THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 2, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met with videoconference this day at 4:11 p.m. [ET] to study Bill S-209, An Act respecting Pandemic Observance Day; and Bill C-10, An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19.
Senator Ratna Omidvar (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Ratna Omidvar, a senator from Ontario and chair of this committee.
We are continuing our review of Bill S-209, An Act respecting Pandemic Observance Day.
I would like to introduce our witnesses, who are back for a second appearance this week: from Réseau FADOQ, Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, President; from the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, Hannah Ehler, Interim Board Chair; from Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin: Indigenous-Led Countermeasures to Coronavirus, Stéphane McLachlan, Professor, University of Manitoba.
I invite Ms. Tassé-Goodman to begin her presentation, followed by Ms. Ehler and Dr. McLachlan.
In order to keep us all on track, I want to share with you that our time is limited. You will have five minutes for your presentation. If you see me waving my hand like this, it means you’re getting close to the end of your remarks and you need to wind down. I prefer not to interrupt people, so I hope we can keep this moving in an efficient and impactful manner.
[Translation]
Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, President, Réseau FADOQ: Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, my name is Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, and I am president of Réseau FADOQ. First, I’d like to thank the committee members for this invitation.
Réseau FADOQ is a group of people age 50 and over with nearly 550,000 members. In each of our political representations, we strive to help improve quality of life for seniors.
We’re here today with mixed feelings to discuss designating a pandemic observance day.
First, Réseau FADOQ is very much in favour of introducing a day of commemoration like this. We’re still in the midst of this pandemic, but the duty to remember is essential for the future. It’s important to ensure that those who died as a result of COVID-19 are remembered. What the front-line workers have done must be recognized. We mustn’t forget the impact COVID-19 has had on our society.
It’s equally important that we put the state of our health care systems into perspective given the devastation the pandemic has wrought. The multiple human tragedies that we experienced during the pandemic are still fresh in our minds.
As president of Réseau FADOQ, I must address seniors’ homes and long-term care settings. Many seniors have borne the brunt of a failing health care system during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a long time, the provinces have suffered because health care is underfunded by the federal government. Funds have been injected during the current crisis and as part of the most recent federal budget, but the assistance is neither recurring nor proportional.
Health care funding takes up 40% of the provinces’ and territories’ budgets, while the Canadian government covers only 22% of these expenditures.
According to the Conference Board of Canada, the federal share of health care funding will fall to under 20% by 2026. The federal government needs to catch up with health care funding. It’s also important that there be a 6% annual escalator on the Canada health transfer, that is, the same growth factor as the one used prior to 2017. Furthermore, demographic realities must be taken into account in health care funding.
Words and actions tinged with ageism have also become more frequent during the COVID-19 crisis. Our organization wrote a letter to the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, because seniors’ rights were seriously curtailed with the lockdown and there were numerous cases of age-related verbal abuse.
We would therefore like to take this opportunity today to denounce this type of discrimination.
We mustn’t forget that seniors received disgraceful treatment, and that was over and above the large number of deaths among the elderly. For future generations, it’s important to raise awareness of this discrimination. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll, and a significant number of seniors have fallen victim to it.
I’d like to thank the committee members for having heard us.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Tassé-Goodman.
Stéphane McLachlan, Professor, University of Manitoba, Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin: Indigenous-Led Countermeasures to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Hello, everyone. Thank you for inviting me to speak. My name is Stéphane McLachlan from Winnipeg on Treaty 1 territory. I’m a professor at the University of Manitoba, and my research program focuses on environmental health and environmental justice. It is primarily conducted with and for Indigenous communities across our country and around the world.
Since February 2020, we have documented the implications and responses of Indigenous communities to COVID-19 and supported them along the way. Our program was named Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin by elders in northern Manitoba, which in Cree means to gain control over health and well-being.
Generally, we are, of course, fully supportive of Bill S-209 as introduced by the Honourable Senator Mégie, but hope to highlight some important elements of this “remembering” that might otherwise be overlooked.
First, the bill as currently constructed makes no explicit mention of the extreme health inequity that confronts many populations in this country. Not all communities were affected equally by COVID. In addition to the elderly, Black, Indigenous, and people of colour — or BIPOC communities — had substantially higher hospitalization rates and ICU use rates than the general population. This has always been the case and will continue to be so with respect to pandemics. Ideally, the importance of this health inequity and also the need to address it in proactive ways could be made explicit in the bill.
Second, the bill rightly acknowledges the tremendous role of front-line workers in mitigating the effects of COVID, but no explicit mention is made of the many NGOs and grassroots organizations when it came to caretaking health. These responses were generally grounded in the culture and language of BIPOC groups and, in some cases, were in response to the shortcomings of the larger health system.
I will spend the rest of my time highlighting a few of these initiatives as documented through our program.
One example includes drop-in clinics in the urban core of Winnipeg and translation services that combine the best science as well as cultural teachings to mitigate fear and worry that Indigenous people and newcomers understandably have around vaccines. Those were organized by groups like the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre and the Newcomer Vaccine Awareness Working Group. Indeed, by February 22 of this year, vaccination rates in these BIPOC groups were substantially higher than the general population in Manitoba and hospitalization rates of White people were overrepresented, signalling the importance of this work.
A second example is the lockdowns that First Nations communities across Canada established in advance of each COVID wave and the incredible proactive planning that this required.
The third example is the use of cultural ceremonies and traditional medicines to help caretake health in First Nations communities, sometimes instead of and, in many cases, in addition to the use of vaccines.
A fourth example is the use of innovative health outreach that was culturally appropriate, collaboratively designed and high in impact — thus, our creation of a Cree-speaking raven puppet, Kahkakiw, that used humour and relevant health information, and which went viral around the world.
A final example is the promotion of data sovereignty and research sovereignty in response to the systemic barriers that still confront communities when it comes to accessing relevant health data in a timely manner. The Our Data Indigenous app has been introduced in 13 First Nations communities across the country.
There is no doubt that the impacts of COVID would have been substantially greater without these many diverse proactive responses. Our hope is that you make explicit mention of the remarkable strength and resilience that many BIPOC and other grassroots groups and organizations showed and undertook to caretake their health, to celebrate their own strengths and cultural traditions; and the need to document, to learn from and further support such initiatives in the future when it comes to other pandemics and health crises.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. McLachlan. Before we go on to our final presenter, Ms. Ehler, let me apologize to Dr. McLachlan for mispronouncing the name of your organization so terribly. I am the victim of the mispronunciation of my name all the time, so I really feel that I should have done better.
Mr. McLachlan: I have had two years to practise, so I fully appreciate your difficulty.
Hannah Ehler, Interim Board Chair, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, esteemed committee members and fellow witnesses.
I would like to begin my statement by acknowledging that I speak to you today from the territory of the Mi’kmaw peoples, which now covers much of Eastern Canada and is overseen by the Peace and Friendship Treaties.
I am the Interim Chair of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, or CASA. I am also the Vice-President of External Affairs at the Mount Allison Students’ Union, and I am in my fourth year of a self-designed Bachelor of Arts program in international community planning, minoring in French and Environmental Studies.
CASA is a national, non-partisan, not-for-profit advocacy organization that represents students across colleges, polytechnics and universities from coast to coast to coast. Through a formal partnership with the Quebec Student Union, we are a trusted and evidence-informed voice that represents 364,000 post-secondary students across Canada.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting us to speak today in support of Bill S-209 and on the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on post-secondary students across the country. I would first like to pay respects to the more than 36,000 Canadians and the millions around the world who have unnecessarily lost their lives due to COVID-19. These past 24 months have been extremely challenging for all of us, especially our elders, our most vulnerable, our health care systems and workers, our businesses and, of course, students.
We speak to you today in support of a new annual day of observance that will allow Canadians to reflect on, remember and raise awareness about the pandemic’s lingering impacts.
Post-secondary students have felt the myriad effects of COVID-19 particularly intensely. According to a survey that CASA conducted in collaboration with Abacus Data, nearly two thirds of post-secondary students in Canada reported having an unhealthy work-life balance during the pandemic; 56% said that COVID-19 negatively impacted their learning and half of all students said that it also interrupted their summer and post-graduation employment opportunities.
Mental health is perhaps the biggest area of concern for post-secondary students, with impacts likely to continue long after the immediate impact of the virus has already passed. Our data tells us that an astounding 84% of students experienced new mental health issues or had existing issues exacerbated due to the pandemic. Further to that, 53% of students reported feeling intense feelings of despair, and 71% said that they were overwhelmed. Many blamed the lack of in-person interaction, campus life and peer support as the main reason for their mental health difficulties.
Pandemic-induced stress is also manifesting itself in the form of financial and affordability concerns, with 6 in 10 students telling us that COVID-19 has made affording post-secondary education more difficult. Only 11% of students say the pandemic has had no effect on their personal finances.
While those short-term impacts may now be receding, many continue to worry about their financial future.
Additionally, post-secondary students have also had to cope with a virtual learning environment, and 75% said that the overall quality of digital learning was not on par with the in-person equivalent. What is more, over half of students said they experienced serious connectivity issues throughout the school year, and upwards of 45% reported they did not have the necessary technology to complete their studies.
All in all, the challenges faced by a generation of Canada’s youth over the past 24 months have been immense, and they will leave a lasting legacy that requires consistent attention and reflection.
That is why I appear before you today, on behalf of CASA, in support of Bill S-209. If passed, this bill would provide Canadians with an annual day of commemoration that can be used to remember those we lost while also reflecting on the broader impacts of the pandemic on Canadian society. Future pandemic observance days could be used to raise awareness about mental health and the importance of social interaction. They could be used to celebrate togetherness over isolation, and they could be used to highlight the lingering effects of the pandemic to ensure we are investing in areas like health care and mental health supports, both of which were shown to be lacking during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is not an experience that any of us will easily forget, and it will require sustained commemoration. To that end, Bill S-209 is welcomed by CASA.
With that, I’d like to thank the committee for asking us to appear, and I look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Ehler.
We will now turn to senators for their questions. As always, we must stay within the five-minute limit for both questions and answers. It’s helpful if senators direct their question to a particular witness, if appropriate.
The first questions for this panel come from the deputy chair.
Senator Bovey: I would like to thank all the witnesses. I appreciate the way you’ve defined the multiple impacts of COVID on workers, families and people of various diversities.
I’m going to direct my question, if I may, to Dr. McLachlan. I very much appreciate and admire the work you’ve been doing. In my own small way over the last 30 years, I have been addressing the interconnections between arts and culture and health, probably from different directions.
They might be equally important, but I think you have hit on some really key issues.
I was going to ask a very simple question as to how you all observed the National Day of Observance last year and where it would go, but I changed my tune, actually.
Dr. McLachlan, I’d like to know how you think, with the research you are doing and the groups you are working with — the Indigenous groups and the BIPOC groups — this day can further public understanding of the inequities and what we as a society can do to lessen those inequities. Does that come from articulating all the groups and all the issues in the bill, or does it come from an inclusive approach, in a way that allows us all — and particularly your groups — to define different issues as you go forward?
Mr. McLachlan: Thank you for the comment and the question. I obviously respect your work very much as well.
My approach and that of the people I work with have always taken, given the tremendous diversity and the complexity of the issues, is a ground-up approach where government and support systems — and I would include myself as a university professor — are best situated to provide the resources and support and the fabric by which those same groups can take the lead on identifying their needs and then best allocating those resources. It’s a spirit of cooperation and collaboration, rather than top-down problem solving.
Obviously, in a pandemic, top-down systemic approaches are important, but they have to be complemented by other approaches. I have tremendous respect for the strength and the resilience that we have seen, often without many resources. Volunteers upon volunteers were reaching out and supporting others within their cultural groups and within their communities and especially amongst the tremendous diversity of First Nations.
You can’t wait until a pandemic occurs to do that. Obviously, it’s that proactive thinking and resource building and partnership building that will come to play the next time a pandemic occurs, rather than this past “rinse and forget” approach that’s taken place, where we are just thankful the pandemic is over and then we get back to business. I think there’s tremendous interest on the part of a huge diversity of groups to enter those partnerships with federal and provincial organizations and with one another. That’s what I see moving forward.
Senator Bovey: Quickly, because I know there are many other people who want to ask questions, the government top-down was establishing this day through Senator Mégie’s bill, and I couldn’t agree with you more that good policy is made both bottom-up and top-down. Do you see this day becoming more than what might be initially thought as we begin this bill? Do you see this as a movement that can grow?
Mr. McLachlan: I do. I think remembering and reflecting is tremendously important as is learning from the past but, at the same time, so is simultaneously moving forward and, again, not waiting until the next pandemic where we again react. Again, as important as the bill is as constructed right now, talking about the strength and the resilience as well as the laws speaks to moving forward.
Senator Bovey: Thank you.
Madam Chair, I’ll cede the rest of my time. This panel is very interesting, and others can pick up other issues.
Senator Poirier: Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. We really appreciate it.
I have one question, and I’ll direct it to Ms. Ehler of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. If time allows, then I will open it up if the two other witnesses would like to comment on it; I would appreciate that also.
The preamble of Bill S-209 describes the purpose of the previously held National Day of Observance, which took place in March 2021, as honouring those who have died of COVID-19, recognizing those working on the front lines and acknowledging COVID-19’s serious effects on the health of Canada’s population.
Who should be honoured on the proposed pandemic observance day, in your opinion? Should Bill S-209 state the intention of the pandemic observance day? If yes, what should be the intention of the day, in your view?
Ms. Ehler: Thank you very much for the question. This could go one of many ways. I believe there is extreme value in keeping the bill open because I think the experiences that Canadians have had in regard to COVID-19 have been drastically different. Students have experienced various challenges that may not have been felt by our brave and courageous health care workers and vice versa. Our elders and families and everyone else, we have all experienced the pandemic very differently.
I do think there is value in keeping the bill open and allowing Canadians to interpret the day in a way that means the most to them. In the case of students, this might mean gathering in person and fulfilling that social connection and that interaction that was lacking during the pandemic and having more discussions about mental health and financial troubles and all those impacts that students felt, although that might not be the same for others.
That said, I find there is also value in having that clear intention. It is extremely important for us as a country to remember the work that our health care workers did during the pandemic. Absolutely, setting aside time for reflection and remembrance of those who lost their lives and those who worked to help the country move forward throughout the pandemic is important. I also want to acknowledge the response from Dr. McLachlan in saying that this is also a time to move forward. If individual Canadians have that flexibility to reflect in the way that best suits them and to have conversations about how we should move forward, then I think that might be a great approach.
Senator Poirier: Thank you very much. If the other witnesses would like to respond, I’d appreciate it.
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: Grandchildren were deprived of their grandpas and grandmas, who passed away without the chance to say a final goodbye. Many of the elderly passed alone without any contact with family.
We believe that we, as a people, must recognize the work of health care professionals and volunteers who risked their lives and left their families to save our brothers’ and sisters’ lives and be there for the grieving families. A pandemic observance day is a way of showing respect for all those who have survived, for those who have passed, for our lifesavers who have put every ounce and fibre of their being into this pandemic. For all of these reasons, Réseau FADOQ believes that there is value in having a pandemic observance day in Canada.
[English]
Mr. McLachlan: Just quickly, I agree with everything that the other two witnesses said. I would also argue that it is important to not just focus on Canada but to learn from other parts of the world. By definition, a pandemic is global in impact. There is value in connecting proactively and in reaching out and, in a sense, sharing the losses but also the future, moving forward with groups from other parts of the world.
Senator Patterson: Thank you very much to the witnesses.
Dr. McLachlan, you spoke about extreme health inequities, and Ms. Tassé-Goodman spoke about serious underfunding in health. I’d like to focus my questions and ask you both to elaborate a bit on that particularly. One of the serious problems of the pandemic seems to be the pressures on our overcrowded hospitals and the shortage of ICU beds. I believe that Canada may be well below many of our peer countries in the number of ICU beds per capita.
I wonder if you could elaborate on what you said about these lessons to be learned from efficiencies in our health system and perhaps maybe address the ICU bed issue. Thank you.
Mr. McLachlan: Again, as we’ve said, it really varies according to what culture you come from geographically. In our case, Manitoba, there’s no doubt in Northern Canada that access to health care has always been difficult and was made worse and aggravated. A recent study came out that showed hospitalization access was delayed by almost a month for many First Nations communities. Their ability to interact with family and with community, which is difficult enough in a pandemic, was also very difficult at best for folks from the North.
Finding ways proactively to support health care in terms of institutional health care is tremendously important.
In Manitoba, which I can speak to most directly, immediately prior to the pandemic, we were shutting down emergency wards. We were shutting down hospitals. We were concentrating the system. With the benefit of hindsight, we can always say that was a mistake, but obviously we know what happens in those kinds of situations. This was just made worse by people in rural and remote communities. That becomes really critical.
Senator Patterson: I would appreciate it if Ms. Tassé-Goodman would also address that question, please, if she would.
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: You mentioned the Canada Health Transfer. As Réseau FADOQ said, we would like the federal government to increase the Canada Health Transfer not on an ad hoc basis, but permanently. The Canada Health Transfer is currently subject to a fixed growth rate so the federal government’s share of health care funding will drop 20% by 2026.
Health care costs are skyrocketing. In addition, some provinces, including Quebec, are dealing with an aging population, which puts more pressure on their health care system and inevitably on their costs.
The federal government should also recognize that there is a variable to consider with an aging population. That should be included in the formula for calculating the Canada Health Transfer.
Senator Mégie: I’d like to thank all the witnesses for your testimony today.
I’m going to ask a question and each of you should be able to respond. Given all the catastrophic impacts of the pandemic on our seniors, given various multidimensional impacts on the lives of students, and given the negative impacts of the pandemic on Indigenous communities, I’d like to know what you will do if this bill passes. How will each of your groups commemorate the pandemic on March 11? I’d like all of you to answer, please.
[English]
Ms. Ehler: Thank you very much. I believe how students will commemorate this day will vary across the country. CASA represents campuses of various sizes in different geographical locations. But I do emphasize and believe that it will be about gathering in person, hopefully, and having that in-person interaction that was lost, raising awareness about mental health specifically and raising awareness about affordability and financial issues among students, and continuing the conversation in a way that is progressive and moving forward and looking to not forget the impacts that COVID-19 had on our experiences.
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: There will surely be a celebration because families expect a time for reflection, time to take pause, a time to remember and reflect on everything families have been through since the pandemic began.
Many seniors experienced hardship and verbal abuse, and had to leave businesses during the pandemic because they were 70 or older.
With our 550,000 senior members, Réseau FADOQ will obviously orchestrate a moment of remembrance across the province and across Canada.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. McLachlan, since Senator Mégie still has some time, would you like to weigh in on that question? How do you feel communities will observe this day?
Mr. McLachlan: As a settler myself, it would be wrong for me to speak for communities. But I could see a situation where we would approach our advisory board, which is made up of representatives from Indigenous health organizations, tribal councils, elected leadership and elders from across Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. I could see a process by which we reached out to them to get a sense of how they wish to proceed.
We would then reach out to the individual communities. As researchers, facilitators and a support system, we would do whatever we could to put in place so that — again, because there’s such a great diversity of First Nations communities across the country that we work with — we would support them to identify their own reflective process.
I think it would also be important, if communities felt it was appropriate, to document that and to share ideas. Again, this idea that you can simultaneously look backwards and forwards through the gathering, through the remembering and the grieving, that would also be a process by which potential solutions could be identified on those days and then passed forward to decision makers and other key stakeholders around these issues.
Senator McPhedran: This is a short question to all three of our witnesses. This is generally considered a low-cost or no-cost bill. Let me ask you this: Is there anything that this bill gives to you and allows you to do that you would not otherwise be able to do?
Ms. Ehler: This is a great question. I think it’s an interesting one as well.
I believe that having a day specifically set aside for reflection and remembrance is important to intentionally create that space. I do hope that outside of that day it would be a continued conversation about ways moving forward, what the impacts have been and how we are going to shape our world moving into the future. But I do believe having that space set aside to be able to do that is quite important.
Mr. McLachlan: For me, obviously it has an inherent value in terms of strategic and practical value, because so many of the communities we work with don’t have access to resources, and in some cases, live with poverty and under- and unemployment.
Having that day once a year would allow us to reach out to foundations, to funding research organizations, to help build awareness but also to generate resources that then could be passed forward to these different groups, whether Indigenous or other communities of colour, to then do what they wish to do with it.
Otherwise, there’s a danger that there’s this tremendous opportunity to reflect but, without those financial resources in place, it becomes very difficult for many of these communities to partake.
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: It’s important that we have this day of commemoration. It will be a time to come together, and a time for those who have lived through similar situations these past two years to share and come together. It can be done in an inclusive way. Many diverse and cultural communities have been affected, along with seniors and children. This will be a time to talk about coming together and sharing things that were done well, and how to move forward in a positive way.
[English]
Senator McPhedran: You may or may not know, witnesses, that this committee has no Indigenous senator on it, so I cede the rest of my time to Senator McCallum.
Senator McCallum: Thank you to everyone for your presentations and for the work that you had to do to come and present to us in this committee.
I wanted to direct my question to Dr. McLachlan. It’s very good to see you again. I want to thank you for all the work that you do with Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin, as well as the work that you do virtually with Wa Ni Ska Tan.
I’ll set the context for my question first.
With many issues, the government sometimes has a difficult time understanding context of Indigenous lives and history; for example, the jurisdictional gaps between federal and government laws that exist and are cumulative and how they impact on access to health care and justice, and this includes the pandemic.
Your group works at the intersection of traditional and Western knowledge. This day is critical, and it can be seen as a stepping block since one day may not be enough to bring out the issues that need to be brought out for Indigenous peoples, because we have so much to catch up with, so much of our history and the injustices that have occurred to put us where we are today.
How can the Senate or the House of Commons be involved in this day beyond three-minute statements, remembering that many communities don’t have the internet? Individuals may not be able to read so, again, they are at a deficit for being able to absorb the messages that come out. That feeds into a lot of myths and misunderstandings that people have about, in this example, COVID-19.
How can you see that we could move from this day to other days that would be helpful for Indigenous peoples?
Mr. McLachlan: Thank you, Senator McCallum. It’s good to see you again as well.
Yes, I completely agree. There is a danger when you have one day a year, that people think they can do something else; they can go back to their lives for the other 364 days.
I think when working with Indigenous communities and organizations, and other diverse groups, it’s tremendously important to be proactive, to work, to build support systems, to build communication and partnerships over those other 364 days.
As always — and you and I have spoken about this before — I think it’s critical to create events and opportunities that welcome these groups, communities and organizations to speak for themselves.
I think and I truly believe there’s tremendous interest on the part of a huge diversity of these groups to sit at the table and to partake in decision making as equal partners. As long as there’s that disparity in influence and power, that’s not going to take place adequately.
Then there’s always the danger in those cases that, despite good intentions, you do more harm than good. So I think with groups like Wa Ni Ska Tan and with Kis Kin Ha Ma Ki Win, which is a group where we bring scientists and elders together on the land to speak to environmental issues, and our COVID-19 Indigenous group that I’m representing here today, what they all share in common is finding ways that we can bring multi-groups together — Indigenous communities and organizations for sure, but other key stakeholders — to begin that process of sharing and learning. Over the last year and a half that’s what we’ve done.
You mentioned the gathering that we had in May 2021. You were a keynote speaker there. I think that was a perfect example in that case of bringing Indigenous speakers from around the world virtually together to begin the idea of what people had in common and what they could share in terms of learning from one another moving forward in that proactive way that you talk about.
My sense is that there’s more openness to this idea on the part of communities, given video conferencing and given the kind of connectivity that people have developed in response to COVID-19, and a willingness and an ability to reach out, to learn from other communities and from other groups.
As someone who’s always very much a glass-half-full person, I take a lot of strength and vision from that approach as well.
Senator Bernard: Thank you to all of our witnesses.
I’d like to explore the dual pandemics for a moment.
One of the things I think that we’ve heard from many witnesses is the fact that COVID has certainly put a spotlight on many of the disparities that we have in this country.
Many people — researchers, community folks, policy makers — are talking about the dual pandemics, the pandemic of gender-based violence and the pandemic of racism colliding with the pandemic of COVID.
Thinking about this day and about healing in those broader contexts, and moving forward and building back better as a country, are there things that you think could be facilitated through this bill that would help us with some of those broader context issues that impact how people have experienced the pandemic differently in different contexts across the country?
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: I recently heard Fondation Émergence say that during the pandemic, many seniors — they said 10% of all seniors belong to the LGBTQ community — did not dare be open about their sexuality at work or in hospital, and that some went back in the closet. We need to raise awareness about that.
Members of cultural communities were also isolated because they could not socialize with their own and some were locked up against their will. it is important that they be brought back together. I attended an international conference just before the holidays and I saw that in some settings in Canada they were bringing together communities that did not speak English or French, they were forming choirs so that people could talk, socialize and meet others.
Therefore, it’s certainly possible to find ways to integrate people and be more inclusive in our country.
[English]
Ms. Ehler: Thank you very much for this question. These ideas and questions of the dual and multiple pandemics are brought up in a lot of educational settings. From what I hear from friends, peers and from my own post-secondary experience, we talk a lot about the pandemics of racism, the LGTBQ+ communities and moving forward. Education is a really great place to inflate those conversations, or start movements or those discussions and those idea-generating ways of moving forward.
I agree that bringing folks and students together on a day like this will generate conversations about mental health and remembering those that we lost, but perhaps we should think about university, college and polytechnic campuses as being places to start those conversations through panels and other events to interact with students but have it be accessible to the greater public. Perhaps a day, like an observance day for pandemics, could be a great facilitator for that.
Mr. McLachlan: I totally agree. The dual or the multiple pandemics are critical to understanding and responding to COVID-19 and other pandemics moving forward. You can’t separate those systemic barriers, and it’s tremendously important to do so.
I obviously see the value of universities, expert education and students learning. At the same time, there’s so much that we can learn from the communities with which we work, and they are so well situated because they have been reaching out virtually with one another across borders and different time zones. Just finding ways we can build on that momentum is tremendously important, and many of those people represent those under-voiced groups.
So I would just argue and support the idea that we need to think holistically around these issues.
Senator Dasko: Thank you to everyone for being here today and speaking about the importance of this observance day.
Senator Mégie, a couple of meetings ago, mentioned that the previous world pandemic of 1918 was not commemorated by people. All of the readings I’ve done on that topic — not voluminous readings, I have to say — suggested that people didn’t want to remember that pandemic, even though other terrible events of the time were commemorated, such as the First World War, Second World War and so on.
You have given this so much thought. Please put your historical hat on and just speculate as to why Canadians now would want to remember and commemorate this particular pandemic. I ask that question also in the context of what I’m seeing around my community and in Canada today. So many people seem to want to throw off the restrictions of the pandemic. They are tired of it. It’s been a terrible experience for people, and there’s a lot of desire to put it all behind them and move forward, even as we learn lessons from the pandemic — but still there is a desire to move on and get back to a better life.
I will ask you to speculate, since you have given this topic a great deal of thought and you’ve come here to discuss it with us. Do you have any thoughts about why Canadians would want to remember, even though we’re seeing all of this? In the past, this was not something that people really wanted to remember.
Would anybody like to speculate on that?
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: Thank you for asking this question. As you know, we aren’t accustomed to this type of pandemic. We didn’t experience the 20th century pandemic. Families want to have a day of remembrance because they have lost love ones, they have seen family members suffer, and they did not get the chance to say goodbye to them one last time. What we’re hearing from families and elders who have watched their loved ones pass is that they want a moment to stop, come together, reflect and hold a gathering in memory of the family members they have lost.
That’s what we are hearing from seniors here at home.
[English]
Ms. Ehler: Thank you very much for the question. I believe we are in a time as a world where we have never been more globalized, more urbanized and as connected as we have in history during the experience of past pandemics.
I know for myself during the COVID-19 pandemic, as a student, I was studying abroad in France during the beginning of COVID-19. I had 24 hours to pack my bags and leave, but there are people all over the world who had these experiences that were interconnected with other parts of the world in ways that I think human history has never experienced before, virtually but also in person — those connections that we have, families that are separated around the world that would normally organize to come together were not able to do so.
I think it is the trajectory of the world and where we are today that has made this so different from past pandemics and experiences.
Mr. McLachlan: Ten seconds. I agree with everybody, and at the same time, let’s learn from history because maybe those people wanted to share and reflect, as well, and were never given the opportunity to do so.
The Chair: Thank you so much. Colleagues, we have time for a second round of questions.
Senator Bovey: I think this has been a very interesting discussion, and it’s taken us from many places to many places — past, present and future and multiculturally, multi-geographically and multi-generationally. It has highlighted some of the issues that society is going to have to deal with going forward, like how we say thank you to people who have been on the front lines and how we help people pull together when they haven’t been able to say those goodbyes. As I look at the students and the number I’ve spoken to who voice concerns of mental health, there are many issues here.
I want to twist the question I was originally going to ask: How will you mark this day that may reflect this multi-tentacle, octopus-like society — consequences in society — that we’re dealing with?
I think we’re beginning something here that is going to be very far reaching. I am interested in your visions as to how we can really take this and make this world a better place, make this country a better place or make us a better society. What steps would you take?
Mr. McLachlan: Thanks for your question. It’s a tricky one. In a sense — also speaking to Senator McCallum’s earlier point — I probably spend the other 364 days working with a wide diversity of communities, setting the framework and the fabric so that we can address these issues.
Personally, I would spend that day reflecting. I lost friends and family members, like most of us — if not all of us — here. I think it’s important to slow things down and take the day just to think, reflect and remember and at the same time build an energy and healing from that moving forward.
So for me, again, I would spend that time with my family and my friends, taking the opportunity to reflect and remember.
[Translation]
Ms. Tassé-Goodman: In our organization, and this will need to be discussed, but I can tell you that we have heard many stories at Réseau FADOQ from seniors and families about their grief, losses and how the pandemic has affected them.
Personally, I recently had the opportunity to see my latest grandson, who was born during the pandemic. He was walking, so I did not see him as a newborn. He didn’t know me on his first birthday. I’m not the only one going through this; many seniors have not seen the latest babies born.
I feel it will be a time for coming together. We will be able to talk about things that went right, and how we can get through this, because this quite possibly will not be the last pandemic.
I think it is important that this be done coming together and with love.
[English]
Ms. Ehler: Thank you very much. Yes, I believe the coming together piece is the key. I am a planning student myself, and so when I think of this big-picture idea of moving forward as a society, it’s important from the student perspective for us across the country to break down the silos between our campuses and work together when we’re advocating on issues. I believe that in communities and as a society we need to do the same thing. I think perhaps this pandemic has highlighted that.
I recognize that university hubs are a great place for education, but silos need to be broken down between education hubs and community to bring everyone together into that same space — as well as in business, industry and everywhere else. I think we’ve come to a point where we realize that we need each other. We need each other to move forward and build a better world for all of us, and I think breaking down those silos we have built is a great place to start.
Senator McCallum: I’m continuing the question that I had for Dr. McLachlan. I forgot to mention that if we use this day as a springboard, there are specific themes that will come from this day — specific events that happen in the years to come.
In Australia, the federal government introduced a national Indigenous task force to develop an emergency response plan for Aboriginal communities to combat the spread of COVID-19. When the Prime Minister’s Office and Canada was asked, they said that it was being undertaken by the cabinet committee to ensure that all Canadians and Indigenous communities are safe and prepared for all eventualities. They said the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller, would be a member of that committee.
Is there any way that we can help the groups that you work with use this day as a springboard like this national task force?
Mr. McLachlan: Thank you for the question and the comment. I think creating extra space — special space — for Indigenous communities is critical. Our group, Kitatipithitamak, was just approached about hydro and energy justice by a consultant working for the Manitoba government, who wanted us to show up and participate in this kind of consultation process around something called green hydrogen that’s starting to impact communities up North.
We said that no, we couldn’t, because there needed to be a critical mass of attention and space placed on, in this case, Indigenous communities around hydro. I think the same thing is tremendously important for other issues, in this case related to pandemics. At the same time, of course, it can’t be done in isolation. However, I think there’s a danger, if we treat Indigenous people as just another stakeholder, that those special concerns — that unique and often painful history — just gets overshadowed by everything else.
So having task forces that have focus, are well resourced and can support a critical mass of leadership, elders and Indigenous organizations coming together to best address their needs moving forward is tremendously important — and to use that as a model for other underrepresented groups, whether it’s the elderly in society, other BIPOC groups or students.
There has to be an element of focus that comes out of this because, outside of that, there are all sorts of other opportunities for people to learn from one another. I haven’t seen anything about a task force around the pandemic, but I think that’s of critical importance and also — I will just quickly add — to learn from everything that went right within these communities. Broader Canadian society can learn so much from all the proactive measures that communities across the country took and which are relatively unknown.
For sure, communities learn from one another through that task force, but also the rest of us learn from the excellence and foresight that was reflected there and is of critical importance.
The Chair: Senator McCallum, you have a minute left. Would you like to ask another question?
Senator McCallum: No, thank you. Perhaps the other groups want to respond in their own context considering the groups and people they represent.
Ms. Ehler: All I would add to that response is that CASA does represent Indigenous students as well. We have an Indigenous advisor committee, and there are Indigenous students on our respective campuses. I think it’s important for Indigenous communities to come to the table. There’s an intersectionality between Indigenous communities and students that already exists, so bringing everyone to that table to offer a variety of perspectives would be extremely valuable.
The Chair: I would like to thank all of our witnesses very much for your participation here today. Your assistance with our study is incredibly appreciated, and I want to thank you for your forbearance with our rules on time limits, but the rules must be in order to keep the wheels moving. Thank you again.
Are there any objections, colleagues, that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-209, An Act respecting Pandemic Observance Day?
An Hon. senator: Agreed.
The Chair: Are there any objections that the title stand postponed? If none, it is agreed.
Are there any objections that the preamble stand postponed?
An Hon. senator: Agreed.
The Chair: Are there any objections that clause 1 carry? If none, it is agreed.
Are there any objections that clause 2 carry? If none, it is agreed.
Are there any objections that the preamble carry?
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: I’d like to move an amendment to the preamble.
Daniel Charbonneau, Clerk of the Committee: That Bill S-209 be amended in the preamble, on page 1...
(a) by replacing line 4 with the following: “Whereas March 11, 2021, was designated — by”; (b) by adding the following after line 10: “Whereas it is important to acknowledge the multidimensional effects of the pandemic on every person in Canada; Whereas this pandemic has worsened the various forms of inequality in Canada and has had a disproportionate impact on the vulnerable people within society and members of historically disadvantaged groups; And whereas it is fitting that March 11 of each year be officially designated as ‘Pandemic Observance Day’ in order to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic, to remember its effects and to reflect on ways to prepare for any future pandemics;”.
[English]
The Chair: As moved by Senator Mégie.
Senator Mégie, would you like to speak to your amendment?
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Yes, Madam Chair. As you can see, I have taken into account all of the committee members’ concerns. I received their concerns at the first meeting of the Social Affairs, Science and Technology Committee, and I received them again today. I’m glad that today’s concerns are included in the amendment that I prepared this morning and sent to you.
Among those concerns, as you can see, March 11 was even supported by — I was inspired by the Quebec ombudsperson’s special report, where she proposed in her 27th recommendation that this will require annual remembrance and commemoration. That inspired me when I was drafting the bill. After that, I received objections about the fact that it doesn’t really describe who it is for, but as you know, when you start quoting and describing, you run the risk of forgetting someone, forgetting one group or another.
Therefore, to be more inclusive, as you saw, since all Canadians suffered during the pandemic, I included all people and groups who normally face discrimination in society. They all experienced disproportionate harm or impacts during the pandemic compared to other Canadians. So, by including them like this, I can be sure I’m not leaving anyone out. Therefore, it remains broad.
With respect to the third part of my amendment, in my speech at first reading, I had mentioned the bill’s objectives with respect to, first, working to overcome the pandemic; second, to remembering those who passed and those who worked hard to get us through; and third, to reflecting on what should be done by learning from what we experienced during the pandemic. These lessons can be used to plan for the future.
As we saw again today, all witnesses pointed out the same things to us. We need to reflect, take pause and move forward. Our reflection time will help us come up with all sorts of initiatives. As you have seen, people may experience it in different ways: students have their way to experience it; seniors have other ways such as remembrance and gatherings; Indigenous communities have other ways to experience it. The reflection exercise will bring other ways to light. Each group will reflect in its own way based on what they lost and the impact the pandemic had on them.
With this amendment to the preamble, I believe I have covered all concerns raised during our meetings.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much, Senator Mégie. We have either questions or comments.
Senator Bovey: I want to thank Senator Mégie for the way she’s captured the sense of what we heard, if I may, from all the witnesses over our discussion of this bill. We were asked to broaden the context or define the context, and I know preambles of bills aren’t often amended, so I would like to thank her for hearing what was said and coming up with a redraft of the preamble.
[Translation]
Thank you for your work, Senator Mégie.
Senator Mégie: Thank you.
[English]
Senator Bernard: I want to echo Senator Bovey’s words of appreciation to Senator Mégie for the amendment and for addressing some of the gaps we’ve heard about from various witnesses.
If the senator would be willing to consider this, I’d like to suggest a slight addition. One of the other things we heard about that’s not reflected in this amendment is about healing. I would propose that we add wording to the effect of “to engage in diverse ways of healing,” so there’s a clear message to the country that this bill also creates space for healing and recognizes that there’s diversity in ways of healing.
The Chair: Senator Bernard, you’re proposing a subamendment to the amendment. In order to stay within the parameters of the language we must use, we will check the wording with the law clerk and then reconvene.
Colleagues, Senator Bernard has tabled a sub-amendment to the amendment, and we have the English wording for it. While the French wording is being finalized, we can also enter into some debate on the sub-amendment.
I will first ask our clerk to read the sub-amendment to Senator Mégie’s amendment.
Mr. Charbonneau: It was moved by the Honourable Senator Bernard:
That the words “this effect” be replaced with the words “the many losses, to engage in diverse ways of healing,”.
The Chair: And that would be which line?
Mr. Charbonneau: It would be the second-to-last line.
The Chair: Could you read that out again, Mr. Charbonneau?
Mr. Charbonneau: Yes. The motion is to replace the words “its effect” with “the many losses, to engage in diverse ways of healing,”.
If it’s adopted, the paragraph would then read:
And whereas it is fitting that March 11 of each year be officially designated as Official Observance Day in order to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic, to remember the many losses, to engage in diverse ways of healing, and to reflect on ways to prepare for any future pandemic.
The Chair: The French, as I said, is being prepared. In the meantime, Senator Bernard, would you like to clarify further, or should we go to the other senators?
Senator Bernard: I don’t think I need to say anything more.
The Chair: Okay, thank you. That sub-amendment captured your intention?
Senator Bernard: Yes.
The Chair: Senator Mégie, I’m sure you would like to weigh in on this, so please do.
[Translation]
Senator Mégie: Thank you, Senator Bernard, for your proposal. I will see what my other colleagues think. However, the spirit of this bill is to make the legislation broad to include everyone, because all Canadians, all groups have been affected by COVID in their own way.
The pandemic was horrendous for seniors because so many passed away. Students experienced it in a different way. They faced mental health issues, academic hardships, and personal issues with social interaction. Indigenous peoples have also had their share of issues. They had to approach agencies for support. So each group has its own issues. That is why I want to leave the wording broad.
As you can see, I did not include the word “grief” or the word “healing,” because everyone will have their own way of experiencing this day, everyone will have their own way of experiencing this commemoration. If I add other words, I will diminish the bill’s impact. I want to keep the wording broad so that everyone feels involved, each in their own way. That’s what I wanted to add.
[English]
Senator Bovey: I like the addition of this phrase, but I understand that Senator Mégie — and I don’t have both versions in front of me — there was her wording, “the effect.” I wonder if we can’t have both phrases in there, because I think the “healing” phrase really talks to what we heard about today. If you’ve got losses, effects, healing and future, you’ve got four pathways that look back that help with the changing present. Then we’ll be looking to how we handle future pandemics.
So I like the “healing” in there — the phrase of “engaging in healing” — for many reasons, because it is a word that speaks to our diversity of age, generation, geography, culture and diversity. So I would support Senator Bernard’s sub-amendment, but I don’t think it necessarily has to replace the word; it can be added to the verbiage that Senator Mégie had at the beginning.
But I really do like the concept of healing.
Senator McCallum: What everybody spoke to today was diverse ways of healing, and it’s caught up in how people deal with the pandemic. It’s always the trauma and then how you heal.
Don’t you think it’s caught up in the first “whereas it is important to acknowledge the multidimensional effects of the pandemic” — isn’t healing in there as well? That’s my question.
Senator Bernard: Thank you for the question. My read of it is that it’s not. I certainly understand the intent to keep this broad enough. We heard from many people about the need for healing, and the need for healing is not just related to the loss of life. There are multiple kinds of losses for people and in very different ways.
That’s largely the reason for suggesting this sub-amendment.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Poirier: Thank you. I have no issues with the word “healing” being added in there, either, to tell you the truth. The only thing I’d like a little clarification on is this: I do have a copy of the amendment that Senator Mégie had supplied to us today, and I’m trying to recall the exact wording of what our clerk read to us about the sub-amendment that Senator Bernard had put into place.
I know somebody just a few minutes ago said that maybe it would be better to add instead of replacing, and I thought when he read the sub-amendment, that’s exactly what we were doing; it was not really replacing but just adding a line in there, unless I really misunderstood something.
If it is just adding, and if it’s not really changing the outcome of what we want with the bill, I have absolutely no problem with leaving “healing” there. I think we’ve heard that from the witnesses and everything, and I agree that we all need to heal. We’ve all had our issues with COVID-19. There’s no family in Canada or in the world that doesn’t have some healing to do after COVID-19, so I have no problem with that, to tell you the truth.
The Chair: Senator Poirier, would you like the clerk to read back the sub-amendment?
Senator Poirier: Yes, please, I would, actually. It would clarify it for me, thank you.
The Chair: And then Senator Dasko had a comment.
Senator Dasko: Yes. I was asking the clerk if we could get a copy of the sub-amendment, because I was hearing different things here about whether it was replacing or adding. I wasn’t really quite sure what I was looking at.
The Chair: Colleagues, I have a proposal to make.
The French version of the sub-amendment is still being written. I propose that we postpone our clause-by-clause to the next meeting so that we can have the written versions and reflect on them appropriately.
So is it agreed that the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-209 be postponed to the next meeting of the committee?
Senator Poirier: I agree. Thank you.
Senator Bernard: Good call, chair.
The Chair: Very well. We will postpone the clause-by-clause consideration.
We will continue with our review of Bill C-10, An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19. I would like to introduce our first witness, the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health. Thank you for making time for us at short notice.
The minister is accompanied by officials from Health Canada: Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister; Serena Francis, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer; and Cameron MacDonald, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy, Integration and Data, COVID-19 Testing Secretariat.
I invite the minister to make his comments of five minutes. Please proceed, minister.
[Translation]
Hon. Jean-Yves Duclos, P.C., M.P., Minister of Health: Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address the committee today. I am very pleased to be here to discuss Bill C-10, an act that would provide Health Canada with the legislative authority to purchase and distribute up to $2.5 billion worth of COVID-19 rapid tests across the country.
[English]
The department officials I have joining me today include Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister; Serena Francis, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer; and Cameron MacDonald, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy, Integration and Data, COVID-19 Testing Secretariat.
To begin, I want to impress upon you the importance of this bill and the need to make rapid tests widely available right now.
[Translation]
As you know, the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic are stabilizing across the country. Infection rates of the Omicron variant have already peaked in most regions, and have been followed by a more or less rapid decline in hospitalization rates.
This is very good news, but we are not out of the woods yet, as we have been through this before.
[English]
As we transition to the next phase of our pandemic response, we need to have the right and complete set of tools to avoid a resurgence of the virus.
[Translation]
Testing plays a critical role in our efforts to contain the pandemic and mitigate its effects. Detecting infections helps prevent the spread of the virus through person-to-person transmission.
Rapid tests can effectively detect cases and reduce the spread of COVID-19 in settings such as schools, workplaces and other places where the rate of transmission may be particularly high.
[English]
Madam Chair, not everyone who has the Omicron variant of COVID-19 will show symptoms. In fact, the prevalence of asymptomatic infection is probably a significant factor in the high rate of transmission of Omicron.
[Translation]
Bill C-10 would help meet provincial and territorial demand for rapid testing, and enhance the national workplace screening program, as well as other federal testing initiatives.
With this funding, the Canadian government would purchase hundreds of millions of additional COVID-19 rapid tests and distribute them to provinces and territories, as well as Indigenous communities, over the next few months at no cost.
[English]
The funding would also allow Health Canada to continue to provide tests for distribution through partners such as the Canadian Red Cross, chambers of commerce and pharmacies.
Throughout the pandemic, the Government of Canada has been working closely with our provincial and territorial partners, and other partners, to ensure they have the tools they need to manage outbreaks and keep people safe.
[Translation]
In October 2020, the Canadian government began purchasing and distributing rapid tests to the provinces and territories at no cost. To date, we have purchased more than 520 million rapid tests, at a cost of nearly $3.8 billion.
In December alone, the Government of Canada distributed over 35 million rapid tests to the provinces and territories. In January 2022, we obtained an additional 140 million rapid tests and distributed them to the provinces and territories.
[English]
Bill C-10 would allow Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada to continue supporting provinces and territories by procuring the rapid tests they need to keep people in Canada safe and healthy. It will also ensure critical access across all jurisdictions.
[Translation]
In conclusion, after two years of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all had enough. However, the reality is that COVID-19 continues to be a part of our lives.
Rapid tests remain an essential tool, among others, as long as the virus continues to circulate in the country. These tests are safe, effective, easy to use and provide results in less than 15 minutes.
[English]
Bill C-10 would help the Government of Canada deliver hundreds of millions more rapid tests across the country. This legislation would help reduce the risk of outbreaks, quickly identify and isolate cases, and limit the spread of COVID-19 and its variants of concern. It would help keep people in Canada safe as we transition to the next phase of our pandemic response. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, minister. We will proceed to questions from senators. As always, I would ask you do kindly keep your questions and answers to five minutes. I will make an exception to my rule. Colleagues, with your permission, I will ask the first question.
Minister, I want to understand what your rush is. The provinces are distributing tests — not perfectly, and it can be enhanced. But we need to understand — I need to understand — the reason why this committee is going to study a bill that will add $2.5 billion to Canada’s bottom line, and our sitting to study this bill is less than two hours. I’m not sure how we can discharge our duty to the public as the house of sober second thought. I need to understand the substantive or technical reasons to rush this bill to Royal Assent by the end of this week.
Mr. Duclos: Thank you for the question. I might turn to the deputy minister for further information on the details that are related to the authorities needed not only to procure but also to pay for the procurement of those tests.
Let me be very clear. The competition for rapid tests is enormously strict in the global world. We have been successful but not as successful as we might have been over the last few months in accessing and delivering those rapid tests. We are in a global fight for those tests, which are still very rare. Not only is the demand for those tests very large, but the supply is still very limited. We need financial authorities to procure those tests in the most reasonable and efficient manner.
I know I’m speaking a bit too long to then turn to Deputy Minister Lucas, but if you want to do that, I can turn to him for further precision on the authorities needed to make that fight a successful one for Canadians.
The Chair: We would like to hear from Mr. Lucas.
Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister, Health Canada: Thank you, Madam Chair. Building on the comments of Minister Duclos, the rationale and urgency for considering this bill at this time is indeed because of the high demand globally. It’s critical that we make advance purchase arrangements — contracts — with suppliers for March and into April to secure those deliveries for Canadians. This demanding global market requires not only securing contracts but advance payment to suppliers — and to enable those contractual arrangements to be obtained and advance payments for those purchases — to secure deliveries in March and into April.
We do need the bill passed, which would provide that authority to enter into those contracts, make advance payments and manage it through into the next fiscal year. We do not have in our department and the public health agency, given this point in the fiscal year, sufficient existing authorities left to enter into those contracts. So we do require these funds as expressed in the bill.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Bovey: Thank you, minister, for being here. I have two questions, and I am going to put them both up front. My first question is regarding the distribution of rapid tests after they are procured by the Government of Canada. The Safe Restart Agreement mentions that the federal government, provinces and territories are working together with industry associations, non‑profits and other organizations to distribute rapid tests in workplaces to make them safer.
Where is the federal government today on the distribution of this new procurement of rapid tests to Canadians? Also, I know that according to the Safe Restart Agreement, provincial and territorial premiers have committed to share relevant information and data. Could you please update us as to what progress has been made in that regard?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you very much. I will invite the deputy minister, who might then turn later to one of the other deputy ministers, to provide details on the exact numbers around distribution and the exact uses of those rapid tests.
Basically, we have used two channels. The most important one has been through deliveries to provinces and territories. The vast majority of those tests have been received by provinces and territories, which were then able to distribute them to hospitals, schools, workplaces, public service places, industries, community groups and community organizations. That was the most important channel.
The federal government also made sure that we were delivering those tests to Indigenous communities, correctional services, the armed forces, the Red Cross, other partners, chambers of commerce, specific community organizations and specific pharmacies as well with which we had a privileged and effective relationship. That was the broad context.
For many months, the demand on the part of provinces and territories was relatively small. Between October 2020 and November 2021, provinces and territories were requesting on average 5 million to 6 million rapid tests per month, and that increased to 35 million in December and then to 140 million in January. As we heard just a moment ago, we are trying to keep that momentum going.
For precise details on the numbers and the uses, I will turn back to you, Deputy Minister Lucas, and see whether you want to call someone else at the same time.
The Chair: Deputy Minister Lucas, you have precisely two minutes. We have a lineup of senators, and we only have the minister for one hour.
Mr. Lucas: I will just briefly say that the federal government, in working out its collaborative arrangement with the provinces, is providing tests directly to large businesses, and is providing tests to small- and medium-sized businesses through pharmacies — as the minister mentioned — and, through the Canadian Red Cross and community organizations, to a variety of not-for-profit organizations — homeless shelters, for example.
I’ll turn to Cameron MacDonald, who is with us, to give a sense of the numbers and distribution of those tests.
Cameron MacDonald, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategy, Integration and Data, COVID-19 Testing Secretariat, Health Canada: Thank you Deputy, Madam Chair and Senator Bovey. Today we’ve delivered over 10 million rapid tests to large companies and small- and medium-sized enterprises. Deliveries through the CRC to vulnerable communities started a little after Christmas. We’ve delivered a little over 1 million — with a ramp-up to 3 million — a month. That shows the scale, and through the Safe Restart Agreement, we also have a contribution agreement with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which works with the provincial and territorial chambers of commerce to make sure that businesses receive tests through PT distribution models. Thank you.
Senator Bovey: Thank you.
Senator Poirier: Thank you, Minister, for being with us today and for the officials. Greatly appreciated.
Minister Duclos, on February 14 in the other place, you formally committed to report to Parliament every six months on the procurement, distribution and use of the rapid antigen tests. You said:
I completely agree that the Canadian government needs to be accountable. Again, I note the commitment we are making with the NDP member for New Westminster—Burnaby to report back every six months. Full reports on the cost, numbers and usage for the rapid tests will be released. . . .
While this is an important commitment, it is merely a verbal one. Minister Duclos, would you be amenable to a friendly amendment to Bill C-10, which would build in accountability and specify the reporting requirement in the bill?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you, Senator Poirier. I should also have mentioned earlier that I appreciate and am very grateful for the other questions.
That’s a commitment we have made and will maintain. Not only are we going to do this every six months, we’re going to do this every three months. This will be a report on the numbers and uses of those rapid tests that, obviously, senators will be entitled and deserve to receive. As you said, transparency is key in not only informing senators and members of Parliament but also informing Canadians. That’s what we will do, not only every six months but every three months.
Senator Poirier: Minister, in your various remarks on this bill, you referred to the rapid tests, and you did so again today in your remarks. In the bill, it just says “tests.” Why not be specific in the bill and say “rapid tests” and not just “tests”? Senator Seidman said in her speech that there is a difference in the efficiency of the different tests. So, again, why not be specific in the bill?
Mr. Duclos: That is an excellent question, too. There are, indeed, a large number of the so-called rapid tests. Some are rapid molecular tests, so you can do a PCR or molecular test using the technology rapidly. It takes 30 or 40 minutes to get a result.
Typically, when people think and speak of rapid tests, they think and speak of rapid antigen tests. Those are slightly less sensitive than molecular tests, but when viral loads are significant, they are usually very effective in detecting whether someone is infected with COVID-19.
So there is obviously a tradeoff between the speed of the result and the sensitivity of that result.
But as I said, the rate of precision of the rapid antigen tests that have been approved by Health Canada is very significant and makes the use of those tests very effective.
Senator Poirier: I have one more question. Minister, when you were in the chamber in early February, my colleague Senator Marshall asked you why there were no details on how the $2.5 billion will be spent. Your answer at the time, which was a non-answer, was that the rapid tests are important.
So I am asking this again: Why are there no details for the $2.5 billion in the spending that you are asking for this bill? And if you were an opposition member, would you accept that?
Mr. Duclos: The amount is to procure rapid antigen tests. As you kindly and correctly requested earlier, there will be a report every three months on the exact numbers and uses for those rapid tests. So it is a plan that is going to be documented and made transparent when the procurement and delivery — we need both the numbers and also the uses of those tests — when those are known, they will be shared transparently with senators and members of Parliament, and, therefore, with all Canadians.
Senator Poirier: Thank you, minister.
Senator Patterson: It is essential that we have the minister here today. I am glad he and his officials are here.
Minister, you were a former Treasury Board president, I know. There is a bill before the house, Bill C-8, that is implementing the economic and fiscal update. It’s got $1.723 billion in it for rapid tests. I understand the bill says that the amount will be for any expenses incurred after April 1, 2021.
So I would like to ask about Bill C-8, because it is another big expenditure on rapid tests that we will have to consider when it comes to the Senate. Has the money that’s in Bill C-8 been paid out, and is the bill to reimburse those funds?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you for the good and relevant question. There are indeed two bills: Bill C-8, which comes from the Fall Economic Statement, and Bill C-10, which is the one we are discussing now. Bill C-8 covers the procurement and, therefore, the payment of rapid tests until recently, and then Bill C-10 takes that onward for the weeks that have just passed and the weeks to come.
On exactly what financial authority that remains with the amount booked in Bill C-8, I will turn to the deputy minister in a moment, but these are complementary investments.
If we had spoken in November about rapid tests, Bill C-8 would probably have been a relevant, reasonable and responsible order of magnitude, but things have changed dramatically since November. We all know about Omicron now, and that’s why the demand for rapid tests in Canada, but also globally, has increased immensely, and that’s why we are now speaking on Bill C-10.
I will turn now briefly to Deputy Minister Lucas on the path of Bill C-10 and Bill C-8.
Mr. Lucas: In the interest of time, I will ask Serena Francis, our Chief Financial Officer, to provide the explanation in terms of the accounting for tests purchased in advance on the authority from Bill C-8.
Serena Francis, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Health Canada: Certainly. Thank you for the question.
The funding that was provided for or that is being sought in Bill C-8 has been cash-managed by departments as indicated so that we were able to advance those rapid test procurements for the first $1.7 billion. With that, we are able to ensure there is actually a supply. We have had to cash-manage from other resources within the department in order to do that, and passing Bill C-8 provides the ability to — at the time it was being tabled, it provides the ability to make those payments.
Since then, though, there has also been an introduction in Supplementary Estimates (C) to cover that as well.
So what we have to make sure of — and we are on top of that to make sure of it — that none of it is double-spent. Anything that is spent in the statutory authority automatically gets frozen by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in the appropriations.
Senator Patterson: So do I understand that Bill C-8 reimburses the government for money you have already spent? Then Bill C-10 allows you to retroactively collect for monies spent up to $2.5 billion after January 1, 2022. So is it $1.723 billion up until December and then $2.5 billion after? Do I understand that right?
Ms. Francis: Yes.
Senator Patterson: That’s good.
So I’m just wondering why we are being rushed. You will get the funds you need when the bill passes. You are getting the funds that you needed last year from Bill C-8, so what’s the rush?
We need time to study this bill, and make recommendations and maybe even make improvements. You’ll get the funds retroactively under this bill. Can’t we take the time to study it properly?
The Chair: I apologize. Your time is over. We may come back to you in the second round. I need to be fair to everyone.
[Translation]
Senator McPhedran: Minister Duclos, thank you for your efforts in this area. If the bill is passed, can you estimate when the tests will be made available to Canadians who need them?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you for this important question. It’s important to talk about the product, but more importantly about its usefulness and arrival. As I was saying earlier, 35 million rapid tests were distributed in December, which is about five times the previous average. We quadrupled the number of tests distributed between December and January to 140 million. Since February, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency have been working hard every day to get the maximum number of tests available on the world markets. Once received in Canada, these tests are immediately distributed to the provinces and territories or to partners such as chambers of commerce, Indigenous communities, correctional services and the Canadian Armed Forces, which the Government of Canada must also take care of. That’s 140 million tests in January, 35 million in December and several tens of millions in February. These tests will be delivered to our partners immediately.
I was reading just yesterday that seniors in British Columbia have easier access to rapid tests because of the latest deliveries from the Government of Canada.
Senator McPhedran: Can you tell us how you are going to ensure that the tests you receive as a result of this bill will be distributed fairly?
Mr. Duclos: This is also a great question and thank you for asking. There are two aspects to your question about fairness. There is fairness in the direct relationships between the Government of Canada and its partners, and fairness in the use and distribution of tests vis-à-vis the provinces and territories.
First, the Government of Canada has a special relationship with Indigenous communities. This is why a significant portion of the tests were delivered to Indigenous communities and leaders. We need to ensure that people who work and live in correctional settings, as well as people who work in the military and public service, have access to rapid testing. This issue of fairness, which falls directly under federal responsibility, is important.
Up to the end of December, the demand from provinces and territories varied. Some provinces were more ambitious in their requests for rapid tests, while others requested far less. This resulted in a kind of inequality across the country in terms of rapid test distribution. As of January 1, we have changed the system. The tests are now distributed on a per-capita basis. That means that, since the beginning of January, all provinces and territories have been receiving the same number of rapid tests per capita.
Senator McPhedran: Minister, to what extent will this bill support the government’s testing efforts in the face of this pandemic? Will the government need additional funding for it?
Mr. Duclos: Again, you asked a very good question. Screening took on a new meaning with the arrival of Omicron. As we know, molecular tests and PCR tests are considerably less accessible than before. That is why we are making sure that we better equip Canadians by providing them with rapid tests that they can do themselves, depending on the circumstances.
This is an individual responsibility. Each person has access to rapid tests at home and they will use them depending on their contacts and symptoms, which is a more effective method. If the test results are positive, the affected individual will take appropriate measures to protect their health and that of their loved ones.
[English]
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, minister and deputy minister, for being with us today. Minister, my question to you will be not only as a senator but as a physician and as someone who has just recovered from COVID and whose family has just recovered from COVID.
We know how important these tests are, but tests are only useful if people have them and are using them properly. We all know that we have had substantive problems across Canada in accounting for how these rapid tests have been distributed and how they’ve been used. There are huge differences across the country, in the provinces and territories. For example, I am from Nova Scotia, and we have done well with rapid tests; other provinces like this one, Ontario, have not.
There are substantive concerns about the responsibility and accountability in the distribution and utilization of rapid tests. Given this past reality, how can we know that all this new money will be used in a responsible and accountable way so that we will have comfort that the right person will get the test in the right place at the right time, and not just simply put more money into a distribution model that has proven to be ineffective in the past?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you very much, Senator Kutcher. You are correct. When I spoke a moment earlier about the different demands and different uses of rapid tests across Canada, I had in mind, as you mentioned, the example of Nova Scotia, which, in 2020 and 2021 made greater requests and greater uses of rapid tests. In fact, the example of Nova Scotia is not only something of which you can be legitimately proud as a Nova Scotian, but the example also helped other provinces advance more quickly when it came to fighting the Omicron crisis. So there is both a legitimate level of pride, and a source of gratitude for what took place in Nova Scotia earlier in the pandemic.
When it comes to accountability, responsibility and effectiveness of the use within a province of rapid tests, we are in a federation, obviously, and a federation has all sorts of advantages, but it also comes with different levels of governance. That’s why we have confidence in and support the work of provinces and territories when it comes to making sure that the use of those tests is the most efficient and the most equitable possible.
Now, they make their own decisions at the end, and they are accountable to their own citizens, but, again, we have conversations regularly. I think I’ve had eight or nine conversations with my colleagues, health ministers across Canada, and we speak openly about the importance of using these tests in a most responsible and equitable way. But at the end, it is for each province and territory to make its own decisions.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, minister. I appreciate the challenges of our federal system. I am wondering how Canadians can have comfort that there are new ways of looking at this to determine accountability. Is there not some way that the federal government, when you are giving all this brand new money, is going to say, “Well, we want to have some accountability from the provinces that you are actually using these tests in a way that is reasonable and is meeting the needs of Canadians”?
Mr. Duclos: And the answer is yes. We have been asking, and I think legitimately, for greater accountability, greater transparency on the part of provinces and territories in doing that. Now, of course, in the middle of a crisis, as we went through in December and January, when you need to do things rapidly, you want to create as few hurdles and backlogs as possible. So you need to do things quickly. But there was the understanding then and there is a clear signal now that we need accountability. We need data on the numbers and the uses, in part, as I said earlier, to be able to report transparently and responsibly to members of the Senate and the House of Commons.
Senator Lankin: Thank you, minister and officials, for being here. I have two questions. I want to probe further on the budgetary implications of this. I think you explained very well in response to Senator Patterson the $1.7 billion that came from Bill C-8 and now the $2.5 billion in Bill C-10.
Yesterday, at second reading, Senator Marshall, who is our guru on numbers accountability, raised the issue, as our National Finance Committee is meeting and considering Supplementary Estimates (C), that there are also two lines in there relevant to this conversation; one is $3.2 billion, and one is $750 million. So in Bill C-8 and Bill C-10, it is a little over $4 billion, and $3.2 billion and $750 million in Supplementary Estimates (C), it is a little under $2 billion.
In addition to that, we know that some provinces have purchased their own. I think there were 44 million purchased by Ontario, and 100 million purchased by Quebec.
What is the money in Supplementary Estimates (C) for? Is that an accounting for what is in Bill C-8 and Bill C-10? Could you tell me what the difference is, if not? Where provinces have gone out on their own initiatives and purchased, is there a rebate that goes to them? Does that come off the number that you are distributing to them? Is there any relationship, or is it just the provinces deciding to top up from their perspective of their population’s needs?
Mr. Duclos: Thank you, Senator Lankin. These are fair and fine questions. Let me first speak about the high-level question of the cost of those measures. Now, obviously $2.5 billion is a lot of money. That being said, the cost to the economy, to government revenues, never mind the cost in health and in lives, of not procuring and delivering rapid tests is enormously greater. We’ve seen hundreds of billions of dollars lost in income for families and businesses over the last few months because of COVID-19, 35,000 people dying and hundreds of thousands of people being hospitalized. Every person being hospitalized costs on average $23,000 if it’s because of COVID-19. These are big dollars. We need to think globally when we speak about those investments. Obviously, it is all borne by the federal government. There could be an argument that it should be paid by the provinces and territories. That is, perhaps, a different and later discussion to have.
When it comes to the other great questions you ask about the overlap or the complementarity between Bill C-8, Bill C-10 and Supplementary Estimates (C), I may turn to Mr. Lucas and see whether you may want to invite Ms. Francis.
Mr. Lucas: Thank you, minister. In response, I’ll again go back to an earlier point I made and then turn to Serena in a moment for a more technical explanation. Critically important is the ability, in the very competitive market for the rapid tests, to be able to purchase those in advance so we can purchase out through March and into April and beyond, as we need to do through the Bill C-10 funding. As noted, all of the flexibility we had to use existing authorities to do that in anticipation of the bills or the estimates passing has been exhausted, hence the urgency on Bill C-10.
To have maximum flexibility and recognizing the potential uncertainty in timing, the funding for Bill C-8 and Bill C-10 was put into the supplementary estimates. However, as Serena noted and I’ll turn to her momentarily, with the passage of Bill C-10, we would move immediately to finalize contracts and enable the advanced payments needed to secure and line up delivery of those tests. Any funds obtained through statutory authority, as proposed in Bill C-10, would be netted out of or frozen in the appropriations so there would be no double spending.
Senator McCallum: Thank you for meeting with us, minister. What is the data that supports that rapid tests do, indeed, keep people safe and healthy when the rapid tests depend on individuals to self-identify and these individuals may not follow health guidelines that we normally followed before COVID? Because you’re looking at people who are going against guidelines more so than before. Is there a possibility that people would need a test every day with the provinces having done away with their COVID guidelines? Thank you.
Mr. Duclos: Thank you very much. That’s a very valuable question. It’s about equity and protecting one’s health. That’s why I hear and I believe that the use of rapid tests can contribute both to better protection of one’s health and the health of those that we are in touch with, but also making sure it is a protection, it is an ability that is better available to many Canadians, including those that are typically more marginalized or more isolated or more afraid of traditional, formal health care settings.
Rapid tests can be taken at home. They can be taken at whatever time a person chooses to do so. It can be taken more frequently or less frequently, depending on when the person’s perception of the risk that he or she took or was exposed to. It’s also obviously something that can be transported easily, taken and removed in northern and isolated communities, as opposed to molecular PCR testing that typically requires heavier technology and is more expensive and complicated to take. It’s not only, as you suggested, something that can be efficient in terms of protecting the health of a person, depending on that person’s condition, but also something that can be accessed more equitably by people of different conditions.
Senator McCallum: I don’t know if you didn’t understand my question, but with some people who are doing the rapid tests, they do take them but that doesn’t mean they’re going to follow the guidelines. They’re still going to go out and infect other people. I do know students that are in that position and they did infect other university students. No one is monitoring the people who are taking the rapid tests.
Mr. Duclos: I’m sorry if I didn’t respond to that question clearly enough. That’s right, that’s correct. It empowers people. It gives them information on their health status, but you’re correct, it doesn’t force anyone to act after. That is something that is obviously difficult for the government to control at the individual level. In most cases, we believe people will do the right thing if they know that they are infected with COVID-19.
Senator Moodie: Thank you, Minister, for being here today. As we know, the antigen COVID-19 tests really detect proteins of the virus with variable success, depending on the variant. We are becoming more aware that there is an increased chance of false negative results with current variants, and it is possible to be infected with the virus and still have a negative result for many days. I can talk about this because it has happened in my family, where for three to four days we were symptomatic but testing negative every day with these antigen tests. The PCR test is still the most accurate, gold-standard test, but this is not what we’re providing here.
Minister, this is a significant investment, and you say the aim of this is to give individuals the ability to prevent exposure. Tell us, how will these tests be used effectively to guide practice, workplace decisions and decisions to prevent exposure? Will the false negativity rate be considered in your plan to provide guidance for individuals using the tests? How will these tests achieve the outcome that we want and their correct use? It seems to me that there is a good likelihood that a lot of money will be spent here for, perhaps, uncertain effective use of these tests?
Mr. Duclos: Very good, and thank you for the question. We all agree, I’m certain, that there is nothing perfect. All the tools that we’re using have limitations and they all have advantages. So rapid tests, like PCR testing, like wearing a mask, like being vaccinated — even being vaccinated doesn’t provide perfect protection against COVID-19 or perfect information on whether the person is infected. So there is no perfect tool. It’s a combination of tools that lead to a better ability for people to protect their health and the health of others.
So yes, PCR testing is more sensitive and will typically give a greater level of accuracy if you do carry the virus, but it is more expensive, it is more complicated to have and to find and it is increasingly more limited in provinces and territories.
So adding the availability of rapid tests empowers people further. You have done the right thing. If you are symptomatic, you stay home and you test yourself, and you do that repeatedly. That’s why, although you might not be tested positively the first time, if you are showing symptoms, if your viral load is significant, the rapid test will eventually find that out. In some cases, it finds it out quite quickly, because you might feel asymptomatic, but you might have a high viral load, which is going to be caught by the rapid test.
So it is all part of a broader, comprehensive public health package, which is complemented and improved by the greater availability of rapid tests.
Senator Moodie: As a physician, one of the things that concerns me here is the significant shift we have made away from guidelines and rules, leaving the decision making up to individuals. I’m hoping the plan is to actually provide clear guidance to people about the effectiveness of these tests and the best way to use these tests, because otherwise we are throwing a lot of money into the population where we actually are not going to see the outcomes we’re looking for.
Mr. Duclos: I agree totally that there must be clear guidance. That guidance needs to be provided and repeatedly provided. Canadians are all very busy with their lives and rarely can follow virology, epidemiology and immunology daily, as some of us do. We need to keep informing Canadians, as you correctly stated, to empower them to make the best decisions for themselves.
Senator Gold: Thank you, minister, for being here. I would like to build upon the question initially raised by Senator Patterson. My understanding is that by requesting both statutory and voted spending authorities, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada would have maximum flexibility to arrange for large-scale procurement of test kits, particularly, as you pointed out, that the demand for rapid tests has increased and will inevitably increase. Therefore, might I ask you and your officials to comment as to why it is important that Bill C-10 receive Royal Assent in a timely fashion and how it will complement and work in tandem with the funding allocations in Bill C-8 as well as in Supplementary Estimates (C) to meet the provincial and territorial demands that the government is facing? Thank you, minister.
Mr. Duclos: Thank you, Senator Gold. I will turn to Deputy Minister Lucas in a moment.
I think everyone feels and hears the need for rapid tests in the incredibly difficult period of our history that we are living through, and that is going to continue. COVID-19 is not going to disappear suddenly. It is going to be with us for a long time with most likely new waves and new variants, so rapid tests are here to stay. So the demand, and then the supply — as you correctly reminded us, the supply is very tense. The global demand for rapid tests is extremely strong. We are competing and fighting with many other countries. Both in terms of the availability and the conditions under which we can have access to rapid tests depend on our financial and procurement authorities. If we want to get the best price possible for the best possible tools at the best possible time, we need to have the right tools to do so.
Speaking therefore about the authorities and the tools that we’ll need, I’ll turn to Deputy Minister Lucas to answer Senator Gold’s question more specifically.
Mr. Lucas: Thank you, minister.
In regard to Bill C-8, those funds were for tests purchased in December through January and into February. We had some flexibility to charge against, so that will enable reimbursement of those funds.
For Bill C-10, the urgency is our ability to be able to contract and secure through advance payment contracts heading out into the end of March, April and into May. Global competition remains stiff, and our ability to secure those supplies requires that lead time. Hence, the passage of Bill C-10 on an urgent basis will allow us to be able to secure those contracts in the coming weeks in advance of the passage of supplementary estimates — hence during March — and enable the advance payment which suppliers are looking for to allow for the provision of those tests and to have those tests be delivered in the next fiscal year, into April and May, as I noted.
Senator Gold: Just so that I understand as clearly as possible, do I take it, minister or deputy minister, that were we not to pass Bill C-10 or until such time as Bill C-10 is passed, that that would result in the inability of the government to take the steps necessary to enter into contracts and purchase the tests that the provinces and territories are currently asking for? Otherwise put, would delays in passing Bill C-10 reduce the number of tests available to provinces and territories in the near term?
Mr. Duclos: I would answer very briefly that it would certainly come with a greater risk and a greater cost to the Government of Canada, because if we don’t have the authority and the tools to work in the fierce global system then not only is it less likely that we will get these tests in a period where there is still very high demand for those tests in Canada, but it is also likely that both the financial conditions and the delivery conditions will be weakened by this inability to compete fiercely with our global competitors.
Senator Dasko: Thank you, minister and officials, for being here today. My question is a bit of a follow-up on Senator Kutcher’s question related to accountability issues. Minister, you mentioned data collection as part of a process of distributing tests. So can you tell me whether data collection is actually built into the agreements that you reach with provinces with respect to these tests? Can you tell me if you have standard data collection protocols for all provinces, or do you do the data collection on bilateral or provincially specific data in terms of the variables that are collected?
I know this has been an issue in the past with the Safe Restart Agreement and many other agreements that the federal government has with provinces in terms of data collection. I wonder if you could just describe how you deal with the data collection and maybe the kinds of variables that you are collecting with respect to the distribution of tests. Thank you.
Mr. Duclos: Thank you. That’s an excellent question. I will turn to Deputy Minister Lucas. Before I do that, let me say that these conversations come at two levels. I have those conversations with my colleagues — health ministers across Canada — and the expectations and the demands are identical because we all sit in the same forum. Everything is multilateral in a sense, so the same benefits and the same rules that govern and impact our common environment. But I’ll turn to Deputy Minister Lucas for the precise ways in which that is done at the officials level.
Mr. Lucas: Thank you, minister.
So indeed, senator, the initial requirements for data sharing were outlined in the Safe Restart Agreement, and provinces undertook to support that. We’ve been working month by month, and literally week by week, with provinces in the past year and a half in terms of rapid tests to share our best practices but also to convey the data fields we were seeking and continue to seek. I routinely do that at the deputy minister level — common to all provinces but through specific engagement with each — to understand and confirm the number of tests that they received upon shipment, where they’re being deployed and how they’re being used and to verify inventories — to elaborate, use cases such as use in long-term care facilities, the health care system, schools, colleges and universities, workplaces or for the general public.
A representation of that information has been provided on an ongoing basis on Health Canada’s website. So it is an area where we continue to work with provinces and territories to have a better understanding and better support their needs through understanding uses and the volumes of tests being used.
The Chair: Thank you, minister and deputy minister. Before we go on to the second round, I would like to confirm, minister, that you and your officials are able to stay for another 10 minutes.
Mr. Duclos: I think I can stay for another 10 minutes.
The Chair: That’s very kind of you.
Senator Lankin: I’d like to continue to pursue the issue of data collection.
Let me tell you, I support this bill. I support the allocation of the dollars and the purchase of these tests, but there is a lot of noise around it that concerns me. I don’t know what data we receive and how it is used — what’s useful about it — other than X number of tests went to a province and they distributed to this college or that long-term care home, whatever. Since the advent of Omicron and we stopped PCR testing, and we leave it to individuals now and we count what’s happening by hospitalizations, we really have no idea of what’s going on.
I shouldn’t say that; that’s a broad overstatement, sorry. But we don’t have an idea of penetration and usage. For example, at a Shoppers Drug Mart, I got the box. There are five tests in it. I have had it for a week, and my intent is that when I leave Ottawa before going home that I will test myself that morning. I’m asymptomatic but I’ll use it for that purpose. There will be four more there. I don’t know when I’ll use the next one.
How they get used and what benefit that is providing us into the system is very hard for us to track. Since we don’t have PCR testing, we don’t have actual numbers of infections anymore.
Let me just leave it at that. I’m concerned about the data — what we know and how it’s used — and whether we’re looking — this is where I was going to go — at a future when we might need PCR tests again if there is a new variant that is more like Delta than Omicron.
Mr. Duclos: Thank you. That is a very good set of questions.
Let me speak of surveillance. You’re entirely right: We have fewer PCR tests, and those being used are used in a manner that is more focused on some environments and therefore less representative of the total population. Fortunately, the Public Health Agency of Canada and other organizations and partners across Canada are investing in surveillance, including wastewater surveillance, which is very powerful and less costly, and is therefore quite useful when it comes to decreasing the transmission, which is a second thing. Omicron is much more transmissible than the original variant and more transmissible than any other variant prior to it. So transmission, as we saw in the last few weeks, is key. Because rapid tests enable people to know whether they’re infected, they’re better able to reduce transmission and therefore protect their community.
So when it comes to the exact benefit of the rapid tests, it is an extremely important question but difficult to answer. It is a combination of many difficult things. We’ve seen an important decrease in the number of cases and certainly hospitalizations over the last few weeks. By how much that is due to the increased use of rapid tests, to the fact that vaccination booster doses have increased, that there is now post-infection immunity which is more spread — which of these factors contributes to the reduction in cases and hospitalizations, you’re right that we don’t really know. We do know, however, that reducing transmission comes in part from enabling people to know whether they are infected with COVID.
Senator Poirier: Minister, thank you again for being here. In the house, you had agreed to reporting every six months and, now tonight, you’re talking every three months. What accounts for the change to every three months?
Mr. Duclos: That came from a reasonable request from an opposition party in the House of Commons. They said that six months is good but three months is better. We considered that request and felt that, in collaboration with provinces and territories, it would be even better to do it in that relatively shorter time period.
Senator Poirier: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Senator McPhedran: I can’t resist asking this question, and I’m not going to inflict my French on you, minister; I’ll ask it in English.
Almost 90% of eligible Canadians have received their first dose. We have about 80% who are fully vaccinated. Low-income countries are under 10% of a first vaccination. I know this bill is about residents in Canada, but we all know the truth: We’re not going to solve it inside our borders. Minister, could you comment, please?
Mr. Duclos: Very gladly. Thank you for the question.
According to the WHO, the World Health Organization, approximately 60% of the world population is now vaccinated, but as you suggested, there is a big discrepancy between the rates of middle- and higher-income countries and the rates of vaccination for lower-income countries, particularly in Africa.
The WHO’s target is to vaccinate about 70% of the total world population by mid-2022, which should be achievable, given that we’re already at 60%. We might all think it should be achievable. The problem now, and it’s becoming better known and better understood, is that it’s not the vaccines themselves; it’s the actual ability of lower-income countries to receive, store, distribute and administer those vaccine doses. Combine that with infrastructure constraints, which is both about the machinery, the needed physical infrastructure but also the human resources infrastructure needed to administer those doses. In many contexts, there is a high level of vaccine hesitancy. People are afraid —
Senator McPhedran: We’re running out of time, sir. Is there more money coming from Canada for the COVAX program?
Mr. Duclos: There are two things. Canada was there at the start of COVAX, and Canada has been and continues to be one of the leading contributors to COVAX, despite the fact that we’re smaller than many other larger countries. We will continue to be there, because, as has been said, we don’t end COVID-19 anywhere if we don’t end it everywhere.
Senator Patterson: Minister, I understood you said you had purchased 520.5 million rapid tests. How many have been used or deployed of that 520.5 million, and how many more do you now need?
Mr. Duclos: That is a great question and for a good answer I’ll turn immediately to Mr. MacDonald, who probably knows the answer.
Mr. MacDonald: Thank you, senator. There have been well over 200 million tests deployed across Canada. We have provincial-territorial channels. We also have federal channels. And we have shipments going out to provinces and territories all the time. It is difficult to give a distinct answer when there is data coming back every week from provinces and territories.
In terms of the levels required, the current demand, in January we allocated 140 million. The demand was much higher than that, and it remains extremely high. Our projections for Bill C-10 were to see us for a minimum of three months, when we expect a waning in the demand. There will be enough rapid tests in the hands of Canadians, in the provinces and territories, and enough for us to keep a strategic supply.
Senator Patterson: How many tests will you get from Bill C-10?
Mr. MacDonald: We’re estimating now a minimum of 400 million tests for the Bill C-10 financing.
We will obviously, as Deputy Minister Lucas and Minister Duclos mentioned, be working with PSPC to enter into contracts that will get us the best value for money with the funding available.
The Chair: Thank you, very much. Minister, we thank you for your participation here today and your readiness to answer all our questions, and of course, thank you to your officials.
We are wondering, colleagues, if we can ask the officials to stay for 10 more minutes before we proceed to the rest of our agenda. Is it possible for the deputy minister and his staff to stay for 10 more minutes if there are additional questions? If anyone here feels their question was not fully answered, here is our opportunity.
Senator Patterson: If the officials are available, Madam Chair, I’m just trying to follow up the question I just asked. Canada got 520 million tests for $3.8 billion. When you add Bill C-8 at $1.723 billion, and Bill C-10 at $2.5 billion, we get $4.223 billion. I’m wondering why we’re projecting fewer tests. The answer was 400 million, and yet we spent $3.8 billion to buy 520.5 million tests. Why is it costing so much? It seems to be costing so much more to get fewer tests.
Mr. Lucas: As I had indicated earlier, with the tabling of the fall economic update and the government’s commitment for $1.7 billion, which was then contained in the tabling of Bill C-8, the government, using financial flexibility, including in Health Canada and the Public Health Agency, procured tests against that to support deliveries in December, January and February. As such, those funds have all been spent and, with the passage of Bill C-8, would be reimbursed against those funding sources.
The incremental new tests that would be obtained with the $2.5 billion that’s associated with Bill C-10, as Mr. MacDonald just indicated, would be approximately 400 million based on our estimate of the contract value obtained with the $2.5 billion.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you, Mr. Lucas, for staying and to your staff for staying the extra time. I know how much work you and your team have been under during this pandemic, and we very much appreciate that.
I have a slightly different question than might be expected. Procurement for these tests is global. What proportion of the procurement done by Canada is from Canadian sources — not Canadian middlemen, but directly from Canadian producers? What attempts, if any, have been made by the Canadian government to increase the proportion of tests that are achieved from Canadian sources directly?
Mr. Lucas: I will respond starting with your latter question. The Government of Canada, going back to the spring of 2020, through investments in Innovation, Science and Economic Development and the National Research Council, as part of its overall made-in-Canada program, has been supporting the development of Canadian technologies, including rapid tests. One Canadian company, Artron, out of British Columbia, has successfully received regulatory approval and is a supplier of rapid tests with delivery starting in January of this year.
Other Canadian companies who have received support through the National Research Council and Innovation, Science and Economic Development are in regulatory review with the potential for approval and becoming suppliers as well.
Part of our overall strategy is to support Canadian production as part of that supply mix and improve our security of supply.
The Chair: Senator Gold, you get the last question and then we need to let our hard-working public officials leave.
Senator Gold: Thank you so much, officials. I just want to make sure that I understand your answer to Senator Patterson’s very legitimate question. Do I understand correctly that, in fact, it is not the case that we add the $2.5 billion contemplated in Bill C-10 to the $1.7 billion in Bill C-8 — monies that I think you explained were actually spent through other authorities? Please tell me if I am correct that it is incorrect to assume we are getting fewer tests for the money. Because, in fact, we are not spending $2.5 billion plus $1.7 billion for the 400 million, but we are only talking about the $2.5 billion that we would need to meet the anticipated demands in this month and in the months to come. Am I correct in that reading of your answer?
Mr. Lucas: That is correct.
Senator Gold: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Deputy Minister Lucas and staff. We do appreciate your staying a little extra to help us understand a little more.
Colleagues, are there any objections that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10, An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19?
Senator Patterson: Madam Chair, may I raise my strong objection and why? First of all, it is not the usual practice to have clause-by-clause right on the heels of witnesses, especially on a government bill. We need time to study the transcript and determine if questions were raised that were not answered. The reason we hold clause-by-clause later is to study and allow for the opportunity to prepare amendments and observations.
This bill is very significant. We haven’t even had the benefit of our usual independent Library of Parliament briefing notes.
So I want to put those strong concerns on the record, Madam Chair.
The Chair: Very much so, Senator Patterson. They will be on the record.
Let me revert to my question: Are there any objections that the committee proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-10, An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19?
Senator Patterson: Well, I object.
The Chair: You object, Senator Patterson. Shall we proceed on division?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chair: Are there any objections that the title stand postponed? If none, it is agreed.
Are there any objections that clause 1 carry? On division.
Are there any objections that clause 2 carry? On division.
Are there any objections that the title carry? If none, it is agreed.
Are there any objections that the bill carry? On division.
Does the committee wish to consider appending observations to this report? If so, the committee will proceed in camera to discuss the text of such observations.
(The committee continued in camera.)
(The committee resumed in public.)
The Chair: Honourable senators, if there are no objections, is it is agreed that I report this bill, with observations, to the Senate? Hearing no objections, it is carried.
There being no other business, honourable senators, this meeting is adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)