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View Michael McLeod Profile
Lib. (NT)
I hope that works, because I certainly get the calls, but it seems to be that the northern residents tax deductions trigger something in the system that automatically requires an audit.
We've heard a lot about international treaties and about how CRA is already collecting additional tax revenue. Could you comment on how the international treaties could be improved to assist the government in fighting tax evasion?
Ted Gallivan
View Ted Gallivan Profile
Ted Gallivan
2021-06-10 16:40
I might start. It's very awkward, because the Department of Finance holds the pen, but we are sometimes sitting on the front line of how the treaties play out. I would observe, one, because we've been more active internationally, the collections component and the number of treaties that maybe have a collections component are more of a priority than they used to be. I would also say that Luxembourg comes up very frequently, and I think both the commissioner and I have been comfortable saying that treaties are generally good and effective and they're there for lots of reasons and that our colleagues at Finance work very hard and consider lots of factors, but I would certainly say that as we look at the multinationals we deal with, the Luxembourg treaty in particular seems to have a very, very wide degree of use.
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is a pleasure to be with you today, Mr. Chair.
China’s increasing authoritarianism and coercive diplomacy are challenges for democracies around the world. All countries are reassessing and realigning their engagement with China, and Canada is no exception.
We are all trying to decide how we can reconcile our trade objectives, our security objectives and our human rights objectives. Given the circumstances, our approach to China is constantly evolving. It is firmly guided by our principles, values and interests, while acknowledging the complexity of our relationship.
China is rapidly becoming a global influence with which all countries must learn to coexist. That means that we must recognize situations in which it is necessary to cooperate with China, for example on global problems like climate change. However, it also means that we are competing with China when it comes to trade and to promoting our values.
It also implies challenging China when human rights are violated or Canadian citizens and interests are jeopardized.
We must continue to work with our partners around the world to protect the rules-based international order and defend human rights and freedoms. Those are fundamental Canadian values that underpin our foreign policy.
Let me be clear. A path to any kind of long-term relationship with China implies the safe return of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor to Canada. Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor have been unlawfully detained for more than 900 days. Bringing them home is and must remain our top priority in our dealings with China, period. Both men received regular visits two weeks ago from consular officials, who remarked on their impressive strength and resilience. We continue to call for their release while pressing China to allow consular access to other Canadian citizens held in that country, namely Mr. Huseyin Celil, so that we can confirm his well-being. We also seek clemency for Robert Schellenberg and for all Canadians facing the death penalty.
Alongside international partners, we continue to call out China for its bad behaviour. We have called on China to put an end to the systematic campaign of repression against Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in light of mounting evidence of forced labour, political re-education, torture and forced sterilization. We announced sanctions against four officials and one entity for their involvement.
We are also working with allies at the G7 Quad and Five Eyes to condemn China's growing militarization in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, where China claims vast areas, which fuels regional tensions.
China's economic might has emboldened its ambitions and interests beyond the Asia-Pacific region, where it has enjoyed enormous clout for centuries, to span the entire globe, including here in Canada. Growing competition with China and the pervasive use of digital technology forces us to work with other governments, businesses and universities to protect intellectual property and digital infrastructure and even to shield our democratic institutions from foreign interference and election meddling.
Hostile activities by state actors pose strategic long-term threats to Canada. They can undermine our nation's economic, industrial, military and technological advantages. Researchers and innovators, for example, are vulnerable to espionage and hacking.
Last September, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry launched the new portal called Safeguarding Your Research, which provides tools and advice to Canadians on how best to protect their intellectual property.
In March, the ministers of Public Safety and Innovation, Science and Industry announced the development of specific risk guidelines to integrate national security considerations into the evaluation and funding of research partnerships.
We are also working with other G7 countries to counter foreign interference, notably through the Canadian initiative called “rapid response mechanism”, which strengthens coordination across the G7 in identifying, preventing and responding to threats to G7 democracies through disinformation.
Unfortunately, we are currently seeing a resurgence in anti-Asian hate, since the beginning of the pandemic, in Canada and around the world.
Canadians of Chinese and Asian heritage are our neighbours, our colleagues, our friends and our family members. They should never feel that they are in danger or threatened because of their origin.
View Stéphane Bergeron Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being with us today, Minister. We are pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you on Monday evening every week.
How did you react on April 22 when your colleague, New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta, said it was not necessary on every issue to invoke Five Eyes to create a coalition of support around particular issues in the field of human rights?
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have no comments to make concerning what she said and what you have reported. I will simply tell you that our relationship with New Zealand is very close. It is a member country of the Five Eyes alliance, obviously, and they are also colleagues in our trading relationships under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or CPTPP. I have regular conversations with the New Zealand Foreign Minister.
View Stéphane Bergeron Profile
BQ (QC)
I certainly understand that, Minister. You have said things that are obvious on which we are all in agreement. However, the question that concerns me—I do not know whether it concerns you as well—relates to the alliances we are trying to create to stand up to the superpower that the People's Republic of China has become, particularly in respect of arbitrary detentions.
The New Zealand minister said that it is not necessary on every issue to invoke Five Eyes to create a coalition of support around particular issues in the field of human rights.
Does that not throw cold water on the nations that are trying precisely to create coalitions to ensure respect for human rights, particularly when it comes to foreign nationals in the People's Republic of China?
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
I would say no, for two reasons.
First, it is very obvious that New Zealand is our ally when it comes to human rights. It has made that very clear by supporting the declaration on arbitrary detention.
The other reason is that we are involved in a number of multilateral forums, of which the G7 is one, that very strongly raised the question of human rights in China at the recent foreign ministers' meeting. We spoke with one voice. It is therefore not just the Five Eyes. It may be the G7 or other multilateral forums in which various countries speak out on China and human rights.
View Robert Oliphant Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again, Minister, deputy and officials for being with us.
On that last topic, it might be important to remind the committee that it is established so that the government, whether majority or minority, always has a minority on that committee. Thus, the Liberal government will have only five out of 11 possible members on the committee. This is something we fought for when the Harper government refused any parliamentary oversight on any security issues.
That's just Rob needing to get in there with that lived experience.
Minister, you have said that the China of today is different from five years ago. It is. One thing that has been required of you is to work multilaterally and to work with like-minded and sometimes even unlike-minded countries to find a way to deal with China. When it came to Hong Kong, our government issued many statements with the EU, the U.S., the U.K. and others. Recently you were at the G7 meeting of finance and foreign ministers, and a statement on the Uighurs and the horrendous situation in Xinjiang came out. You are also working on arbitrary detention. I'm kind of giving you a bit of a smorgasbord. Those are just examples of the leadership roles and the collegial roles you are taking on with respect to arbitrary detention.
I would like your thoughts on this way of working.
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you very much for the question and for the precision on the NSICOP composition as well.
We believe that if we are to transmit a message to China, that message, broadly speaking, is that we all operate on this planet according to international rules-based law and that it is not acceptable to practice coercive diplomacy between countries. Fortunately, our like-minded partners, such as members of the G7 and in particular our closest ally, the United States, feel the same way.
It is certainly not acceptable to arbitrarily detain innocent civilians from another country because you have a difference of opinion on a particular issue with that country. Sure, we can have differences of opinion with China, but you don't resolve those by imprisoning citizens from the other country. China is not the only country that is guilty of that, but it is an example.
We believe that if we act together multilaterally, we send a stronger message. That's essentially it. There was a very big section in the communiqué from the foreign ministers of the G7 when we met in London. You will probably see a similar important section when the leaders meet in Cornwall next week.
View Robert Oliphant Profile
Lib. (ON)
Do you know how many countries have signed on to this declaration that Canada has led the way on?
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
Yes. We're at 63 now. It was 58 when I made the announcement in February.
Of course, every time I speak to another country, I bring up the importance of it, because it could happen to them. We're building that. We are in fact moving towards the next stage with respect to the arbitrary detention declaration.
View Robert Oliphant Profile
Lib. (ON)
I've often thought that it's a two-way message. It's to countries that might perpetrate arbitrary detention. It's also a statement to our own citizens to say that we will absolutely have their back, as you have for the citizens arbitrarily detained.
The situation in Hong Kong obviously takes a whole-of-government approach as we're looking at it. This is an issue that I think every member of this committee, no matter what party they're from, is concerned about—
View Lenore Zann Profile
Lib. (NS)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The minister stated earlier that our bilateral relationship with China is complex and multi-dimensional. In recent years, this relationship obviously has presented [Technical difficulty—Editor] and has continued to evolve. We also know that many of our international partners are facing similar challenges. It has been stated many times that Canada believes it's essential to work with our closest allies to have a united approach when it comes to China.
Could the officials please explain to this committee how we are actually collaborating with like-minded partners on this crucial issue?
Marta Morgan
View Marta Morgan Profile
Marta Morgan
2021-06-07 19:48
Our approach to China is evolving to meet the challenges of threats to our national security, to democratic values and to human rights. We have recognized that we need to challenge China on many of those issues.
I think a good example of that, when it comes to working with allies, is the work that we've done on arbitrary detention. As Minister Garneau mentioned, 63 countries have now signed on to our statement on arbitrary detention, which is practised by a number of states globally and goes against the rules that govern the international system.
We work very closely with international allies through the G7, for example. You saw an extensive statement coming out of the G7 foreign ministers meeting at the beginning of May condemning the human rights violations against the Uighurs. We work at the United Nations with allies at the United Nations Human Rights Committee, for example, to decry the human rights abuses being committed against the Uighurs and to seek unfettered access for the UN special rapporteur on human rights. There are many examples, whether it's with our G7 partners or with our Five Eyes partners. Sometimes we will work bilaterally, for example, with the United Kingdom on an issue.
I think one of the main messages I would pass is just the importance of building those alliances and working with allies. We are so much stronger when we work together. That's a critical part of our strategy and our approach going forward.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
Could I ask you to comment on the statement of the New Zealand foreign minister regarding the Five Eyes?
It seems to me that the Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing arrangement with several nations, but it seems that the Five Eyes designation seems to be used for some other kind of alliance. Do you think that use of the phrase is misused in the public eye and is giving the false impression that this is a different type of activity here? “Five Eyes” names the countries clearly, but this is an intelligence-sharing operation and not more than that. Is that correct?
Marta Morgan
View Marta Morgan Profile
Marta Morgan
2021-06-07 20:05
The Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing operation, but I think the broader issue here is all the various ways in which we can work together in the various forums. Our Five Eyes counterparts are very close allies to us. They share our values. They share our commitment to democracy. They are among our closest allies, but there is also the G7. Working with the G7 through foreign ministers and through leaders is a critical alliance for us, as are our allies who work with us on the UN Human Rights Council. We need to broaden our allies. We need to have as many allies as possible.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
I understand that, but doesn't the minister have a point when she says that there are two different types of alliances, and one doesn't always include the other?
Marta Morgan
View Marta Morgan Profile
Marta Morgan
2021-06-07 20:06
We have a very strong intelligence-sharing relationship among Five Eyes partners. They are also strong allies in other regards.
View Joël Lightbound Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Since I am taking the floor for the first time this evening, I just want to say to all the committee members and certainly the witnesses that my thoughts and prayers are with the London community, which was today the target of a hateful and completely unjustifiable crime in Canada. Our thoughts and prayers are with the London community and with every Muslim community in Canada, which should not have to suffer that kind of an attack in a country like ours.
My first question is about the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State–to–State Relations, launched by Canada in February. Mr. Oliphant and the minister discussed it a little bit. So far, unless I am mistaken, 63 countries have endorsed the declaration.
Ms. Morgan, could you give us an update on the progress made in that respect?
Are any steps currently being taken to obtain the support of more signatories for that declaration, which I deem very important?
Marta Morgan
View Marta Morgan Profile
Marta Morgan
2021-06-07 20:16
Thank you for the question.
Canada has really shown international leadership when it comes to ending that unacceptable practice of using arbitrary arrests and detentions to apply diplomatic pressure. The 63 countries that have endorsed the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State–to–State Relations account for one-third of the countries in the world. So we are very proud of the work we have done at the department.
Recently, on May 5, we released the partnership action plan with full G7 support, to turn words into action and put an end to that practice worldwide. We continue to talk to other countries, and I hope we could come back before this committee at some point to tell you that more countries have shown their support for the declaration.
It's something that I raise regularly in my bilateral conversations with colleagues, as does Minister Garneau.
View Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Minister. I hope you are well on this Monday, as we approach the end of the parliamentary session.
First of all, I congratulate you on all the work you have done on Bill C‑10. Of course, I am very disappointed with what is happening right now. In December, the committee made a point of meeting with witnesses to get to the bottom of everything that was going on with child pornography. However, because we are on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, we had to address other issues.
Today, I would like to shed some light on all of the testimony that we have heard. Initially, our motion was to invite Pornhub executives. We've heard a lot of comments, and I'd like to express a concern that I have.
We talked about the Five Eyes group and how this is a global issue. That being said, our current position is unfortunately not at the forefront. As you said earlier, other countries have already introduced similar legislation or are in the process of doing so. Canada does not have any concrete bills in the works on this topic.
How is Canada positioning itself? How do we position ourselves internationally in terms of protecting our fundamental rights?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau. Good morning. I wish you a good Monday as well.
I am as disappointed as you are to see the lack of ambition of some of the other parties in the House with respect to the passage of Bill C‑10. However, we are not here to talk about that.
Canada is among the lead countries in addressing this issue. The countries I named earlier, which can be counted on the fingers of one hand, are among the only ones that are currently taking action.
It was at Canada's initiative that a coalition of countries was created that are committed to working together, not only on the issue of hate speech and other online harm, but also on cultural issues. Several countries are very interested in what we are doing with Bill C‑10 and with respect to media compensation. This sort of informal coalition of countries is working collaboratively at Canada's initiative. In a few weeks, an announcement will be made about this joint international work.
Of course, a country like ours needs to have legislation that addresses the issue of online harm. However, this is indeed a global problem, and it needs to be addressed on a global level. That's why we formed this coalition of countries. Right now, there are only five of us, but I suspect that before long, many more people will be around the table.
View Stéphane Bergeron Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Your Excellency, you have clearly demonstrated that the Normandy process and the Minsk agreements have no impact or effect on the situation in Crimea.
I assume that President Zelensky intends to unveil a Crimean Platform in order to address that gap. It is supposed to be unveiled this summer, hopefully on August 1.
Of course, I am not asking you to reveal intimate secrets, but what is the plan with this platform in terms of diplomatic, military, economic and other actions, in order to have Crimea returned to the fold of Ukraine some day?
Andriy Shevchenko
View Andriy Shevchenko Profile
H.E. Andriy Shevchenko
2021-06-01 17:15
Monsieur Bergeron, you have given a very good assessment of the reasons we want to go ahead with the Crimean platform.
I can give you a very practical example. It's about sanctions. At this moment, both the European Union and our major allies outside of the European Union have applied sanctions against Russia and those individuals responsible for the occupation and human rights violations.
However, the way we apply sanctions is so different. We assess the situation in different ways. We apply sanctions in different ways, and we have very different ways to monitor the implementation of the sanctions.
The coordination of this effort is long overdue. If we share our practices, if we bring our efforts together in monitoring the situation on the ground, and if we monitor together how the sanctions are implemented, they can have a much greater impact on the ground.
Canada will be a rock star among those nations, because you're quite good at actually following up on those policies.
View Stéphane Bergeron Profile
BQ (QC)
Your Excellency, am I to understand, between the lines of your answer, that the core of this strategy, this international Crimean Platform, is that you would like to see coordinated measures taken by a large number of nations against Russia, to ensure that the impact is laser‑focused, so to speak, and ultimately produces results, including Donbass and Crimea?
Andriy Shevchenko
View Andriy Shevchenko Profile
H.E. Andriy Shevchenko
2021-06-01 17:17
That is very fair, and that should be very efficient if we think about the different avenues of co-operation, security, human rights, economic policy and so on. We hope this will bring us closer to a good, successful, strategic vision.
View Peter Fragiskatos Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much for that.
I do want to ask you a general question about three specific things, which are espionage, foreign interference and cyber attacks.
To what extent is Canada actively working in concert with other countries—middle powers in particular—to counter any impact of those on our democracy? What can you share with us on that?
View David McGuinty Profile
Lib. (ON)
I think it's fair to say that in our 2019 foreign interference review, we indicated that we have a lot of work to do on improving co-operation between the federal, provincial and municipal orders of government on this front. As one of the speakers on your other panel said earlier, we also have a lot of work to do to enhance Canadians' understanding of the threats.
One of the things that we did do was to join with the G7 to create a rapid response mechanism in 2018 and a summit in June 2018. We're now co-operating amongst the G7 to have a rapid response mechanism to follow and get informed about things that might be occurring in each of our respective jurisdictions. There's a significant amount of co-operation going on.
We believe there's much more progress to make from a whole-of-government perspective in the Canadian context.
Alexander Douglas
View Alexander Douglas Profile
Alexander Douglas
2021-05-28 13:57
Thank you very much for the invitation to appear today. I hope I can be of some help to the committee's study on this very important topic.
I will provide some background first. I'm a university employee and researcher, but I'm speaking in a personal capacity today. I have a conflict of interest to declare in that I may receive income as an inventor of a patent application relating to the manufacture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
My role in the Oxford COVID vaccine program has primarily been to develop the manufacturing process and lead the initial technology transfer, both to sites within the U.K. and to overseas sites, including the Serum Institute of India. I have subsequently worked closely with AZ, but I can't speak for AZ at all. I understand that your remit includes Canada's domestic vaccine supply, but I've had no involvement with AZ's arrangements for supply to Canada.
Equity of access to our vaccine has been a really key driver for me and our team from the beginning. We transferred manufacturing to low-income countries at the same time as setting it up in the U.K. We prioritized willingness to pursue equitable access in our choice of pharma partners and pushed very hard for terms to promote equitable access when we entered the partnership with AZ. The outcome really has been quite radical on that, in terms of both pricing and distribution.
Clearly, though, the world is now in exactly the situation we were worried about when we were taking those decisions. Personally, it's important to be clear. It's outrageous that some countries are vaccinating 18-year-olds while the global rates of COVID-19 deaths are pretty much as high as they have been, and health workers and 70-year-olds are unprotected and dying in many parts of the world.
This is damaging for all of us, not least because of the ongoing economic disruption. The IMF has published an excellent study showing massive economic benefits to high-income countries of fast and equitable global vaccination.
What can be done now? In particular, is a TRIPS waiver the right thing to focus on?
It's critical to understand how different the situation is now from the problem of HIV drug access 20 years ago in low-income countries, for which patent waivers were very effective. That was a problem of price. There was potential manufacturing capacity sitting idle, and the patent was the main block. Now, we're in a much more complicated situation. The manufacturing capacity itself needs to be expanded as quickly as possible, and that requires removal of multiple non-patent constraints, such as raw material supplies, skills and non-patent know-how.
Removing patents implies new entrants with less experience competing with the innovating companies for those resources and duplicating efforts on developing know-how. That would be really quite inefficient. Having governments work in a critical but constructive partnership with innovators to expand that effort and improve equity of supply is likely to be a much better solution. It's clear that the status quo isn't working. Some of those innovating companies are not currently feeling that it's in their interests to prioritize low-income country supply. We need to examine and address the reasons for that, and countries like Canada can play a really positive role in that.
First, we need to be clear that the current situation on the distribution of vaccines that exist is intolerable. We need moral pressure on Pfizer, Moderna and governments that are vaccinating young adults to donate a proportion of their supply immediately.
Second, we need to see whether we can make the supply we have cover more people. It may well be that half doses of the existing vaccines are adequate, which would double supply at a stroke. That could be established very rapidly if clinical trials of low doses were set up urgently, but I don't see the companies rushing to do that without governmental intervention.
Third, we need to expand the supply, and with a G7 meeting coming up, we need an international, G7-led version of the operation warp speed effort. Rather than focusing on initial vaccine development for one country, this time it would be focused on manufacturing capacity expansion for the world.
That needs governments to really constructively engage, not just donate money. That effort can and should echo the features that made Operation Warp Speed and the U.K. vaccines task force effective. That means bringing together technical expertise, getting into the detail, understanding the different bottlenecks facing each manufacturer, and creating solutions.
It needs to use the clout of government to compel, but deploy it smartly, and it needs to act not just as a passive or even a pushy customer, but like a venture capital investor, as a partner and an enabler for industry.
We're dealing here with transnational supply chains, so this has to be an international solution to an international problem. However, increasing output should help everyone too. It's a huge win-win. I hope that you and Canada consider picking up on the positive motivation behind the patent waiver idea and driving things forward in a really effective, equitable direction.
Thank you.
Debi Daviau
View Debi Daviau Profile
Debi Daviau
2021-05-06 15:50
Thanks for having us.
My name is Debi Daviau, and I'm the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, or PIPSC. It's the national union that represents some 12,000 auditors and other tax professionals at the CRA across the country. Our members are skilled professionals and knowledgeable tax experts who ensure that powerful corporations and wealthy individuals remain just as accountable as the rest of us.
With me today is Mr. Ryan Campbell, our union economist and my technical adviser today.
We'd like to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on this critical issue. Together we'd be happy to answer any and all questions you may have after our presentation.
We've researched this issue from the point of view of tax professionals at the Canada Revenue Agency and produced three reports on tax avoidance and evasion. You can find them on our website at PIPSC.ca. I'd be happy to forward copies to the committee members as a follow-up to this meeting.
Few Canadians enjoy paying taxes, but they understand that it's important to do it. Taxes fund the public services that make us healthier and safer, protect the environment and nurture a stable economy in which businesses can thrive and compete.
A healthy tax system is defined by fairness and integrity. The rules must apply to everyone. Unfortunately, many wealthy individuals and corporations use their superior resources to look for a shelter or haven where the tax rules don't apply. While these privileged few get a reduced tax bill, governments lose revenue for public services, resulting in either service cuts or tax hikes for everybody else.
In February 2018, we conducted a survey of professional staff at the CRA, including auditors, managers, forensic accountants, economists, statisticians and actuaries. Their responses were eye-opening.
Much of the criticism levelled at Canada's tax system is that while it is designed to be fair, it's easier for some to get around the rules than it is for others. In our survey, nine out of 10 tax professionals at the Canada Revenue Agency agreed that it's easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to evade and/or avoid tax responsibilities than it is for average Canadians. Environics Research put that same question to the general public and found that eight out of 10 respondents felt the same way.
You should find it troubling that CRA professionals with special knowledge of the inner workings of the tax system were more likely to agree than an average Canadian. Over eight out of 10 also agreed that tax credits, tax exemptions and tax loopholes disproportionately benefit corporations and wealthy Canadians compared to average Canadians.
When asked if multinational corporations shift profits to low-tax regions, even when there is little or no corresponding economic activity taking place in that jurisdiction, three out of four respondents agreed. When asked if the CRA has adequate audit coverage capacity to ensure tax laws are being applied fairly across the country, only 16% of respondents agreed. When asked if training and technology advancements within CRA have not kept pace with the complexity of tax avoidance schemes, 79% of the respondents agreed.
All of these survey results confirm one basic fact: Canadians deserve a rigorous examination of the tax system.
Our CRA professionals are among the best in the world at what they do, but they face great challenges. Their job is to go after individuals and entities that in effect have unlimited resources and can aggressively exploit legal and international grey areas for their own gain. The CRA employees, by comparison, often feel outdone by those trying hardest to avoid taxes.
In 2012, sweeping budget cuts were introduced to the agency. Even with the more recent government reinvestments, it still doesn't have all the tools and staff it needs to get this job done
Does this make any sense when the Parliamentary Budget Officer's own numbers show a $5 return for every dollar invested in combatting international tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance? Does this make sense at a time when government spending has skyrocketed to deal with the social and economic impact of the pandemic?
We need to fix this now. More than ever, Canadians need the tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue, if not more, that are sitting in offshore tax havens.
We believe that a number of steps can be taken to correct the situation.
First, we need better enforcement of existing tax laws. One of the simplest ways to make the system fairer is to ensure that the same rules apply to everyone.
Second, we need to prevent political interference at the CRA. This was particularly visible during the previous decade when the CRA was accused of shifting its focus away from big tax cheats to individuals, charities and small businesses.
Third, because CRA officials are frequently put in precarious situations in which they are asked to hold powerful players to account in a high-stakes setting, whistle-blower protection is crucial to ensuring that professional integrity is paramount during the tax assessment process.
Fourth, while government investments in the CRA have increased in recent federal budgets, Canada's population continues to grow, and so do the amount of commerce and the complexity of tax evasion schemes. The CRA needs to hire more technical advisers and to invest in technology and training to deal with these factors.
Fifth, the CRA must enhance the capacity of its regional offices. The Auditor General has found that taxpayers receive different treatment from the CRA depending on where they live and who they are. Its regional offices need the appropriate resources to ensure that laws are applied fairly from coast to coast.
Finally, a number of policy reforms need to be undertaken. Budget 2021 announced initiatives that when implemented will take tangible steps in the direction of tax fairness. These include a digital service tax for companies like Netflix and Amazon and the creation of a publicly accessible beneficial ownership registry. These are both important initiatives long championed by PIPSC members and our allies in civil society.
While these changes are welcomed, we still have work to do. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that as much as $25 billion of corporate tax revenue is lost to tax havens every year. We must do more to end the transfer pricing and profit shifting that facilitate this destructive practice.
As of now, some incremental steps are being taken, but there are a variety of additional actions that could be put in place. The end result would be a new, simplified view of the global commercial landscape, one in which corporations can be prevented from pitting countries against each other and are taxed fairly everywhere.
In conclusion, CRA professionals must receive the training, tools and resources they need to do their jobs. The CRA must receive appropriate funding to ensure that tax laws are enforced equitably and that wealthy individuals and powerful corporations are just as accountable as any other Canadian.
Additionally, there needs to be international co-operation and updates to legislation so that those who try the hardest to avoid taxes end up paying their fair share anyway.
Thank you for your time. Mr. Campbell and I would be pleased to answer your questions.
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
That's a fantastic point. Hopefully we'll have the minister here on this study at some point, and the minister should answer that question.
It would seem to me that complexity shouldn't enter into it. If you ask for a document and your corporate structure is too complicated to comply, then that should be on the filer.
Debi Daviau
View Debi Daviau Profile
Debi Daviau
2021-05-06 16:11
Mr. Kelly, we used to have international tax units that were very well organized and could work together more effectively to produce those kinds of documents, but those units were broken down some 10 or so years ago in favour of interspersing these tax experts within more generalized teams. That has reduced the capacity of employees at the CRA to be able to deliver on getting international tax avoiders to pay their fair share.
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 16:15
Thank you very much, Mr. Cohen. I'll use some of the examples you discussed, particularly in the global context of this problem, for my next question to Ms. Daviau.
Ms. Daviau, you mentioned that one of the things we continue to need to do is explore further initiatives on the international stage and co-operate with our global partners to ensure that we can stamp out tax evasion globally. What actions can the federal government in Canada take to help contribute to the global solution to the issue of tax evasion?
Ryan Campbell
View Ryan Campbell Profile
Ryan Campbell
2021-05-06 16:16
The biggest issue that has been advocated by auditors at the Canada Revenue Agency, based on their work, is to focus on corporate tax evasion. The scale is much larger. The PBO has identified that as much as $25 billion a year could be accessible or unlocked from tax havens if the right provisions were in place. In order to do that, it's really necessary to reorient the way the tax system is structured and to reform the current state.
Right now when an international corporation makes a sale, they have some discretion to transfer the profit or to modify the price within internal supply chains to book the value of that sale in a low-tax jurisdiction. From the standpoint of CRA auditors, it's a game of cat and mouse to try to figure out exactly what the fair market value of that transaction was and determine whether or not it was on the level.
In order to tip the scales back in favour of companies being taxed fairly everywhere, there's a specific combination of different reforms that can be put in place, or broad principles, a combination of which would solve the problem.
One is a formulary allocation of profits, which is basically a change in criteria that are currently in use in Canada that determine how corporations' profits are booked from province to province.
The other is unitary treatment to make sure that when these transactions happen between a parent company and a subsidiary, leading to this transfer pricing and profits being booked in low-tax jurisdictions instead of where the commerce actually happens, the corporations are treated globally as a unitary entity—
Richard Fadden
View Richard Fadden Profile
Richard Fadden
2021-05-03 18:38
Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon.
I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you didn't vet my comments and provide a little context to the issue, as opposed to speaking in great detail about the specific topic of foreign interference.
I think it's important when we look at this Chinese practice, along with a raft of others, to think of the Chinese as our strategic adversaries. What I would like to talk about more than anything is what it should mean for Canada if we accept that.
I think as a precondition to dealing effectively with the Chinese on foreign interference and on anything else, we have to accept that they have a coordinated and centralized policy, an activity development program, that enables them to use all the tools they have at their disposal—foreign, defence, security and trade policy. My metamessage this afternoon is that if we are going to deal effectively with the Chinese, we have to do the same. We cannot look at foreign interference in isolation from trade activity or diplomatic initiatives in the Far East or Indo-China. We have to have a coordinated activity.
I have a couple of metapoints, if I may. First, I think we need to be realistic. China is the second most powerful country on the planet. We're a middle power among many. Except when our sovereignty is directly impacted, I'm not sure there's a great deal we can do alone to affect how the Chinese are going to treat their objectives and how they are going to carry out their objectives. If we are to have an impact on the Chinese, we must use every multilateral tool at our disposal. If the UN doesn't work, we should try the Five Eyes, the G7 and the margins of NATO. They all provide many opportunities for ministers and officials to exchange views and coordinate action.
Let me touch upon what we should do when our sovereignty is directly affected by Chinese action. We need to recognize it, first of all, and develop some sort of consensus on what that is. When we cannot stop it, and when it is not stopped, we need to take some action. Foreign influence is an activity that comes to mind. By any definition, this is unacceptable and is an assault on our sovereignty and a threat to our citizens. There is no reason we cannot discuss this common problem—this is a common problem shared by many of our allies—and coordinate any push-back.
When the Chinese activity is more indirect—too many Chinese students in universities, the extent of Chinese grants to research in areas sensitive our national security—we need to do something in this area as well. Because they affect areas other than our national security interests, they are more difficult to deal with, but they cannot be ignored in the face of control exercised by the Chinese state.
Coming back to my effort at setting out a metapoint, I submit that Canada cannot effectively deal with organized and centrally controlled Chinese activity without itself being organized and coordinated. I mean that our response needs to be whole-of-government at the level of the Government of Canada and to be national at the level of the country.
By “whole of government”, I mean that our reaction to unacceptable Chinese behaviour can't be limited to just CSIS, CSE and occasionally DND and GAC. Rather, it must encompass all elements of the Government of Canada. ISED and Natural Resources come to mind. By “national”, I mean that the responsibilities of the federal government for protecting our sovereignty and the control it has over our border means that it entails federal governmental activity throughout the private sector and civil society, and in some matters potentially affecting the province.
I stress again that we're not going to be able to deal with foreign influence or any other unacceptable Chinese activity unless we admit we have a problem and we coordinate it internally and with our closest allies. This is not necessarily very easy. It's not easy for any number of reasons. I just want to flag one: Not all Chinese citizens and not all Chinese activities are undertaking activities that are harmful to Canada. Distinguishing between the kinds of activities that Professor Ong talked about and those other activities that are perfectly fine is a great deal more difficult than it sounds on the surface. The only way we're going to do this is if we talk about it and articulate what we consider to be unacceptable, ideally coming up with standards that are very similar across our allies.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.
View Joël Lightbound Profile
Lib. (QC)
You were talking about the Five Eyes alliance. In your remarks, you said it was important to use multilateral tools, such as the Five Eyes, the G7 or perhaps other activities in the margin of meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.
What degree of cooperation do you think is necessary to deal with this situation brought on by China?
Richard Fadden
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Richard Fadden
2021-05-03 18:53
Cooperation is very extensive within the Five Eyes alliance. As for the G7, its member countries are discussing the situation and know that it is serious. However, there are currently so many other issues to consider on a global scale that it is difficult to ask G7 leaders to look beyond a certain point.
As for NATO, we should take advantage of the fact that our major allies are its members and, although the situation involving China is discussed only in the margin of big meetings, it would be worthwhile to talk about it a bit more.
View Lianne Rood Profile
CPC (ON)
That's okay. I'll move on, because we're running out of time.
I'd like to direct a question to Ms. Ward.
We had the pleasure of having a conversation before, and I appreciated that conversation. You touched on some of the points about reducing agriculture emissions in Canada, but we know that agriculture and farmers have done a lot of things already on their own, even over the last decade, to reduce emissions.
You mentioned to me before that you are a member of a larger organization that is part of a group of about 200,000 members or so. It has 182 organizations in 81 countries, so I'm wondering if you can comment here.
We're focused on Canada, but we only have 2% of the world's emissions. What are you doing as part of those organizations to help agriculture in other countries to reduce emissions?
Katie Ward
View Katie Ward Profile
Katie Ward
2021-04-27 15:47
The organization you're referencing is called La Via Campesina. It is an international organization of peasant and small-scale farmers and fisher folks from across the world. Many of the organizations are, in their home countries, engaged in food sovereignty issues and work against deforestation, which is, of course, a prime driver of emissions in a lot of developing countries.
In a lot of cases where some of these smaller organizations are engaged, the emissions issues are less from agriculture in a lot of countries than they are from energy production. It doesn't tend to be a primary focus of those organizations. However, some of our sister organizations in the EU, for example, are actively engaged in emissions reduction practices and education, just as we are here.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Bartholomew, your interchange with Mr. Genuis interested me in that you seem to have a slightly different view from Mr. Genuis, who seems to think that we—i.e., the democracies—must get together and stave off China and its friends. You suggested a little bit more of a nuanced response to that in terms of not disengaging totally with China, obviously, but also in making sure that we're engaged with other players to convince them, or to work with them, to develop better norms. Could you elaborate on that a little bit, please?
Carolyn Bartholomew
View Carolyn Bartholomew Profile
Carolyn Bartholomew
2021-04-19 19:21
I don't want to leave the impression that I don't agree that democracies need to get together. I think they do, because, again, I think our own united front.... You know, our values stand for something and they stand for something around the world, and I think that we diminish the importance of those values.
That said, I think we have to recognize that there are times when we are need to work with countries that might not align with us completely on things like human rights. Would I invite the Government of Vietnam to join an alliance of democracies? No. However, would I believe that there are ways that we need to work with the Government of Vietnam to address concerns about what's happening in the region? My answer would be yes. I think in that sense, the fluidity is that we just have to acknowledge that there's not going to be a 100% purity test with the countries that we need to engage with around the world.
That said, there is a core group of western liberal democracies that I think really need to work together on all of these issues.
Christian Leuprecht
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Christian Leuprecht
2021-04-19 20:43
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee. It will be my pleasure to answer questions in both official languages, but I will make my presentation in English.
I think China poses the greatest threats to Canadian western foreign policy in decades. You can see its military strength and how it compensates for some of its weaknesses there, with its economic weight and its global ambitions. I think the basic line here is that Canadians need to start seeing the world for what it is rather than what we would like it to be. It is a highly competitive, highly contested world of geopolitical conflict, of permanent conflict below the threshold of conventional war or nuclear attack. What we see here is just part of this broad spectrum wherein we're being pressed hard on many fronts. This has been the case since 2008.
I think the relationship with China is best described as “competitive interdependence”. Alaska is a good example. We had an hour of grandstanding on both sides, and then we had eight hours of strategic dialogue on key issues of common interest. We need to understand that while there are many issues in terms of competitive interdependence in which we are fundamentally interlinked—economically, for instance—there are also many issues and interests on which we have fundamentally irreconcilable differences. I think the takeaway is that Canada can't impose its will on China, but Canada also must not accept a subordinate role in that relationship. We have to get ready for long-term, systemic competition.
The competition is fundamentally about how we unlock the potential of our people and how we achieve our national ambitions. This is ultimately more about competition than about confrontation per se. Sometimes you just need to co-operate with your competitors. This is not a monochromatic relationship, and this is why, I think, we're here tonight. To the committee's credit, you're wrestling with this extremely challenging and complex relationship in which we also have inescapable interdependence on everything from knowledge economies to issues such as Iran and North Korea.
What can Canada do? We need to realize what we can and can’t do. We won’t decide China’s regime type, and we can’t determine the size of China’s economy. We can, for instance, realize that the four attributes—which I can't go into for reasons of time—in the formula that has gotten China to this point over the last 40 years no longer apply. What lies ahead is not going to be a linear trajectory of the kind we've seen in the past. China's judgment here is that it is no longer in a stable relationship with the U.S., so it needs to strengthen itself for strategic competition. I think Canada needs to do likewise. It needs to fortify itself with its friends.
One of the things we need to do is to counter the Chinese narrative that the east is rising and the west is in decline. Chinese media are great purveyors of narratives, and authoritarian systems always excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses. We need to learn to distinguish between image and reality and not inadvertently buy in. Let's have some self-confidence. Let's not inflate the threat or weaponize it for political purposes.
Let's also realize that China is not 10 feet tall, that alarmism doesn't help us here, and that China has lots of vulnerabilities. Canada is much better positioned than China to meet the challenges of the 21st century in terms of per capita GDP, energy and food security, demographics, education, social harmony, immigration, allocation of capital, transparent geopolitical systems and so forth.
Instead of focusing on how we can degrade China's strengths, we need to focus on how we can bolster our own. By doing that, it's going to be easier to unite our allies. The key aspect about influence is that we need to make the choices. We need to choose the issues that are important to us and on which we want to make a difference. On those issues, we need to shrink the gap with our allies. We need to boost our domestic dynamism and we need to capitalize on our global network and our alliances and partnerships.
In the previous session, there were many mentions of the Five Eyes. Of course, the Five Eyes is no longer just a signals intelligence community. There are law enforcement components, border components, human intelligence components and financial intelligence components. There's a lot that we are doing and a lot more that can be done. We need to shore up our global prestige, because that's something that China doesn't control. It's something that we control.
We need to ask ourselves questions. What is of national interest to Canada? Pick the example, for instance, of Xinjiang, or pick any other case studies. We need to lead by example. We need to speak out clearly and consistently. We need to make it clear to China that there is not going to be a normal relationship as long as that long shadow is cast over the relationship. We need to be attentive to the goods and items that are being produced with forced labour, as has already been pointed out.
We need to—
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm accompanied today by François Daigle, the associate deputy minister of the Department of Justice. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
I'd like to make some general comments on some of the issues raised during previous meetings of the committee's study.
I'd like to emphasize that the government is committed to keeping our children safe, including online, as Minister Blair just said. Canada's criminal legislation in this area are among the most comprehensive in the world.
The Criminal Code prohibits all forms of making, distributing, transmitting, making available, accessing, selling, advertising, exporting and possessing child pornography, which the Criminal Code broadly defines as material involving the depiction of sexual exploitation of persons under the age of 18 years.
The Criminal Code also prohibits luring—that is, communicating with a young person, using a computer, including online, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person. It prohibits agreeing to or making arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child, and it prohibits providing sexually explicit material to a young person for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person.
Furthermore, the Criminal Code also prohibits voyeurism and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which are particularly germane to both the online world and the discussion we are having today.
Offences of a general application may also apply to criminal conduct that takes place online or that is facilitated by the use of the Internet. For example, criminal harassment and human trafficking offences may apply, depending upon the facts of the case.
Courts are also authorized to order the removal of child sexual exploitation material and other criminal content, such as intimate images, voyeuristic material or hate propaganda, where it is being made available to the public from a server in Canada.
In addition to the Criminal Code, as Minister of Justice, I'm responsible for the Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide and Internet service. This act doesn't have a short title, but law practitioners refer to it as the mandatory reporting act.
In English, it's the mandatory reporting act, or MRA.
Under the mandatory reporting act, Internet service providers in Canada have two main obligations. The first is to contact the Canadian Centre for Child Protection when they receive child pornography complaints from their subscribers. This centre is the non-governmental agency that operates Cybertip.ca, the national tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
The second obligation of Internet service providers is to inform the provincial or territorial police when there are reasonable grounds to believe that its Internet services have been used to commit a child pornography offence.
While Canada's laws are comprehensive, it is my understanding that there has been some concern as to how they are being interpreted and implemented, especially in relation to the troubling media reports about MindGeek and its Pornhub site.
Since I am the Minister of Justice, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on ongoing or potential investigations or prosecutions, but I would also note that the responsibility for the administration of criminal justice, including the investigation and prosecution of such crimes, including the sexual exploitation offences, falls largely on my provincial colleagues and counterparts.
However, as the Prime Minister stated during question period on February 3:
...cracking down on illegal online content is something we are taking very, very seriously. Whether it is hate speech, terrorism, child exploitation or any other illegal acts....
In fact, the government takes these measures so seriously that the Prime Minister has given four ministers the mandate to address different aspects of online harms. Minister Blair and I are two of these ministers. As he has mentioned, the Minister of Canadian Heritage is one of the lead [Technical difficulty—Editor] as well.
While the Internet has provided many benefits to Canada and the world, it has also provided criminals with a medium that extends their reach—and thus, their victim base—and a medium that elevates the level of complexity of investigations. One complicating factor is that telecommunications networks and services transcend international borders, while the enforcement authority of police, such as the RCMP, is generally limited to their domestic jurisdiction.
Further, under international law, court orders are generally enforceable only within the jurisdiction of a state. With limited exceptions, their enforcement requires the consent of the other state in which they are sought to be enforced.
Canada is obviously not the only country facing these challenges, which is why we continue to work with our international partners to facilitate international co-operation in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes, notably to strengthen bilateral co-operation and negotiation of new international mutual legal assistance treaties in criminal matters in order to address these issues.
Although mutual legal assistance treaties are a universally accepted method of requesting and obtaining international assistance in criminal matters, even in emergency situations, they weren't designed for the Internet age, where digital evidence is a common component of most criminal investigations and where timeliness is essential to the collection of this evidence because of its volatility.
Canada is actively working with its international partners to address these issues. For example, we are currently participating in the negotiation of a second protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime to enhance international co-operation on cross-border access to data.
Thank you.
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus, for what is a very important question.
As you've already indicated, we do supply funding to the RCMP to run the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre, which has a number of significant responsibilities, including the investigation of these predators to gather the evidence to bring them to court and to prosecute them. It also has the purpose of identifying and rescuing victims on the international front.
Because of the nature of online harms generally, and certainly of this most terrible crime, there is a very significant international component. That's why, in the five-country ministerial meetings that I have attended for each the last three years, the focus in each of those meetings has been on online child sexual [Technical difficulty—Editor] and implementation of principles to guide industry efforts to combat online crimes and child sexual exploitation.
In addition, we are part of an initiative called the WePROTECT Global Alliance, which is a movement dedicated to national and global action to end sexual exploitation of children online. It includes like-minded states, NGOs and civil society organizations.
Finally, Mr. Fergus, I would point out that the RCMP actually chairs a group called the Virtual Global Taskforce on child exploitation. This is an international law enforcement alliance that is engaged in intelligence sharing, data sharing and dealing with this issue globally. I think it is a demonstration of both Canada's commitment and the RCMP's global leadership on this critically important issue.
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Fergus, I would just add that we're working with other countries on mutual legal assistance treaties to facilitate the exchange of information between our police forces, multilateral conventions on cybercrime, as well as bilateral agreements with countries such as the United States, for example, to facilitate the exchange of information in a context where it needs to be done quickly.
View Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Profile
BQ (QC)
Good afternoon, Ms. Lucki.
I would like to have a little more information about the Five Eyes. We talked about the fact that Canada has become a leader. I have one concern: our legislative model is used to maintain the structures. Yet the need to respond is changing so quickly. Earlier, I heard you talk about the increased need for resources.
Who are the Five Eyes? What is the specific role of the group?
Reassure me and reassure the victims that we are thinking about enacting international laws that could help to eliminate the problem. If you are telling us that we are a leader, could you elaborate?
Brenda Lucki
View Brenda Lucki Profile
Brenda Lucki
2021-04-12 13:00
For the Five Eyes, the countries that are involved are Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., the United States and us. It's important that we work together and, first of all, exchange the intelligence and the data, but also work towards developing and investing in technological solutions. Often some of these countries are working towards technological solutions, so we can use that.
We're also the lead, when you look at child exploitation and you look at [Technical difficulty—Editor], the technology there is the first of its kind and what they've done with the Phoenix group is so incredible. When we look at companies, we like to work with the voluntary principles to counter online child sexual exploitation and abuse, which were developed by the Five Eyes governments through consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including a leading group of industry representatives. These principles are intended to provide a consistent and high-level framework for industry actors to review safety processes and respond to risks facing users. There's lots of great exchange, all with the goal of eliminating these heinous acts.
View Sherry Romanado Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Minister.
I want to shift now to probably one of the most important relationships we have with the United States, that of NORAD. I know you are very aware of our relationship with NORAD.
Having just celebrated the relationship, we're hearing talk in Canada about closing “NORAD of the North”, as we call it in North Bay. Can you elaborate to the committee, which may not be as familiar with our relationship with the United States with respect to NORAD, just how important it is?
You mentioned the Arctic. You mentioned our northern passage. Could you elaborate a little for the committee on that importance and on that continued relationship?
View Marc Garneau Profile
Lib. (QC)
When we speak about the priorities for our American neighbours, I have spoken about economic priorities with regard to trade between the two countries, but security is also paramount for them. We have strong alliances with the United States, first in NATO with many other countries, but also with NORAD, which is unique between Canada and the United States. It's the bilateral arrangement we have had for many decades for the protection of North American territory. It involves a presence in the Arctic.
NORAD is in need of modernization. We have specifically identified this as an area on the road map that we will be discussing with our U.S. neighbours with respect to modernization. It is also true to point out, as you alluded to, that the Arctic is changing at the moment, primarily because of climate change, and this has huge implications with respect to many things, including increased traffic across the north. A greater awareness and modernization of the capabilities we have within NORAD is something both Canada and the United States are going to be discussing and implementing.
View Peter Fonseca Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Can you tell us more about Canada's international engagement with regard to the current situation in the country? We sanctioned these nine military leaders through Magnitsky and the sanctions that we've put on them. Was that in collaboration with our partners? Are we doing this with the United States or with other nations? Can you drill down on that and let us know what type of collaboration we have with our international partners and how we are coming together to provide a stronger front?
Paul Thoppil
View Paul Thoppil Profile
Paul Thoppil
2021-03-25 17:14
As I may have indicated earlier, prior to the coup Canada already had in place one of the most comprehensive sanctions regimes on Myanmar as compared to like-minded partners, including the EU, the U.K. and the U.S.
As I indicated earlier, prior to the coup Canada had already sanctioned two of the largest military conglomerates, Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited, as well as 42 other entities affiliated with the military.
In specific response to the coup, in discussions with our allies, we recently announced additional targeted sanctions on non-military leaders. We are in daily discussions with like-minded partners both in respect of capitals and on the ground in order to make further adjustments to the sanctions as warranted.
Lauren Ravon
View Lauren Ravon Profile
Lauren Ravon
2021-03-08 11:16
Fantastic. Thank you very much. Happy International Women's Day to you all.
Thank you for the invitation to appear on behalf of the People's Vaccine Alliance. As you may know, Oxfam is one of the founding members of this growing movement of health and humanitarian organizations, past and present world leaders, health experts and economists. We're calling for a COVID-19 vaccine to be made available for all people in all countries and free of charge.
We know that COVID-19 knows no borders and has impacted everyone's life. Canadians from coast to coast to coast are hurting. But we also know that the pandemic has hit certain groups harder than others. Here in Canada, Black, indigenous and racialized women, women with disabilities, and immigrant women have been hardest hit by the virus. In many cities, they have the highest infection rates. This is because so many of these women are frontline health care workers or work in what we now recognize as essential jobs. This is why Oxfam has labelled the coronavirus the “inequality” virus, to emphasize just how much COVID-19 is deepening and exacerbating existing inequalities.
The pandemic has demanded interventions on a scale and scope not seen in decades. Canada has invested unprecedented levels of resources to provide a safety net for people here in Canada, but it has also offered significant support to help developing countries weather this storm. This includes close to $940 million to support equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines through the WHO access to COVID-19 tools accelerator. This funding also includes $325 million for the COVAX advance market commitment stream, which aims to help vaccinate 20% of people in 92 low- and middle-income countries, especially the most at-risk groups.
Unfortunately, at current trends, nine out of 10 people in low-income countries will miss out on a COVID-19 vaccine this year. Estimates show that poorer countries will not have widespread vaccination programs in place until 2024. We need to do better. The longer the virus is around, the more likely it is to mutate, making current immunization efforts ineffective.
The WHO initiatives that Canada is supporting are important. Unfortunately, they do not tackle the global problem of vaccine shortages. They are also undermined by wealthy countries cutting bilateral supply deals that drive up prices and limit supplies. Our best chance of us all staying safe is to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are available for us all as a global common good. This will only be possible if we change the way in which vaccines are produced and distributed. Pharmaceutical companies need to allow COVID-19 vaccines to be produced as widely as possible by sharing vaccine technology free from intellectual property rights. We need to maximize production so that enough doses are available for the world to achieve herd immunity.
What's fantastic is that Canada can help end the scramble for vaccines. Canada became co-chair of the COVAX advance market commitment engagement group this past January. In her role as co-chair, Minister Gould can strengthen COVAX by pushing for increased transparency and inviting developing countries and civil society representatives to decision-making spaces. Canada should refrain from procuring vaccines from COVAX at this time. For many low-income countries, COVAX may be their one and only chance of receiving vaccines this year.
Ghana and Ivory Coast received their first vaccine shipments this past week through COVAX. This is worth celebrating as a first step to ensuring that their health care workers have the protection they need to do their jobs safely. Unfortunately, close to 80 other countries have yet to receive a single dose.
The world needs more vaccines, and fast. This week Canada has the opportunity to change the course of the pandemic. A waiver on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, otherwise known as TRIPS, is being brought to a vote at the World Trade Organization. Spearheaded by South Africa and India, and supported by more than 100 countries, this waiver would be a game-changer for increasing vaccine supplies, as it would allow countries with the manufacturing capacity to make COVID-19 vaccines.
We hope to see Canada vote in favour. This pandemic has shown us how interconnected we all are and how vital it is to have international co-operation and solidarity. By voting in favour of the TRIPS waiver at the WTO this week, Canada can help stop the pandemic in its tracks.
Thank you on behalf of Oxfam and the People's Vaccine Alliance for the opportunity to appear today.
Jason Nickerson
View Jason Nickerson Profile
Jason Nickerson
2021-02-26 13:20
Good afternoon, and thank you to the committee for having me back today.
It has been said many times that this is a global pandemic that requires global solidarity and global actions. In addition to protecting Canadians, it is essential that our government unite behind a truly global response. Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, teams have witnessed a severe second wave of the COVID pandemic in many of the places where we work. In places such as Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, health systems have struggled to cope with the sudden onslaught of patients. Several African countries have recorded more COVID-19 cases in the month of January 2021 than in all of 2020 combined, and in many countries, the indirect impacts of the pandemic, in particular the disruption of essential health services, have been even more deadly than COVID itself.
My key message today is that our immediate global priority needs to be ensuring that health care workers and other people most at risk in low- and middle-income countries have equitable access to the most effective and contextually appropriate COVID-19 vaccines urgently. Unless we scale up access to vaccines in all places, the world risks generating new pandemics of vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variants. If we fail at equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, we fail at global public health. It's that simple. This would be morally catastrophic and a significant risk to the public health of all people, including Canadians.
There are billions of people in the world who are almost exclusively dependent on the Covax facility as the source of their vaccines, yet it wasn't until Wednesday of this week that the first doses from Covax arrived in the first recipient country. That's because Covax itself is struggling to access doses in a timely way, in large part because the existing supply has so far been monopolized by high-income countries.
I want to emphasize that the only reason for Covax's existence in the first place is because the way that the world currently develops, manufactures and delivers new medicines and vaccines is broken. It is set up to maximize profits. The pharmaceutical industry is not set up to rapidly respond to emerging pathogens with pandemic potential. It is not designed to scale up manufacturing of new health technologies to meet global demand, and as we are seeing today and have seen for decades, it is not set up to ensure equitable access to new medicines and vaccines, particularly for people in economically poor countries.
We need to change the way the world develops medicines and vaccines, to prioritize developing the tools needed to respond to public health threats and making them readily available and accessible. There are vast areas of medicine that cannot and simply do not respond to the market. They're market failures. COVID-19 clearly falls into that category. A year and a half ago, there was no commercial interest in coronavirus vaccines. The same is true of Ebola and drug-resistant infections. As Canada moves toward a conversation of biomanufacturing of medicines and vaccines, it's essential that this not just be a conversation about how to incentivize private companies to build factories here. It needs to be a conversation that transforms our relationship with the way that medicines and vaccines are discovered, developed, manufactured and delivered.
This committee actually studied this issue during its study on federally funded health research in 2018. None of the recommendations made by the committee in that report have been implemented, though they could have helped avert parts of this crisis by demanding fair pricing, greater transparency and sharing of technologies, and global access to drugs and vaccines developed with Canadian public funding.
It is common sense that when the federal government invests in vaccine or drug development it would ensure that the final product is available at a fair price around the world, including in Canada, but that's not what happens. We know that Canadians are concerned by this, because more than 90,000 people signed MSF's petition calling on the federal government to attach conditions to federal funding to ensure that the medicines and vaccines we pay to develop are affordable and accessible to people who need them.
We have three recommendations today for this committee. One, Canada needs a timeline for making a percentage of its doses of COVID-19 vaccines available for use in low- and middle-income countries to vaccinate health care workers and other high-risk people. Canada has publicly released timelines for when we anticipate having a surplus of doses, so Canada should release a timeline for the sharing of vaccines. This committee should ask for it.
Two, push for the implementation of the recommendations in the 2018 study on federally funded health research and open science, which recommended that Canada make the funding provided to develop new medicines and vaccines conditional on recipients ensuring that they would be available to people around the world at affordable, fair prices.
Three, we request that the Parliamentary Budget Officer review any drugs and vaccines that have been discovered and developed with Canadian public funding to understand whether, under a different model of production, we might have more affordable and accessible options for things like the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine. This vaccine was first developed with Canadian public funding and to date costs $98.60 per dose, unquestionably the most expensive vaccine in use in global health.
As always, I'm happy to discuss any of this in greater detail. Thank you again for having me back.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-26 13:40
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all the witnesses for their important testimony.
Mr. Nickerson, I remember a brilliant presentation that was made at the beginning of the pandemic. I was impressed and thought it was an interesting and relevant perspective. Indeed, the global pandemic has confounded all the experts who, for too long, thought that the virus would remain in mainland China. We now know that the virus is not staying in mainland China and that we are facing a global problem. Vaccine protectionism has been chosen as the solution. How do you explain this?
As my colleague Mr. Powlowski said, the vaccines will be delivered. So shouldn't Canada drop the idea of tapping into the COVAX bank?
Jason Nickerson
View Jason Nickerson Profile
Jason Nickerson
2021-02-26 13:41
I think the point you're getting at is that this is a global public health emergency and what happens in one country affects all of us everywhere. Disease control and public health interventions that are applied inequitably or only in one country will simply not be effective at ending the pandemic. We live in an interconnected world, where disease knows no borders.
To the question of vaccines and vaccine access, I think it's very clear that what we have seen over the past three months, as vaccines have started to roll out, is that the vast majority, almost exclusively all, of the vaccine doses that have been administered have been administered in high-income countries. As I said, there are only this week shipments of COVID-19 vaccine doses arriving in countries through the Covax mechanism. A large reason for that is that the available vaccine supply has largely been monopolized by high-income countries up to this point. We face a fundamental problem of high need, high demand, and extremely limited supply up to this point.
On the issue of Covax specifically, I want to be very clear that I actually think that Canada's participating in Covax as a purchasing country was appropriate at the outset. This mechanism was intended to be a global procurement mechanism that would be guided by principles of equitable access to prioritize high-risk health care workers and other vulnerable people as a global priority. That was the deal. We vaccinate the people who are at highest risk in every country everywhere as a matter of urgency. Having purchasing countries participate in that to demonstrate that we're not just invested in this as a charitable function but also as a mechanism for changing the way we procure and distribute vaccines I think was appropriate.
To then also sign bilateral agreements for a large number of vaccine doses, which is the situation Canada and other high-income countries are in today, and to then go and draw on the Covax mechanism at the same time as effectively monopolizing the global supply—I think that's not appropriate. The solution here is that Canada should sit this first round out, because we need those Covax doses to be going to countries that are entirely dependent on Covax as their procurement mechanism and who don't have the same kind of bilateral deals that Canada and other countries have.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-26 13:44
Dr. Morris, I am going to take advantage of our meeting to create a dynamic.
Do you agree with Mr. Nickerson?
Mona Nemer
View Mona Nemer Profile
Mona Nemer
2021-02-25 11:06
Thank you very much.
Good morning.
Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to speak to you today.
Since my last appearance before this committee, in December 2017, I have fulfilled my first mandate and was subsequently reappointed for a two-year term in September 2020.
In the interest of time, I will not go into the details of my mandate, but as a science adviser to the Prime Minister and cabinet, I will say that the past year has been largely devoted to advice related to the COVID-19 health crisis.
Of course, the pandemic is an extremely complex situation with numerous facets. It's all the more challenging when it's due to a new virus about which we know very little, which is why in order to help inform my advice I established a multidisciplinary scientific advisory group early on. We focus on areas ranging from COVID-19 diagnostics and research needs to aerosol transmission, infection in children and long-term care settings.
Researchers were mobilized and willing to generously share their findings and advice. As a result, science has guided decision-making in real time like I have never seen before. The COVID-19 expert panel, made up of distinguished researchers and practitioners in infectious disease, disease modelling and behavioural sciences from across the country, held its first meeting on March 10. It has met since more than 40 times, and panel members also participated in several targeted task forces to which additional experts contributed. This ensured a coordinated and integrated science advice mechanism. Throughout, an impressive number of scientists and health practitioners have generously contributed their time and expertise for the service of their country.
My office also helped set up CanCOVID to stimulate COVID-19 research and partnerships. The network boasts over 3,000 members across the country and has been very successful in fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation.
In addition to domestic outreach, I have been in regular communication with my international counterparts. We share information on disease spread and containment, knowledge gaps, research activities and priorities, as well as clinical studies. This has kept us all up to date on the latest developments worldwide.
Early in the pandemic several clinical studies aimed at treating or preventing COVID-19 and its complications using existing drugs got under way, but the results were mostly disappointing. Attention increasingly focused on vaccine development for disease prevention.
In Canada, federal funds were allocated as early as March and April 2020 for vaccine and therapeutic developments through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development.
COVID-19 vaccine development, manufacturing and distribution were topics I discussed extensively with my international counterparts, including those in the U.K. and the U.S. It became evident to me that independent expert advice on vaccine development and procurement was needed, which is why I recommended the creation of the vaccine task force.
Made up of 11 members of Canada's vaccine research community and four ex officio members, of which I am one, the task force has been instrumental in helping to identify and prioritize vaccine candidates, support domestic vaccine development, and inform supply chain coordination.
I have participated in the vast majority of the task force meetings, and I have always been completely satisfied with the scientific rigour that framed their deliberations. Like so many others in Canada's scientific community, these researchers were ready and willing to step up and contribute pro bono their time and expertise to helping fight this health crisis. As a result, Canada now has a diverse portfolio of the leading effective vaccines from three different technologies. I believe that Canadians have been well served by this remarkable group.
The only downside to the amazing feat of the development of vaccines against COVID-19 is that the first of these vaccines came from outside the country. The fact that Canada has modest human vaccine production capabilities is not news; it's a problem that has existed for nearly four decades. As a scientist, I have spent most of my career in biopharmaceutical research, and sadly, I have witnessed the decline of our country's therapeutic development capacity over much of that time.
It does not have to be this way. Therapeutic development, whether vaccines or drugs, is a lengthy and complex process requiring dynamic collaboration among researchers, clinicians, government and private sector organizations. The rewards, as seen in this pandemic, are well worth the efforts.
Canada has exquisite assets to support a thriving biomanufacturing ecosystem from world-renowned scientists who continue to make critical discoveries in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences to innovative SMEs with promising products. But taking a discovery from the lab to the community or scaling up drug and vaccine production for human use is not a trivial undertaking.
It is my hope that the health needs and science successes witnessed during this pandemic will encourage us to put in place the resources and infrastructure to take our discoveries into innovative health products manufactured in Canada for Canadians, but also for the world.
Building our biomanufacturing capacity will not happen overnight, but it is vital that we work towards it, and now is the time to establish the strategies and act on them.
Science gave us hope and the tools to overcome this crisis, from diagnostics to vaccines and therapeutics. We in Canada have much to offer to fight this and future health threats. I look forward to the extraordinary opportunities that lie ahead.
Thank you.
View Jacques Gourde Profile
CPC (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Witnesses speak about concerted action at the international level. We all understand that, in cases where virtual activities are involved, there are no borders.
My concern is that while we work to put in place strong regulations in Canada, companies like Pornhub could move their headquarters to countries where they would be safe from lawsuits or any legal action. It's shocking how quickly these companies can move, and it leaves us perplexed as to what action we should take.
Could the witnesses give us an idea of countries we could work with internationally? Which countries would be most sensitive to the problem?
Could we talk about crimes against our children? Could these criminals be accused of crimes against humanity?
John F. Clark
View John F. Clark Profile
John F. Clark
2021-02-22 12:22
We are indeed talking about criminal activity, and to your question about which countries we should work with, again, it's very, very difficult. There are variances in all different countries we work with, but make no mistake that we do believe in strong enforcement, strong prosecution, a strong judicial system. The legality surrounding this.... I mean, the information superhighway was never meant to be unpoliced. If a crime happens on the street and is punishable under law, it should be the same if a crime is happening on the Internet. It should be punishable to the full extent of the law.
Lianna McDonald
View Lianna McDonald Profile
Lianna McDonald
2021-02-22 12:22
I would add in here, to echo John's comments, that it is very challenging. I would say, though, that Australia has done some very impressive work in this space. Also, as was mentioned by Daniel, the U.K. government has really taken a leadership role with its “Online Harms White Paper” and looking towards a different type of schema to look at this. I do want to make just one point that really has not been discussed here at all, and that goes back to the issue of accountability and oversight.
Again, we are still relying on systems under which it's up to the companies to come forward and to report, so we don't know the scale of the problem. We don't know. There's no oversight to know if they're in fact reporting what they ought to be reporting, and it puts the users or survivors and victims in an unfair situation when they're dependent on these companies to do the right thing. While we looked at what is available to us, we also have to raise the important question about accountability and what oversight is tied to what these companies are or are not doing.
View Cathay Wagantall Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you for your work.
However, I can't help but think there has to be a way with MindGeek to work together internationally—because this is an international issue—to provide that capability to have jurisdiction absolutely wherever you need it for something like this.
Why is that not something that has been being worked on internationally, or is it? What needs to be done in terms of Canada's responsibility in enabling us to get over that hurdle? Clearly, it's a method of avoidance.
Marie-Claude Arsenault
View Marie-Claude Arsenault Profile
Marie-Claude Arsenault
2021-02-22 13:20
Within the Virtual Global Taskforce, pretty well all the countries, or many of them, have similar challenges with jurisdictional issues. We are working on identifying all these law enforcement challenges. As part of the VGT, we have industry and NGOs that are our partners. We also work with other NGOs that have some influence internationally to advocate for some of the challenges.
Perhaps Mr. Wong could speak from the international side on legislative groups that are also looking at these issues.
View Cathay Wagantall Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you.
I'd like to expand a bit, however, your comment that you're working on it internationally. I know of NGOs that have reported scenarios like this to me and said that as the police force, it's very difficult to function in this environment because you don't have the jurisdictional support you need. It's supposedly been worked on for a very long time, yet we have a situation here where we've had only 120 reports since 2020 and that type of thing.
What has been accomplished, or what is being done that it's taking so long to get any kind of co-operation internationally to deal with this horrific situation?
Marie-Claude Arsenault
View Marie-Claude Arsenault Profile
Marie-Claude Arsenault
2021-02-22 13:22
The co-operation is there amongst all international partners when it comes to the exchange of information, the exchange of intelligence, sharing our best practices, and so on. On the legislative side, our group of law enforcement does not have control in terms of changing the laws—
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-22 12:59
Thank you.
Dr. Bernstein, the way out of this pandemic is through global vaccination. Ninety-two percent of vaccines are currently administered in rich countries. You said that these rich countries have to accept that 5% to 10% of their vaccine supply should go to less developed countries, those that cannot afford to enter into bilateral agreements with vaccine suppliers.
What do you think about Canada's draw on the COVAX vaccine bank?
Alan Bernstein
View Alan Bernstein Profile
Alan Bernstein
2021-02-22 13:00
Sure.
I think it is important that Canada be a major contributor to both COVAX and other mechanisms for vaccines for the developing world. Until the U.S. came in I think we were the largest contributor per capita to the COVAX facility. But it's in our interest to make sure that everyone in the world is vaccinated as quickly as possible. Dr. Sharma alluded to the variants that inevitably have appeared, and those variants will appear anywhere. The number of variants that appear will be directly proportional to the size of the virus pool in the world. So it's in our interests here in Canada to shrink that virus pool as quickly as possible, and the best way to do that is to vaccinate the whole world as quickly as possible.
I think Canada has a moral as well as a practical reason for donating vaccines to the rest of the world, either through COVAX or through other mechanisms: directly to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, or through the WHO. I think that is very important.
At least on paper, Canada has purchased more vaccines per capita than any other country. If all those vaccines are eventually approved by Health Canada, we will have the opportunity to donate a lot of doses to COVAX or to the developing world directly. I think the important point is that we step up and donate those vaccines to the developing world. Thank you.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Bernstein, just following up on that, there's a question of timing, as well, isn't there? Do you think that rich countries should be vaccinating their young and healthy before frontline health care workers and vulnerable people are vaccinated in developing countries?
Alan Bernstein
View Alan Bernstein Profile
Alan Bernstein
2021-02-22 13:03
Right now, the vaccines have not yet been approved for young people here in Canada. Again, I think there is a good argument, both a moral argument and a practical one, that the G7 countries, including Canada, donate vaccines to the developing world initially for frontline health care workers, as you have suggested, Mr. Davies.
View Maninder Sidhu Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.
For either Mr. Turnbull or Mr. Robinson, what impact would you say the Boeing MAX file has had with regard to international co-operation by different aviation authorities?
Nicholas Robinson
View Nicholas Robinson Profile
Nicholas Robinson
2021-02-16 17:57
I'll go back to my opening remarks, in that the coordination and collaboration between international authorities has been significant from the beginning of this process. The FAA are the certifying authority, but as my colleague Dave pointed out in some of the changes that were just outlined there, I would say that the other three authorities were also leaders in ensuring that those changes were made to that aircraft.
The four authorities together continuously meet and met to discuss this aircraft, to discuss the review of the aircraft and to exchange ideas of the aircraft. They met within the group of four but also bilaterally and trilaterally at times.
Now that we are committed to looking at the reviews—particularly, I would say, the joint authorities technical review that we as well as other certification authorities participated on—we're committed to working with the United States in making sure that those recommendations are implemented in a consistent manner that has harmony across the four authorities.
View Majid Jowhari Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, but now that we're going to Mr. Lucas, let me ask another question.
I now understand the rolling submission and the close collaboration that our government's health organization has with the manufacturer. Did we pursue similar working relationships with other jurisdictions' health organizations? Some of them have approved some of these vaccines ahead of us. Is there any type of collaboration going on between those health bodies and ours to be able to piggyback and to get some of these vaccines like AstraZeneca, Janssen and the other ones approved much faster?
View Patty Hajdu Profile
Lib. (ON)
Again, I will start and then turn to Deputy Minister Lucas for gap filling, if you will.
Yes, there is collaboration with other regulatory bodies, and data, information and analysis are shared as appropriate. Of course, each country does its own approvals, and Canada is considered a gold standard regulator. This is also beneficial to the pharmaceutical companies, because, of course, when they get approved in Canada, many other smaller countries that don't have the same level of capacity to do their own review look at Canada as a stamp of approval, if you will. That's quite valuable to the manufacturer as well. We collaborate on a regular basis with places like the EU, the FDA and others that have long-standing relationships with Health Canada regulators.
I'll turn to Deputy Minister Lucas for a few more words.
Stephen Lucas
View Stephen Lucas Profile
Stephen Lucas
2021-02-02 11:32
Yes, indeed, as part of our independent scientific review, we have continued to work with both international regulators and international regulatory forums. Canada played a critical role in the establishment of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities and has played roles co-chairing committees pertinent to the review of vaccines for COVID. We worked through a consortium with Switzerland, the U.K., Australia and Singapore, and also, as Minister Hajdu noted, with the European Medicines Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Through these efforts, we're able to identify opportunities to help strengthen our independent review, but at the end of the day, we make those decisions based on the evidence provided to us and on our benchmarks of safety, quality and efficacy.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-01 11:46
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses for their participation.
Professor Gagnon, thank you for accepting the committee's invitation.
You mentioned something that we on the Standing Committee on Health noticed as well. At the beginning of the pandemic, all the experts and researchers told us about the extraordinary level of co-operation in the effort to find and develop a vaccine. The co-operation was certainly there.
The vaccine race has been on since August. Now that it's time to procure the vaccines, all that fine global co-operation and information sharing has gone out the window, and for good. We are nevertheless in the midst of a global pandemic, so borders are problematic. Until everyone on the planet is vaccinated, the problems caused by variants are not going anywhere.
You said this earlier, and you've talked about it in your articles: this way of doing things is disastrous. You said Canada had picked its side.
What could we do differently to achieve better public health results through a more unified position?
Marc-André Gagnon
View Marc-André Gagnon Profile
Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:47
Thank you for your question.
Take the AstraZeneca vaccine, for example. It was developed by the University of Oxford. Initially, the university had pledged to offer nonexclusive, royalty-free licences for its vaccine, but ultimately went back on its decision, opting to give AstraZeneca exclusive rights to the vaccine.
I read this week that, according to AstraZeneca's CEO, Pascal Soriot, the challenge is vaccinating as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, because the virus is spreading and mutating in parts of the world where people don't have access to vaccines. The vaccine protection people are acquiring now could drop, and even become obsolete as potential new variants emerge. However, when asked to make the patent royalty-free to provide access to the technology, as initially promised, so more manufacturers could use their facilities to produce the vaccine, AstraZeneca refused. It prefers to operate with licensing agreements.
It's important to understand something. The Pharmaceutical Accountability Foundation recently released a scorecard showing that AstraZeneca is currently the most ethical of the COVID-19 vaccine makers and is making every effort to offer accessible licences, but it's still extremely limited. Manufacturers are waiting even though their production lines are ready to go. Not only do they need to be given a compulsory licence and the formula, but they also need to have the knowledge and know-how. That's the only way they can help the effort. Under the current regime, companies seem quite reluctant to transfer that know-how.
What can we do, then? The thing to do would have been to ensure vaccine manufacturing capacity in Canada at the outset. The government made huge investments in Medicago to increase vaccine production capacity in Quebec. VIDO-InterVac, at the University of Saskatchewan, received considerable funding to boost its production capacity. Those are all positive steps, but Canada also needs to take a stand internationally and say that it wants to make the patents royalty-free. We are at war with a virus, so everyone should contribute to the war effort, not oppose initiatives to increase production capacity.
View Luc Thériault Profile
BQ (QC)
View Luc Thériault Profile
2021-02-01 11:50
Isn't that the only way to overcome the shortage? Back in the fall, a number of pharmaceutical companies announced that they had effective vaccines, and similar announcements followed. Is it safe to say that companies rushed to take as many orders as they could but were unable to fulfill them? Now we are caught in this situation. As I see it, the only answer is to democratize vaccine production through licensed patents, so we can produce the vaccines ourselves in the middle term. Do you not agree?
We have to build our production capacity so we can alter vaccines in response to variants, if need be. Pharmaceutical companies will never be able to produce enough vaccines for the entire planet.
Marc-André Gagnon
View Marc-André Gagnon Profile
Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:51
I completely agree.
Early on, the efforts to find new vaccines were impressive. Many were developed. Now, pharmaceutical companies are signing confidential agreements with countries to deliver vaccines. We saw how quickly Pfizer-BioNTech ran into production issues—hence, this week's slowdown.
As for AstraZeneca, in Europe, the situation is much worse. Something of a trade war has erupted between Europe and the United Kingdom. If European countries want to prevent vaccine exports to the United Kingdom, under WTO rules, they have to prevent exports to Canada as well. We therefore find ourselves in a trade war where the companies are no longer able to fulfill their orders.
Countries adopted the strategy of lining up for pharmaceutical firms' vaccines and waiting for their doses, but now the doses aren't coming. What do they do now? It's late in the game to start coming up with new solutions.
Still, Canada has good vaccine production capacity—capacity that could be leveraged if royalty-free licences were offered on patents.
Amir Attaran
View Amir Attaran Profile
Amir Attaran
2021-02-01 11:53
I think it's a giant omission. As you know, there are many different vaccine technologies. You mentioned the adenovirus-based vaccines. There are two of those—AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson—and they're among the simplest to manufacture. We could manufacture them in Canada. It is a question of having a large vat in which you grow the cells that produce the vaccine. Then you purify the vaccine proteins, and then you formulate them and bottle them and all of that. We could do this in Canada. Contrary to the point of view that intellectual property is a big barrier here, AstraZeneca did license Brazil, Australia, India and several other countries to make its vaccine, and that has been done. Those countries are making the AstraZeneca vaccine. The intellectual property problems weren't that hard to solve. India is supplying it to its people as we speak. Brazil is rolling out the first doses this week. Australia, because it has so little COVID, is taking it more slowly.
This is something that Canada could do. The failure of the government to negotiate to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine back in the summer, as Brazil, India, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Argentina did, is a cardinal failure of this pandemic. Had we done so, we'd have something more right now.
Marc-André Gagnon
View Marc-André Gagnon Profile
Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:55
In terms of the development of vaccines in Canada, the main project we had in Canada was this partnership with the Chinese company. It didn't work. If you look at the global level—the contribution of different governments, basically—more than half of the contributions, in terms of investment, are first and foremost public investments. In Canada, the new challenger in terms of a vaccine is now with Medicago. It's still in clinical trials, but let's just say that it would be an interesting surprise if it could go through because we would have here a very significant production capacity for this.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you.
I'll pick up on my colleague Mr. Thériault's questions. You have said that what we are seeing is, for you, a bit of a catastrophe. You said, “You end up with a handful of companies that are developing their own vaccines, each by themselves, working in silos.” You said, “So then you have a product with a patent, so monopoly rights on the product. And then you end up with this vaccine nationalism of all countries basically doing a free market negotiation in terms of who can jump the queue in order to get faster access to the vaccines.”
You said, “In terms of the priorities of global public health, this is pure nonsense.”
I'm wondering if we got the model wrong. We have a global pandemic. We're talking in terms of war. I'm wondering if we brought a stick to a gunfight. Is using the private-sector model of private companies' monopolizing the patent and the intellectual property the best way to get vaccines out to the world? What would you suggest as a different model for that?
Marc-André Gagnon
View Marc-André Gagnon Profile
Marc-André Gagnon
2021-02-01 11:57
This is an excellent question. First, there are alternatives, and this is something very important. We need to understand that more and more the type of research and development that is being done in pharmaceuticals is requiring us to go outside the patent model. Basically, patents work very well for certain research niches. For others, they don't work well, and in the case of pandemics like this one, it's very problematic because with the amount of power we're giving to drug companies, we then need to negotiate with these drug companies. Now we're negotiating maybe not with a gun to the head, but basically with a needle in the arm, and then we need to decide what we're going to do. We do not want to scare away the company by imposing some policies.
Let's just say that if the focus was on open science from the start, basically it would have been way more interesting.
I would like to add one thing. I agree with Dr. Attaran in terms of AstraZeneca, but AstraZeneca has been a bit different from other companies. It's the one that has been the most forward in doing these partnerships with other companies around the world. If you look at the different scoreboards with different companies, you see it's the only one that has been so proactive in this. With others, basically, it's all about preserving the expertise and knowledge they have.
Joel Lexchin
View Joel Lexchin Profile
Joel Lexchin
2021-02-01 12:06
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the committee.
I am an emergency physician and have been one since 1982. I taught health policy at York University from 2001 to 2016, and I've been researching pharmaceutical policy for about 40 years.
I'm going to go into four different areas.
First of all, we have the situation that Canada found itself in with respect to vaccine production at the start of the pandemic. Back in 1989, we sold off Connaught Laboratories to a French company. Then, in 2005, ID Biomedical Corporation was sold to GlaxoSmithKline. Therefore, when the pandemic hit, we had no domestically owned independent production. We did have warnings that we might need it back with SARS in 2003 and then with H1N1 in 2009. The Naylor report after SARS recommended that we develop an independent vaccine strategy, but we never did.
When the pandemic hit, we were vulnerable when it comes to vaccines. In order to try to ensure that we were going to be able to get the necessary vaccines, in June of 2020 the National Research Council set up an 18-member COVID-19 vaccine task force charged with making recommendations about vaccine acquisition to the federal government. Initially, the conflicts of interest of those committee members were kept secret until there was a public outcry.
The task force was highly selective. There was no representation for indigenous or Black people, the elderly, women or people with disabilities. Both the chair and the co-chair had significant conflicts of interest. Whether or not those conflicts of interest affected the recommendations they made to the government is unknown, because the exact nature of the recommendations is not public.
Other countries have handled the situation much differently. In the notes I submitted, you can see that Australia did things in a much different fashion.
We're now faced with the delays in the delivery of the Pfizer vaccine and possibly others. The delays in different countries are different. That might be due to the terms of the contracts that have been negotiated, but we don't know, because the contracts are kept secret. Also, we don't know anything about the price that Canada is paying versus the price in other countries. What are the guarantees about vaccine delivery and are there penalties for companies if they can't meet delivery schedules?
Finally, I want to talk about Canada's position on ensuring vaccine availability and affordability in low- and middle-income countries. Canada is one of the largest donors to COVAX. In July 2021, Prime Minister Trudeau signed a letter, along with other global leaders, which said, among other things, “We”—the global community—“cannot allow access to vaccines to increase inequalities within or between countries—whether low-, middle- or high-income.”
At the same time, Canada didn't support—and still hasn't supported—the WHO COVID-19 technology access pool. It hasn't supported the call by India and South Africa at the World Trade Organization for a temporary suspension of patents and other intellectual property. It has not publicly demanded that companies making vaccines ensure that they are available at production costs, and it has not said when it's going to donate excess vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
I have four recommendations to make to the committee.
One, Canada needs to develop a national vaccine strategy that will consist of a strong and enduring financial commitment to publicly funded and publicly run vaccine research.
Two, we need a domestic, publicly owned vaccine manufacturing facility, so that in the future we can avoid the situation of privately owned Canadian companies being sold to foreign interests.
Three, Canada needs to make public the terms under which it granted money for COVID vaccine research and the terms of the contracts that it has signed with companies for vaccines.
Finally, Canada needs to publicly outline a detailed strategy about how it will contribute to ensuring that vaccine nationalism is avoided so that low- and middle-income countries can access vaccines in a timely manner in line with their needs.
Thank you very much.
View Don Davies Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you.
I want to put two scenarios by you, Dr. Lexchin. From an epidemiological and public health infectious disease point of view, if we could immunize all seven billion humans in the next year versus not doing that, but rather, say, immunizing only a quarter of the world and doing the rest over the next 10 years, does that have any impact on the ability of this virus to mutate, or is it beneficial from a public health point of view to do one over the other?
Joel Lexchin
View Joel Lexchin Profile
Joel Lexchin
2021-02-01 12:57
In my view, what we want is a global strategy for this, so that the most vulnerable people in all countries get immunized to decrease the rate of spread. One of the things we know is that the faster the virus spreads and the more people it infects, the higher the likelihood that it's going to mutate.
That's one of the reasons we're seeing mutations coming from countries like Brazil, South Africa, the U.K. and possibly the United States. These are places where the virus has spread very rapidly and is widespread.
If we concentrate our immunization efforts, as we seem to be doing, on the rich countries, and then go to the low and middle-income countries, we're ensuring the development of mutations. Some of those mutations may be resistant to vaccines.
Canada should show leadership. Canada can't do this alone, but it can certainly show other countries the right course. The right course is for Canada to support the COVID-19 technology pool, to give more support to COVAX and to announce when we're going to be donating our excess vaccines to other countries.
Michael Grant
View Michael Grant Profile
Michael Grant
2021-01-28 15:43
Very good.
In recent years, we have seen many initiatives on Venezuela, which sometimes has made it challenging for the international community. Going forward, one of Canada's objectives is to ensure cohesion in the international community and that it continues to work together.
We have also instituted a number of pressures against the regime, including sanctions on individuals, and we are beginning to work quite closely with the United Kingdom on the issue of illegal gold.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I need to reiterate what Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe has said. It's incredible work from all of you. Thank you so much for what you do.
I would like to ask Mr. Mueller some questions now, and I have a very quick question I wanted to touch on that I didn't have time for in my last intervention.
Mr. Mueller, you talked a bit about January 2021 being a time when there will be a report and when a review will be done of what is happening. Could you follow up on that? First of all, what will that look like? Second of all, will it be possible to do so, understanding the current COVID context we're in?
David Mueller
View David Mueller Profile
David Mueller
2020-12-10 19:47
The universal periodic review will take place in Geneva. It will still go forward, and it will be done virtually. It's a peer review. All nations will have a chance to give their feedback to Myanmar. There are over 40 civil society groups that have actively made recommendations. They've already presented in the presessions this week. Groups are going from mission to mission, promoting their recommendations.
I took this opportunity in my statement to list some of the issues that the INGOs collectively want to raise. Among them are the things we've talked about. Rights of women are among them, including education, as has been pointed out. The freedom of movement is probably the biggest one in relation to the Rohingya.
If Canada will be making recommendations as well, if you could take a look at the recommendations from any of those 40 groups and put those on your list as well, they are all valid and hitting at the main key points. They are really at a political level, not at a humanitarian level. There are many humanitarian workers ready and willing to work, but we can't do our jobs if there's not a political will to access that.
One big challenge is that if we don't change these laws about citizenship and such, the international community is allowing this thing to go forward and supporting a government in an apartheid policy. The Government of Myanmar will continue to separate these people. It has no intention of giving them a state. We need to take this opportunity, in the peer review, to strongly recommend that the citizenship laws be struck, that people's access to services be granted and that they are granted a state identification, so they can have their lives back.
Neil Desai
View Neil Desai Profile
Neil Desai
2020-12-09 16:42
To me, when someone says “strategy” in a public sector context, what I believe is that it has to be horizontal in government, not vertical. What I see being called “strategy” is that they've secured this specific thing. You know, this X-ray machine meets the needs of the security of this embassy. I think we have to be a little more holistic. I don't mean that just in a Canadian context. We have to look at multilateralism and evolve it as well.
We have the Five Eyes, which I would say is one of the most effective forms of multilateralism that Canada is a part of, discussing critical issues of cybercrime, infrastructure, integrity and such. We are putting it at risk currently.
I think better conversations with our allies where we have capabilities, not just in Canada but within our tight, close allies where we have co-accreditation of technologies and of governance of those technologies, these are some actual solutions we can be looking at. Not everything is going to be able to be built under the watchful eye of the Government of Canada. We have to take a risk management approach here, not a risk avoidance approach, because we're just going to be let down at the end of the day if we have a risk avoidance approach.
View Ali Ehsassi Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Ali Ehsassi Profile
2020-12-03 11:23
Thank you for that.
I'd be remiss if I didn't also touch on another new practice that has been adopted by your bureau, which is the new competition enforcement framework that Canada entered into with the U.S., New Zealand, Australia and the U.K.
Could you provide us with more details on that and provide us with your assessment as to how significant that is?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 11:24
Okay. I apologize.
I'm so sorry, Mr. Lemire.
The point is that we've entered into numerous international co-operation agreements with our partners around the world. International co-operation and competition law enforcement is vital in a digital economy, in a global economy. Our recently announced agreement is part of our emphasis on co-operating to be able to help Canadians.
View Brian Masse Profile
NDP (ON)
View Brian Masse Profile
2020-12-03 11:53
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Part of the challenge for a country like Canada is that we've become a branch-plant economy in many respects, aside from a few domestic champions for headquarters here in Canada. A good example is the lack of use of the Investment Canada Act to protect iconic Canadian companies like Rona, for example, which is now owned by Lowe's. Hence, other than companies like Burger King, which wanted to put its headquarters here to evade tax in the United States and put up false offices, really, in Toronto and other regions, we don't have the decision-makers here as much.
How much of a disadvantage is it for us—for example, compared with the United States—not to have greater co-operation amongst our laws, and consistency? For example, in Windsor here, as our minivan, which is a world-class vehicle, is being built, it literally crosses the border back and forth seven times. There's a whole regulatory regime that protects consumers, aside from the aftermarket issue that I raised, with regard to the building of it, the quality and a series of things that are consistent for the consumer.
With a digital economy, how important is it for us to get further co-operation legislatively with the United States to protect consumers?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 11:54
As an enforcement agency, we co-operate and collaborate extensively with our American counterparts. We have deep relationships with them and we share information on cases, or potential cases, on a regular basis in many aspects of our enforcement work, which we believe provides a better result for Canadians and a better result on the U.S. side of the border when we are working together on these matters.
Of course, as I pointed out earlier, there are some areas where our laws diverge. Those areas could be examined if there was a desire by elected officials to bring our laws closer together.
View Ali Ehsassi Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Ali Ehsassi Profile
2020-12-03 12:43
My apologies for that.
Mr. Boswell, I just want to go back to a question that was posed to you earlier by Mr. Dreeshen. You talked about the Global Competition Review. Assessing the resources and the tool kits that the Competition Bureau has vis-à-vis other authorities around the world, how are we doing as a country? How is the Competition Bureau doing in the grand pecking order of things, if you will?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 12:44
We work with partners all around the world. We work very closely with our Five Eyes partners, our European partners and many others. What I can say is that our assessment from inside the bureau is that Canada's competition enforcement agency.... We are it for Canada. There are no provincial competition enforcement agencies, unlike in the United States, where each state has an attorney general who deals with competition. Of course, as I said, Europe has the European Commission, plus every European member state has competition powers.
It's likely that we're one of the least-funded competition enforcement agencies, certainly among our peers.
View Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Profile
Lib. (ON)
When we look to co-operation with an organization like the FTC or competition commissioners in other countries, can you speak to the agreements that you've entered into, if any, as they relate to enforcing rules against some of these global players?
Matthew Boswell
View Matthew Boswell Profile
Matthew Boswell
2020-12-03 13:00
Madam Chair, to answer the honourable member's question, I wouldn't say that we have agreements with respect to enforcement. We work together—we collaborate on enforcement and we communicate on enforcement—but there aren't specific agreements, to put it that way.
In our enforcement, co-operation is one of the most important things we do in terms of global cases. We see that in our cartel work where there are international cartels. We prosecuted a series of them for auto parts, bid rigging and price-fixing. We had to co-operate with authorities around the world, as these companies were under investigation around the world. We do that with the FTC, with the United States Department of Justice and with Australia.
It's vital that we do this kind of co-operation.
Valerie Percival
View Valerie Percival Profile
Valerie Percival
2020-12-01 15:39
Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
I will discuss the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic in conflict-affected settings and Canada’s role in that response. I will conclude with recommendations for how Canada can better exercise leadership in these challenging contexts.
The committee has heard testimony regarding the social, political and health impacts of COVID-19 in fragile settings. These impacts will reverberate for decades and be exacerbated by climate change, global economic disruption and uncertain development assistance budgets. Unless the trajectory changes, these populations will be trapped in cycles of violence and fragility, with little chance of escape.
How has the world, including Canada, reacted? It is a tale of two responses.
One tale is inspiring. Networks of local and international health and humanitarian actors, researchers and advocacy organizations have identified health needs and marginalized groups, maintained health service delivery and planned for the rollout of testing, treatments and vaccines. The pandemic strained an already stretched humanitarian system. The system is far from perfect. It often fell short, but it has limited human suffering under difficult circumstances.
In contrast, the tale of the second response, global political leadership by states, is a grim and depressing one. As the UN Secretary-General stated in September, “The pandemic is a clear test of international cooperation—a test we have essentially failed.”
One response cannot work without the other. Health services and other humanitarian actors cannot fully and effectively respond to the impacts of COVID-19 without political leadership to facilitate and remove constraints to that response.
The impact of this absence of leadership has been acutely felt in conflict-affected settings. For example, states did not mobilize to offer third party security guarantees to enable COVID ceasefires to take root and transform into peace agreements. They failed to persuade governments to protect the rights of migrants and displaced people, and they did not effectively confront opportunistic crackdowns by authoritarian regimes.
In short, global political leaders did not develop and deliver a clear and unifying message for why international co-operation is necessary and a plan for how to carry it out.
Where does Canada fit?
Canada has provided important support to the first response—the work of humanitarian and advocacy networks. The government increased its funding of these organizations to support the health response to COVID-19. It brought critical attention to the pandemic’s impact on women and girls.
But Canada’s role in the tale of the second response—political leadership—is disappointing. Canada’s rhetoric soars, but our words are not followed by concrete action. Canada sits at the table. We observe. We coordinate. We do not lead. This is a missed opportunity.
Mr. Chair, I'm aware that you worked for the UN mission in Iraq. I am sure you saw the enormous potential for “difference-makers”: the power of leadership from experienced diplomats and coordinated action among states and stakeholders and how that leadership can curve the trajectory of conflict towards peace.
At this critical juncture for conflict-affected states and the world, how can Canada contribute to such leadership?
Canada can help the world develop a unifying message, craft a clear plan to address vulnerabilities exacerbated by COVID in conflict-affected settings and mobilize the international system, as well as Canadian institutions, to implement such a plan.
First, for the unifying vision for our engagement in fragile settings and elsewhere, I would suggest a simple one that builds on our feminist approach: Protect human dignity and promote human potential.
Second, to craft a plan to implement this vision, let’s learn from what has worked in the COVID response. We can support networks of civil society organizations, researchers and other stakeholders. We can facilitate connections between these networks and like-minded states. We can explore novel mechanisms to prevent conflict, stop violence and sustain peace, and we can use these networks to promote economic opportunities in fragile contexts.
Third, we can help mobilize the international system, as well as Canadians, to implement this vision.
Internationally, we could utilize our membership across diverse institutions to promote this approach. This would complement and support the UN Secretary-General’s call for “networked multilateralism”.
Domestically, we could harness the expertise of Canadians both at home and abroad. Canadian experts are leaders in the fields of diplomacy and mediation, humanitarian and development assistance, global health and advancing gender equality, yet too often, our government fails to tap into this expertise.
How is this different from what we are currently doing? This approach extends our feminist policy. It engages with networks to develop and implement this dignity agenda. Most importantly, it would ensure that Canada's rhetoric rests upon a foundation of action.
Thank you very much. I look forward to questions from the committee.
François Audet
View François Audet Profile
François Audet
2020-12-01 15:44
I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me. As I don't have a lot of time, I'll get straight to the point.
In response to your request, I've concentrated essentially on an analysis of the marginalization of communities and populations by the current situation. I'll talk about five observations and two recommendations.
The first observation shows that the pandemic appears to have had far fewer direct health consequences in poor countries than in rich countries. By "direct consequences" I mean health- and mortality-related issues directly associated with COVID-19. In fact, apart from some major exceptions, which are Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador, excess mortality, particularly in Africa and several regions in Latin America and Southeast Asia, is indeed much lower than observed in OECD countries. Where data are less reliable, in particular screening data, we use excess mortality as an indicator, along with cemetery counts and inventories. This provides a degree of rigour in the statistical data we use.
The second observation shows that if direct health consequences are below expectation, then the indirect consequences, as Professor Percival mentioned, are already observable. They will also have significant and lasting impacts on marginalized populations, including those that are victims of conflict. This growing vulnerability has been exacerbated since the early months by the withdrawal of humanitarian supply chains and by a significant drop in direct foreign investment, including a 28% decline in Africa and 25% in Latin America and the Caribbean. This drop is much less significant in Asia, which ia a reflection of the economic influence of China in the region.
The third observation is that the indirect impacts that exacerbate these vulnerabilities are very well documented. We were able to see this on numerous occasions in interviews we conducted recently. Among other things, trust in institutions was being seriously eroded, further stoking social tensions and conflicts owing to these growing inequalities. This was the case in Guatemala and Colombia, and in Zimbabwe, Gambia and Togo in Africa,.
As for access to health care, the International Committee of the Red Cross noted a few weeks ago that 30% of clinics had been destroyed in Mali by armed groups ifollowing the withdrawal of international humanitarian organizations. Another key vulnerability is food insecurity. This situation is well documented. In fact it was reported on in this committee. At the risk of repeating myself, I would like to point out that 55 million people were experiencing food insecurity problems in September. We are now speaking of 220 million people suffering from food insecurity as a direct result of the pandemic. I believe these figures were published yesterday. It's a major increase and truly a real-time analysis.
The fourth observation is that displaced populations, meaning those who are often called "migrants", today represent over 80 million people. As you know, some of them have refugee status. Displaced populations, migrants or those with refugee status are also extremely marginalized by this situation. The pandemic has led to the closing of most international borders, and hundreds of thousands of people are gathered at borders just about everywhere on the planet.This situation, which has unfortunately been observed in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, significantly reduces access to health care and food.
The situation in Venezuela is also extremely serious. In recent months, 100,000 Venezuelans returned to the country. They had to because the border was closed owing to an economy that is literally in ruins, as it is in neighbouring countries like Colombia too. I feel an obligation to make this committee aware of the situation in the Las Claritas region, which is also in Venezuela. It's a vast Amazonian mining region in the State of Bolívar that is controlled by armed groups and traffickers. Las Claritas is also an ecological disaster, and a place where slavery, torture and murders go unpunished, as has been well documented in the context of illegal gold mining operations. The pandemic has made this zone more vulnerable than ever. The absence of local authorities, who are either accomplices or corrupt, and the trafficking in migrant Indigenous and other Venezuelans, have also been well documented.
My final observation was briefly addressed by my colleague. In the overall context I have just described, women remain the most vulnerable population. As we know, sexual violence has increased dramatically.
There are 7 million unwanted pregnancies in the world this year that are linked to the pandemic . These are clearly alarming figures.
I will now move on briefly to my conclusions, because my time is running out.
My first recommendation is related to the fact that it is important for Canada to maintain its leadership role in connection with the humanitarian localization agenda, which I took the liberty of translating into French as "l'agenda de la localisation humanitaire".
As you know, this approach to the localization of humanitarian aid, to which Canada has belonged since the "Grand Bargain" agreed upon at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit held in Istanbul, was to transfer resources to local authorities. It has been clearly demonstrated that decentralization is the key to achieving sustainable humanitarian responses.
My second recommendation is related to the importance of scientific cooperation to provide universal non-protectionist access to vaccines. The current international humanitarian situation undeniably needs a vision of solidarity to ensure access to vaccines for everyone.
To conclude, I'm among those who think that the long-term indirect repercussions of the pandemic will be more serious than the pandemic itself. These repercussions are tied among other things to socio-economic inequalities, conflicts, famines, shrinking democratic space and the erosion of protection for women's rights.
I'd be glad to discuss and answer any questions you may have.
Thank you.
Thomas Bollyky
View Thomas Bollyky Profile
Thomas Bollyky
2020-12-01 15:53
I appreciate the indulgence of the committee and I'm sorry for the Internet connectivity issues.
I'll continue on the three interrelated conclusions from the task force report.
First, while confirmed deaths from the coronavirus are approaching 1.5 million globally, the most damaging and long-lasting humanitarian consequences of this pandemic may not be from the virus itself. During the West Africa Ebola epidemic, more people died from the lack of regular medical care, particularly treatment for malaria, than were killed by the Ebola virus itself.
Even in nations that have yet to experience explosive growth in COVID cases and deaths, the pandemic is exacerbating poverty and inequities in health care access and food security. A recent survey of 18 African Union members found about half the respondents were delaying needed medical care or health care visits. A similar percentage reported difficulty in accessing medication in the pandemic. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network has estimated that the pandemic has coincided with a 25% increase in food assistance needs continent-wide.
The World Bank estimates 88 million additional people will be put into extreme poverty as a result of the COVID pandemic. In some regions like South Asia, higher economic growth may overcome some of that poverty it caused, but poverty in slower-growing economies in Africa and in fragile states like Venezuela is likely to persist.
National governments have failed to use multilateral forums effectively to forge a collective response to COVID-19 or its indirect health consequences. A strategic rivalry between China and the United States has undercut potential action at the G7, G20 and the United Nations Security Council.
The lesson here is that multilateral institutions do not spring magically into life during crises. Their success depends on the enlightened leadership of their member states that should be willing to put their differences aside and mobilize these bodies behind a collective effort.
The World Health Organization needs funding for its health emergencies program and should be required to report when governments fail to live up to their commitments. There needs to be a new global surveillance system to identify pandemic threats that is far less reliant on the self-reporting of early affected states.
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