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View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you.
Minister, in Winneway, Chief Steeve Mathias has been negotiating with the federal government for several years to have his community recognized as a reserve within the meaning of the Indian Act. Even though no one here likes that act and it is kind of a perfect example of systematic discrimination, it has to be admitted that such recognition could allow the community to get better funding and to get public utilities. In this case, the problem revolves around the Oblate lands.
Can you tell us where the negotiations with this community are, whether about creating a new reserve or signing an agreement that would allow them to take back their territory?
View Carolyn Bennett Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
It is very important for us, as a government, to speed up the progress toward self-determination. This is very important, and I think that after this meeting, I would like to discuss this community specifically and the facts relating to it.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Yes, in two seconds.
Lastly, I want to discuss an issue that's essential to first nations communities—water. Ensuring that first nations communities have reliable access to clean water is a key goal for us. As of June 9, first nations, with support from Indigenous Services Canada, have lifted 107 long-term water advisories since 2015, at which date there were 105 in effect. In 2019, we've increased that support funding for operations and maintenance, which is a key demand of first nations—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thanks, Chair.
In 2019 and 2020, we increased funding to support the operations and maintenance of wastewater systems. With these increases, by 2025-26, over $400 million per year in permanent funding will be provided, which is four times what's been allocated since 2016. That will be key and transformative to their maintaining the lifespan of these key infrastructure assets in communities and securing clean water for everyone. These added funds will have that tangible effect that I've mentioned and will contribute to safe water and safe and healthy communities.
I want to thank all of you again for this community. Now I am quite happy to take any and all questions.
Meegwetch. Nakurmiik. Mahsi cho. Thank you.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for being here today. As you know, we always appreciate your time.
Minister, you know that I'm all about talking about about outcomes and results and some of those kinds of things. We've had this conversation before.
I have a couple of quick questions up front. I will ask you to be brief in your answers so that I can get to the substance of another couple of questions after that.
You department has committed $43.7 million over five years “to co-develop a legislative framework” for first nations policing that recognizes first nations policing as “an essential service”. We recently completed a study on exactly that. When we had officials from four different departments at committee, not a single one of those people could actually define what “policing as an essential service” was. Would it frustrate you that nobody from the department actually had a definition of what we're aiming for?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I think, MP Vidal, that it's frustrating to indigenous communities who have been.... Again, when I spoke about things that we take for granted, certainly people who look like me take policing for granted.
There's an element in here that's important to highlight. My department deals with a sort of companion aspect of policing as an essential service, as a relationship partner with Public Safety. The bulk of that will be led by Minister Bill Blair, firstly as he continues to fund the first nations policing program, but then to expand it and do the consultation work necessary to define and reflect the needs of communities, whether it's the treaty areas or anywhere across Canada that where that service is needed for the health and safety of communities, and foremost for women and children as a key response to the MMIW calls for justice and the TRC report.
Yes, absolutely, it's frustrating, but there is also an aspect of this where we need that input from communities, to keep working with communities and putting forth a piece of legislation that will recognize that essential service.
The part that I'm responsible for, to be clear and—
View Arnold Viersen Profile
CPC (AB)
The boil water advisories continue to be a challenge for the federal government. Your government promised they would be dealt with a year ago. We are seeing more communities come onto boiled water advisories again.
On what day will we be out of the bush on that?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I encourage you to look at the revamped website. We had some assistance from a great indigenous organization so that every Canadian could see the progress of those.
Let's recall that in 2015, there were 105 long-term water advisories in effect. We've lifted 107. This is an immense amount of progress. Work remains to be done. A lot of the communities, despite having lost the construction year due to COVID, have pushed through. We've announced additional funding.
When we've put out a date, a lot of communities have asked us where we will be after that date because the trust that I mentioned earlier is so thin vis-à-vis the federal government. It's why in November, we announced additional operations and maintenance money and acceleration funds for those communities where the cost has gone up, looking beyond lifting a long-term water advisory, which, I will remind the committee, is done by the nation themselves.
While it may seem easy to lift an advisory, the community will sometimes hesitate legitimately. If you've been on it for 25 years, you can legitimately think you're going to take your time before making that decision because it's about the health of the community.
These things do take time. We have a commitment to communities that we will be there for them.
View Arnold Viersen Profile
CPC (AB)
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I don't know if I can give you an answer today. I expect none of them turn to long term, but it's a community-by-community analysis.
You hit the nail on the head on that one. We've lifted 100-plus.... For 182 short-term water advisories, we've made the investment sufficient so they don't turn to long term ones. That means the safety of water in communities.
We need to take a look at water safety from a perspective that is greater than simply building the building, lifting the long-term water advisory and walking away from this. This is about partnership and making sure that asset has a long-term lifespan, is at the height of its technology and works for the community. That means training people at the grass roots, in the spirit of self-determination with the funds of the federal government to support it, so they are what they are, which is the pride of their community, getting water to the people.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is this.
Mr. Miller, you recently unveiled a map on your department's website that identifies the indigenous communities that do not have access to clean drinking water. However, there is one indigenous community that does not appear on that map that also does not have clean drinking water, and that is Kitcisakik, which is in my riding.
Why is Kitcisakik invisible?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
With respect to Kitcisakik, negotiations are underway with the province about moving the community. Obviously, during these discussions about moving, we will still be here for that community.
In Quebec, there is no boil water advisory, and that is the result of the hard work we have done over the years. For identifying a community that comes under what is called federal jurisdiction, in particular, we count the public drinking water systems that have at least five residential connections.
View Kelly Block Profile
CPC (SK)
I call this meeting to order and once again welcome Ms. Vignola, who is joining us in place of her colleague.
Welcome to meeting number 35 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The committee is meeting in public today for the first hour, which will be televised, and will move in camera for the second hour to discuss committee business.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is meeting today to receive a briefing from the Auditor General concerning the reports that were tabled in the House on Thursday, May 26, 2021, which were referred to this committee.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. Therefore, members may be attending in person in the room or remotely, by using the Zoom application. It would appear that we are all attending virtually today.
On that note, interpretation services are available for this meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of either “Floor”, “English” or “French”. Before speaking, click on the microphone icon to activate your own mike. When you are done speaking, please put your mike on mute to minimize any interference. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the use of headsets with a boom microphone is mandatory for everyone participating remotely.
Again, should any technical challenges arise, please do advise the chair. Note that we may need to suspend for a few minutes in that case, as we want to ensure all members are able to fully participate.
I'd now like to welcome our witnesses.
Joining us today from the Office of the Auditor General are Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada; Glenn Wheeler, principal; and Jean Goulet, principal.
Welcome.
I will turn the floor over to Ms. Hogan.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:06
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I am pleased to discuss our audit reports, which were tabled in the House of Commons on May 26.
I am accompanied by Jean Goulet and Glenn Wheeler, the principals who were responsible for the audits.
The first of the audit reports considers how the government acquired protective and medical equipment during the pandemic. The second looks at how Indigenous Services Canada provided the protective equipment and health care workers that indigenous communities and organizations needed to respond to COVID-19.
Both audits showed that there were issues in planning and stockpile management before the pandemic. For example, in our audit on procuring personal protective equipment and medical devices, we found that before the pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada had not addressed long-standing and known issues with the systems and practices used to manage and operate the national emergency strategic stockpile.
The Agency knew of these issues because they had been raised in audits and reviews going back more than a decade. As a result, the Public Health Agency of Canada was not as prepared as it should have been to deal with the surge in requests for equipment from the provinces and territories triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In our other audit, we found that Indigenous Services Canada had not followed its own approach to procure sufficient equipment. As a result, it did not have enough of some types of protective equipment in its stockpile when the pandemic broke out.
However, both these audits also showed agility and responsiveness.
Overall, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada helped address the needs of provincial and territorial governments for personal protective equipment and medical devices. Indigenous Services Canada did the same for indigenous communities and organizations. Faced with a crisis, these organizations worked around their outstanding issues with the management and oversight of the emergency equipment stockpiles and adapted their activities.
For example, during the pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada improved how it assessed needs and allocated equipment to help meet the demand for personal protective equipment and medical devices from the provinces and territories. It also outsourced much of the warehousing and logistical support needed to deal with the exceptional volume of purchased equipment.
Similarly, Health Canada reacted to the increased demand created by the pandemic by modifying its management of license applications from suppliers for personal protective equipment and medical devices.
Public Services and Procurement Canada also made adjustments by accepting some risks to facilitate the quick purchase of large quantities of equipment in a highly competitive market where supply was not always keeping pace with demand.
If the departments had not adapted their approaches to the circumstances, it is likely that the government would not have been able to acquire the volume of equipment that was needed.
Indigenous Services Canada also adapted quickly to respond to the pandemic and relied on the national emergency strategic stockpile to fill pre-existing shortages of items in its own stockpile, such as gloves and hand sanitizers.
The department supplied indigenous communities and organizations when provinces and territories were unable to provide them with personal protective equipment. The department also expanded access to its stockpile beyond those directly supporting the delivery of health services to include police officers and people in communities who were sick with COVID-19 or caring for sick family members.
Indigenous Services Canada also streamlined its processes for hiring nurses in remote or isolated First Nations communities and made its contract nurses and paramedics available to all indigenous communities to respond to additional health care needs due to COVID-19. While the department took steps to increase capacity, the number of requests for extra nurses and paramedics also increased. As a result, the department was unable to meet more than half of the 963 requests for extra nurses and paramedics that it received between March 2020 and March 2021.
Our audits of the government's pandemic response continue to show that when the people who make up the federal public service are faced with a crisis, they are able to rally and focus on serving the needs of Canadians.
However, these audits also show that issues forgotten or left unaddressed have a way of coming back, typically at the worst possible time.
Canada was not as well prepared to face the pandemic as it would have been if the stockpile of emergency equipment had been better managed and if a long-term solution had been put in place for health care workers, such as nurses, in indigenous communities.
If there is one overall lesson to learn from this pandemic, it is that government departments need to take action to resolve long-standing issues and to see the value in being better prepared for a rainy day.
Madam Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We are pleased to answer questions.
Thank you.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good morning and welcome, Ms. Hogan. My thanks to you and to the members of your staff for joining us again.
Ms. Hogan, I will focus on some of the things you said in your presentation. You said that the Public Health Agency of Canada was definitely aware of the issues, as they had previously been raised in audits and reviews over the past decade. The same is true for Indigenous Services Canada.
Don't you think you had a unique opportunity to demonstrate the importance of the reports of the various auditors general over the years, and the negative effects that are generated when agencies, departments and services do not follow those recommendations? It seems to me that you either did not make that point in the report you presented, or that you did so timidly.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:14
I am certainly concerned about that. These days, it seems like every report that I submit is about issues that have been around for a long time and that the government has not addressed. In our reports related to the pandemic, I have tried to strike a balance to show that the public service was taking action and responding to the needs of Canadians.
That said, you are absolutely right. My message is very similar to the one I delivered when I tabled my report on pandemic preparedness in March. To me, it shows that the government must now recognize the need to invest in things that we don't see.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
Exactly, we must invest in things that we don't see, but that we absolutely must have in hand.
What I would have liked to see in your report is the consequences for not following the recommendations. I'm sure you can tell me why this was not included. There were delays and the Public Health Agency of Canada was not sufficiently prepared, despite repeated warnings. But what was the real impact on Canadians? Unfortunately, this is not described very well in the report I have before me.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:16
It is difficult to demonstrate the impact in some areas. We don't know whether the response would have been different if the government had been better prepared.
I can confirm that the requests for personal protective equipment made from February until mid-March, before the government looked at mass procurement, were difficult to meet. A fraction of those requests were met. It was very difficult to determine what was missing from the national emergency strategic stockpile, because they had never established a minimum quantity of pandemic supplies. So we focused on the continuing improvement of the response.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:17
Perhaps I'll ask Mr. Goulet to add some detail. I know that we have determined the percentage of requests that were met. For example, at the beginning of the pandemic, in February, one province requested over 500,000 masks, and I believe they received between 4% and 10% of the masks requested. So we put a number on some of the shortfalls, but it was impossible to determine an overall percentage.
Mr. Goulet, do you want to add anything?
Jean Goulet
View Jean Goulet Profile
Jean Goulet
2021-06-01 11:17
We have specific numbers on the requests that were made by the provinces and territories and on what the Public Health Agency of Canada provided at that time. I can provide you with those numbers.
Having said that, the percentage that Ms. Hogan provided is good. The Agency's response rate to requests is between 6% to 10%.
View Luc Berthold Profile
CPC (QC)
I would really like you to provide us with this information. I think it's very important.
Ms. Hogan, you'll understand that our mandate at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is to study your reports and recommendations. It is really starting to get my back up, to see that long-standing requests and recommendations are being given so little consideration.
As I mentioned at the outset, when it comes to exceptional situations, public servants are indeed exceptional in their ability to react. However, why is this capacity not as evident when there is no crisis? Always waiting until there is a crisis to react has created problematic situations.
So I would like to get this information on the government's response to requests as quickly as possible.
Ms. Hogan, I don't know if you intend to go any further, but I could have said the same thing about Indigenous Services Canada.
I think it's important to illustrate that your recommendations are helpful. The current situation clearly shows the need for departments to follow some, if not all, of your recommendations.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:19
Thank you very much for your comments. Yes, we will provide you with that information.
We tried something different in these two audits: we did a real-time audit. We found shortcomings, and that certainly caused a slower response from the government. However, rather than waiting until the end of the crisis to comment on what happened, we wanted to try to influence the government's response to the ever-changing pandemic. We felt it was value-added for the country and for Canadians.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank the public servants and the department for their excellent work and their agility in being able to handle some of the quick movements that were needed to fulfill some of the PPE issues. I think it's important to note that.
I'll go back to the real-time audits, and this is for Ms. Hogan. What was the advantage of doing these audits in real time?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:20
There are advantages and disadvantages to doing real-time audits. One of the disadvantages is that individuals are very busy still trying to respond to the pandemic. Hence, we do need to make some difficult decisions about scoping and how far we dig on some issues. The biggest advantage in such an approach to auditing is being able to have a direct influence and impact on the ever-evolving response to the pandemic.
For example, we were able to make some recommendations to Public Services and Procurement Canada about adjusting some of their approaches and some of the risks they were taking in bulk procurement to hopefully influence and improve the response going forward. As we know, we're in wave three. There is speculation that more waves are to come. If we could help influence the response, we wanted to take advantage of that.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
It's important to be able to react faster and make improvements.
Other than the stockpiling issues, what are some of the long-standing issues that could have been taken care of to be better prepared for the next pandemic?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:22
I'll try to answer that by talking about some of the long-standing issues in the two reports.
I'll start with the first audit. In it, we looked at the Public Health Agency of Canada's management of the national emergency strategic stockpile and its response to the pandemic going forward. There were a few things I would highlight.
One would be making an assessment of a standard or basic level of certain types of equipment to be maintained in the stockpile to deal with a health crisis in the future. Another is fixing the IT system that supports that stockpile. We saw many weaknesses in not being able to track expiry dates and issues in even identifying what was in the stockpile. It's really about taking the time to do all of that in between crises instead of doing it in reactive mode and really not fixing those long-standing issues and just finding a better response in the context of the current environment.
That would be that first report.
If I turn to the Indigenous Services Canada report, I would highlight the fact that there have been long-standing difficulties in trying to secure skilled health care workers in indigenous communities. A solution needs to be found there, because the pandemic just made a bad situation worse.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
Why do you feel that some of the lessons from SARS and H1N1—the swine flu—maybe hadn't been learned and retained and used as a base in order to prepare for this pandemic?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:23
I would point to two items I've noticed in this series of audits. When we looked at pandemic preparedness, I might have pointed to other matters, but here I would talk about the drive of short-term thinking, of dealing with the current things on the table versus that long-term view and, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, really planning for a rainy day. I think that's a natural tension between Parliament and government. We need to recognize that the federal public service has to always make sure that they keep their eye on the long-term thinking and do all that behind-the-scenes work.
The second thing I would point to here is that in reviewing internal documents and also in talking to officials, we found that the Public Health Agency cited budget constraints and limitations that limited their ability to deal with some of these issues and also to restock the stockpile when it had been used.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
On the topic of oversight of third party warehousing and logistics, it stated that one of the reasons third party service providers were sometimes unable to fulfill their contractual obligations was incomplete information from suppliers. How does your recommendation address this?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:25
We did provide a recommendation there about how enforcing the terms of contracts is essential. The federal public service spends a lot of time making sure that there are good clauses in the contracts; enforcing them is essential.
Here, the third party warehouses didn't always have accurate information from the suppliers and hence couldn't document what was in the inventory and what was being received and shipped, but there were also limitations in the Public Health Agency's inventory management system that contributed to the ongoing inability to have a complete record over the pandemic.
It's about enforcing those rules, but it's also about making sure that you have an IT system that supports a really important program. In this case, it's the national emergency strategic stockpile.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
In your opening remarks, there was also a reference to Public Services and Procurement Canada making adjustments by accepting some risk to facilitate the quick purchase of large quantities of equipment in a highly competitive market where supply was not always keeping pace with demand.
What kinds of risks were deemed acceptable?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:26
All right. I will do my best.
I would highlight just two things. One would be invoking the national security exception, which allows for non-competitive processes. The second would be accepting the risk of making advance payments in order to secure equipment to replenish the stockpile and deal with provinces' and territories' requests.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Hogan, Canada has warehouses built to store equipment should the provinces and territories need it. A few weeks before the pandemic began, thousands of apparently expired masks were thrown away.
To your knowledge, does Canada have a schedule or system for tracking equipment, as any company does if they don't want to throw their money out the window or into the landfill?
In its procurement strategy, has Canada found ways to ensure that, in the future, it won't be dependent on foreign countries to meet its needs?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:27
You raise one of the shortcomings we found in our audit, that the electronic inventory management system for the national emergency strategic stockpile was not effective. The government could not track the expiry dates of certain equipment stored in the Reserve Force and was therefore unable to act if necessary.
We recommend that the government put in place a comprehensive process to better manage the reserves, and that requires technology that provides data to make good decisions. We could not find out why the government did what it did, but we know that there was some very important data missing.
We found that, during the pandemic, the government tried to use Canadian suppliers, but that there was a lack of personal protective equipment suppliers in Canada. We didn't really look at how the government had expanded that market. As I mentioned on the day I tabled my report, this is something I will look into in the future, as it will help us determine whether Canada has positioned itself well and is better prepared for a future crisis by ensuring that we have Canadian suppliers.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you.
On January 30, the WHO announced the health emergency represented by the coronavirus. In early March, the WHO declared a shortage of medical equipment.
What preventive measures did Canada take between January 30 and early March?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:29
Between January 30 and early March, the provinces and territories began making requests for equipment. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, the government attempted to meet these needs, but could not meet them fully.
In early March, the government began a transition to mass procurement. Public Services and Procurement Canada created a procurement team to support this initiative. After March, work continued on how to best assess needs and make the necessary equipment purchases.
The process was very reactive initially, as the government was just trying to get equipment to meet the needs.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Canada sent tons of medical equipment to China to help it in its own fight against the coronavirus. Isn't it strange that Canada would send equipment to the country that succeeded and continues to succeed in supplying equipment to the entire world?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:31
We haven't really looked at what the government has done for humanitarian purposes. However, I pointed out in my March report that the government did not have the necessary tools to more accurately determine the risk that COVID-19 posed to our country. Perhaps that explains the initiatives it has taken. In any event, we didn't look at the humanitarian initiatives that were taken until it was felt that there was a need to change the approach to a Canadian-centred approach. For our part, we did audit the Canadian approach to personal protective equipment.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you.
The diagram in exhibit 10.2 shows me that the Public Health Agency of Canada is responsible for assessing the needs referred to it by the provinces and territories and authorizing the equipment and the suppliers.
Would PHAC have determined that the provinces and territories did not need as much equipment as they were requesting and, on that basis, reduced or denied the requested quantity? I suspect they didn't, I'm quite sure of that, but did it have the authority to do so?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:32
We found at the beginning of the pandemic that there was a lot of confusion. There was a lack of information at the federal level about exactly what the provinces and territories needed and what they had in their own stockpiles. Each province or territory must use its own stockpile before applying to the national emergency strategic stockpile. We have seen change and collaboration during the pandemic, but at the beginning there really was a lack of information.
Yes, the agency had the authority not to respond to these requests. However, the reason it did not respond to all requests was because it didn't have the equipment requested, not because it had the authority not to respond to the requests.
View Julie Vignola Profile
BQ (QC)
In short, to be 100% assured of receiving the necessary equipment, the provinces and territories could just as easily have acted independently and made their own decisions. Is that correct?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:33
Madam Chair seems to be indicating that I have to answer quickly.
Each province or territory has its own stockpile and should use it to try to meet its needs. When there is a very high demand that the provinces and territories can't meet, they must turn to the national emergency strategic stockpile. Then, it's a collaborative effort. If the reserve can't meet their needs, they can ask for support from other provinces.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you.
I'm certainly happy, and I know the residents of Hamilton Centre are happy, that we're having this discussion about the national emergency strategic stockpile. It's something that I've been on for quite some time, both at this committee and at the government operations committee.
I want to pick up where Ms. Yip left off with some really good questions about post-SARS. Everything I know about this tells me that we've known a pandemic was a possibility, so we created an organization called the national emergency strategic stockpile, yet we've heard testimony today that the planning was driven by short-term thinking with possible implications in and around the budget.
Through you, Madam Chair, to Ms. Hogan, whose short-term thinking? Who would have been responsible to make the decisions and the recommendations to put forward to the minister, and likely cabinet, that resulted in the shuttering of three out of our nine national emergency strategic stockpiles?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:34
In my reference to short-term thinking, I look at all the work that we've done so far on the COVID response. I look at the response in the pandemic report that I issued in May as well as in this report here, and I see that many of the responses were reactive when dealing with H1N1 and SARS. We know there are things that need to be addressed as a government, but then we deal with the next crisis instead of planning for that rainy day.
I believe there are oversight committees and departmental audit committees within the entities, the departments themselves and the deputy ministers. There is also the tension that comes with the need to invest in things that people see versus the things that we don't see. It's a tension between the political world and the federal public service that I think also pushes some of that short-term thinking.
I believe that as a whole country, municipal, provincial, and federal governments need to recognize and learn from this pandemic. We have to sit down together and coordinate a better response for the next crisis.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
We did that. We did that post-SARS. If I recall, Dr. Tam was one of the authors of some of the original SARS responses and actually planned for.... At some point in time along the way, somebody made the decision to have nine national emergency strategic stockpiles—the key word is “emergency”—based on our experience with H1N1 and SARS, and that they would have some kind of national standard, and this is where I get really caught up. In the audit, we hear that there was a lack of data, a lack of information and a lack of systems.
In your review of internal documents, did you come to a finding that presented a national standard for the supply levels for each of the products that would be stored in the national emergency strategic stockpile?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:36
No, we were unable to locate an assessment about that. We have been unable to find a national or even an international standard on basic levels that should be in stockpiles. It's fuelled by so many inputs. You need to understand your population. You need to understand what type of medical response might be struck up to deal with an emergency. For example, in the current crisis, N95 masks were very important because the virus was airborne. In the next crisis, it might be a different piece of equipment. It really is about ensuring that you have some equipment and then the flexibility to increase access.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
With regard to that point, somewhere along the way, somebody had the wisdom to purchase millions of N95 masks. They knew that SARS and H1N1 were also airborne. We had, in Regina, two million N95 masks thrown out. We know that there were two other warehouses shuttered.
In your review of internal documents, did you come to a finding that there was a consistent supply of products in each warehouse? For example, if it is true that there were two million N95 masks that were expired in Regina, is it safe to assume that there were also two million in the other two locations?
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
We had nine national emergency stockpiles. Somebody made the decision to shutter three of them to save a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
In shuttering three, if two million were thrown away in Regina, logic tells me that there is a likely scenario in which there were two million in the other locations that were also expired and thrown out.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:38
There were nine warehouses that housed all of the equipment in the stockpile. I'm not sure that you can make the analogy that there were two million masks in each of the nine locations. There were nine warehouses that stored all of the equipment in the stockpile.
As I mentioned earlier, the data in the system was too weak for us to be able to come to some of those findings. There were no expiry dates—
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Just to be clear, my understanding is that these national emergency strategic stockpiles were distributed across the country to have regional distribution to all the different provinces, so logic would tell me that each one of these warehouses would have contained the appropriate population density to which all the products listed in the stockpile would be distributed. It's not like you would have N95 masks in Regina and then gloves in Montreal or something like that. Logistically, that wouldn't make any sense.
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:39
I'm not sure that I actually looked at the logistics of how they were distributed. Maybe Jean Goulet can add to some of that, but it really wasn't our focus. Our focus was on whether the stockpile was ready to respond and then on how the government responded, and how we can influence and adapt that going forward.
View Matthew Green Profile
NDP (ON)
Can I request that this information come to us in writing, please? Can I request that any analysis in the audit on any of the findings in the internal documents related to the distribution come back to the committee in writing?
View Philip Lawrence Profile
CPC (ON)
Thank you, Ms. Hogan, and thank you for your continued excellent work.
As you might have suspected, based on the earlier questioning, I'm going to continue where Matthew Green left off. I think I know the answers, but I want it clarified on the record. I'm going to ask about N95 masks specifically, because it is a representative case, and it was particularly important during this crisis, as you said.
As of January 1, 2020, did the government know how many N95 masks it had?
Karen Hogan
View Karen Hogan Profile
Karen Hogan
2021-06-01 11:41
I'm going to ask Jean to add some of this granular level of detail that I'm not sure I have stored in my head. I'm going to see if Jean can answer that one.
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