? What is the response of Health Canada, the Canadian government, and even other governments?

Dr. Spika: At the time a pandemic occurs, the pandemic influenza committee would meet to provide recommendations to all levels of government to determine how it should be monitored. There would be a request for vaccine production to commence immediately. The contingency planning that we hope to have in place within the next year at the local, provincial and federal level would also swing into gear. There would be individuals who would gear up members of the public for vaccination campaigns. The whole issue of regulatory approval of a vaccine is an interesting one. We would be trying to short-circuit the approval process and make it as quick as possible so that we could get this vaccine into people as fast as possible.

Those are some of the kinds of things that would happen. One would have to assess the epidemiology of a pandemic and who are the groups most affected by it and develop perhaps different priority groups to receive vaccine based on what is occurring elsewhere. Potentially, we would even send people to countries that are first affected by the illness in order to assist in the international investigation and to get more information as to how best we could react when it hit Canada.

Senator Stratton: I appreciate what you have covered. If there is a pandemic outbreak that is developing into a severe situation, apart from triggering the production of the vaccine and inoculating the appropriate people, is there a game plan in place to avoid the situation? For example, does all travel stop? When you read about the events of 1918, you realize that complete isolation was what really worked. In Alaska, for example -- and while this is hearsay, it is important -- one town was totally wiped out while another town set up sentries and would not let anyone into or out of the town so no one got sick. Is there a game plan with respect to protection, apart from vaccination?

Dr. Spika: The efficiency of this virus to spread very quickly is known. That is why it causes pandemics. Quarantining or shutting down the borders would have incredible economic consequences to Canada, in terms of the global economy. If you built perhaps a biodome over the country to isolate everyone, maybe you could do it and prevent people from getting infected up to the time you had adequate supplies of vaccine and you could vaccinate them and let them out of their biodome.

There are other strategies that one has to consider. We know normally that flu spreads in a community very efficiently through the school system, and normally it is kids who are the first to get infected. There may be the need, in the case of a pandemic, to shut down the schools and prevent that circulation from occurring.

The issue of antiviral agents is something we need to consider. We have looked at them only as a secondary strategy for a number of reasons. First, you must treat people for a long period of time to prevent illness. Second, they are very expensive. To buy the quantity of drug required to stockpile just for selected groups of Canadians would cost in the range of $2 billion to $3 billion. The drug has a shelf life of up to only three years, so you would have to continually reinvest.

Those kinds of things are being considered, but some of the things you are talking about will be part of what we would call the local planning activities, because that is where some of the stuff will need to kick into gear once the virus is isolated.

Dr. Shannon: During the Christmas period, when we began to become alarmed about the H5N1 influenza virus, we certainly disseminated a travel warning to all individuals heading off to Hong Kong, for what good that did. During that time, there was some discussion that if this began to look like a serious pandemic -- and there were trigger points for that -- there would be consideration of shutting down flights to certain parts of the world. However, once it spreads quickly, Canada cannot isolate itself. Dr. St. John, who runs our quarantine section, points out that, in the period from just before Christmas, when we started watching this and getting worried about it, to September, 129,000 people flew back and forth from Canada to Hong Kong.

As long as we know it is isolated for a period of time, that issue can be addressed fairly effectively. It will take off. That takes us to the issue of having teams dispatched to the area -- not just by Canada alone but by Canada in collaboration with the CDC and WHO -- not only to assess what is going on but to collect samples that can be used for diagnostic purposes and, just as important, for the seed virus for the production of vaccine.

The WHO is looking at an approach whereby certain countries will accept responsibility for certain pathogens. Canada is heading in the direction of some of the hemorrhagic fevers because of our level 4 facility in Winnipeg. In the area of infectious disease, there are no borders, so we must do business smarter and more effectively.

The Deputy Chairman: Senator Stratton made a reference to 1918, and for the sake of the record, perhaps we should clarify that Senator Stratton was referring to the Spanish flu pandemic.

Senator Stratton: There were 20 million to 30 million lives lost.

Dr. Shannon: Perhaps more. Those are the ones we know about.

Senator Stratton: How many would be lost if a pandemic were to break out now?

Dr. Spika: With the kind of mortality rate that existed then, that would translate into 180,000 Canadians dying over a six-month period. In our estimates, we are looking at 11,000 to 58,000.

The Deputy Chairman: I believe there is a group of Canadians working on examining mummified remains from that Spanish flu, and I believe they include Dr. Charles Smith, who is a forensic pathologist. Do you know anything about that?

Dr. Spika: That is correct. The expedition was co-led by a Canadian, Kirsty Duncan, who is a geographer from the University of Toronto. The attempt was to exhume some miners' bodies in Spitzbergen. That was done in the fall of 1998. They have had some limited success in tracking the virus, getting the pieces of the virus, but the group that has been more successful is from the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in collaboration with a fellow who exhumed a body in Alaska. At this stage of the game, they are hoping that they will be able to sequence the genetic material from most of that virus.

Senator Moore: I have a simple question for Dr. Shannon, about pages 5 and 10 of your submission. Could you explain the colour codings? What do they mean? On page 5, the surveillance page, there are various colour codings depending on the provinces. What do they mean?

Dr. Shannon: The colour coding is meant to assess our capacities or capabilities with respect to the five functions for emergency response.

Senator Moore: What does the green in Nova Scotia on the surveillance page mean?

Dr. Shannon: Are you looking at a map of Canada?

Senator Moore: Yes, sir.

Dr. Shannon: We did not really talk about it, but it is a colour-coded map representing the incidence of a certain type of food-borne illness or pathogen in this country. I do not have the exact conversion.

These outbreaks are for the year 1998, I believe, and reflect basically the severity of the illness. It is only meant to demonstrate that as our surveillance systems become more sophisticated and more real-time, our ability to understand what is actually going on, in this case in food, becomes far more effective. Our ability to reduce the lag time between the actual outbreak of the illness and the initiation of an intervention will collapse down to perhaps days rather than weeks.

Senator Moore: You have green, gold, yellow and red. What do those colours mean?

Dr. Shannon: I do not have the actual translation of how those colours relate to hard numbers. I would need to get that for you. It was meant to depict an ability to understand across this country what is actually happening. A printout is prepared on a weekly basis. It is not meant to tell you that Nova Scotia is better than or worse than another province. The situation changes by the week depending on the outbreak.

Senator Moore: On the consolidated scorecard page, some dots are yellowish and some are green. What do those mean?

Dr. Shannon: The actual colour code is red, yellow and green, with green representing, at least to the extent of our understanding, no apparent deficiency. Yellow means some deficiencies that are currently being managed by virtue of the Canadian way of doing things, which is "can do." That means that, no matter what happens, we solve problems. Red, which is not there, means we have a serious deficiency.

Senator Mahovlich: I can recall when I had a case of flu in 1957. How did that flu get across to Canada at that time? Do you recall if it was through birds?

Dr. Spika: We cannot say why that virus spread as efficiently as it did. We know the first outbreaks occurred in China in February of 1957, and by July the virus was present in Canada. We had our first peak in disease by October of that year. That is pretty typical for a pandemic, the way the virus spreads, whether it is through birds or travellers.

It may well be that people with the virus who have mild symptoms are travelling, in that case from Hong Kong to London and into Canada, and they infect people on the way or they come directly from Hong Kong into Canada through some other route. The point is that it is so effectively and efficiently spread from human to human that is hard to put up barriers to prevent it from spreading.

Senator Mahovlich: Are we more prepared now than we ever were for a pandemic?

Dr. Spika: Yes.

Dr. Shannon: A useful point regarding pandemic is that we have talked about the importance of developing our own self-sufficiency in terms of vaccine production, but there is still a period of time, no matter what, when we will not have that vaccine, based on current technologies.

It is noteworthy that some Canadian companies have developed technologies. Actually, there are a number of technologies under development already that may well have a profound impact on our ability to produce expeditiously a vaccine that will bypass the need to fertilize eggs. We will solve not only our problem, but also, in terms of biotechnology, the rest of the world's problem.

The Deputy Chairman: I wish to thank you, gentlemen, for your extremely useful testimony.

The committee adjourned.