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Results: 46 - 60 of 967
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.
Results: 46 - 60 of 967 | Page: 4 of 65

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