Committee
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 46 - 60 of 196
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.
Results: 46 - 60 of 196 | Page: 4 of 14

|<
<
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data