INDU Committee Report

Report on the Domestic Manufacturing Capacity for a COVID-19 Vaccine:

Conservative Dissenting Report

This Supplemental Report reflects the views of the Conservative Members of Parliament who serve on the Standing Committee of Industry and Technology (“INDU”): MP Rick Perkins (Vice Chair of the Committee, South Shore – St. Margaret’s), MP Ryan Williams (Bay of Quinte), MP Brad Vis (Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon), and MP Bernard Généreux (Montmagny–L’Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup).

Introduction

As referenced in the report, this study examined the May 12, 2020 announcement by the Government of Canada to conduct a $44-million refit of a National Research Council (NRC) facility in Montreal to produce a domestic vaccine in collaboration with CanSino Biologics. This study further reviewed the announcements-related issues including the eventual dissolution of the planned partnership with CanSino on August 26, 2020.    

The Conservative members of this committee supported and actively participated in the pursuit of this study given its critical importance to Canada’s domestic vaccine manufacturing sector as well as to ensure lessons were learned in guaranteeing that Canada would be able to produce a safe and timely supply of domestically produced vaccines in the event of another global health emergency. The Conservative interest in this study also stemmed from a need to review the Government of Canada’s rollout of its domestic vaccine manufacturing program to ensure it was making the best use of taxpayer resources with the information it had available.

Observations

While we appreciate the work of the committee in the pursuit of this study, this report fails to address many of the shortcomings faced by the Government of Canada through its vaccine rollout program in areas concerning the CanSino Agreement, Canada’s vaccine procurement strategy, and how these programs compared in terms of results through international metrics.

CanSino Agreement

With regard to the CanSino agreement, while Conservatives are receptive to developing Canada's biomanufacturing sector, we are dismayed that the failures of the CanSino agreement are not fully understood nor adequately reflected in this report. The report fails to establish the specifics of how the recommendations for the CanSino partnership came to be and provides no reason nor any explanation as to why the CanSino vaccine shipments never arrived.

While the report explains that the Government of Canada’s vaccine procurement strategy was based upon the input received from the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, members of this task force like Dr. Kobinger explained to the committee that it had made no such recommendation concerning the CanSino agreement and further added that he “didn’t know where this recommendation came from.”[1] We also note that it is unclear how the task force could arrive at any recommendation for a partnership with CanSino when considering the NRC facility announcement came prior to the task force's first meeting on June 16, 2020. Given this, we are frustrated that the report does not sufficiently explain how the CanSino agreement was reached, and which group specifically recommended the establishment of the partnership.

The absence of this information is incredibly concerning given the numerous risks associated with this agreement from the outset. During witness testimony, committee members heard evidence on several occasions of risks associated with partnering with CanSino. For instance, Dr. Kobinger noted that Canada was the “only western country to identify [the Ad5-nCoV-S] vaccine as a possible candidate” and that the decision to use that vaccine candidate was “not scientifically sound.”[2]

We also observe that the decision to partner with a Chinese-based company is highly concerning, given the potential influence it could be subject to by Beijing. The thought that Canadians would trust a vaccine from CanSino over those being administered by other western countries from brand name pharmaceutical companies defines logic or understanding of our population’s willingness to subject themselves to a vaccine from the Chinese Communist Party.

Vaccine Procurement Strategy

With regards to the Government of Canada’s vaccine procurement strategy, following the dissolution of the CanSino agreement in the summer of 2020, Canada entered into agreements with seven organizations reserving over 400 million doses of vaccine candidates with options to increase those orders later for Canada’s estimated population of 38 million.[3] This massive vaccine procurement strategy was based upon the recommendations outlined by the task force and was adopted following the failure of the CanSino agreement.

Concerning this strategy, we observe that the report fails to adequately clarify that the CanSino agreement was the first effort by the federal government to procure vaccines for Canadians and that the adoption of the vaccine procurement strategy was a consequence of the failures of the CanSino agreement and inability to produce a create domestic biomanufacturing sector.

While conservatives do not oppose a vaccine procurement strategy, we are concerned with how it was handled after hearing several testimonies criticizing the rollout. For instance, Professor Amir Attaran highlighted that the government’s sudden switch in strategy was marked by numerous shortcomings. He argued that Minister responsible signed any vaccine procurement deal at a premium despite none of the companies being able to deliver upon vaccine commitments by February 2021. Professor Attaran argued that the federal government actions did not appear as though they were strategic and resembled as though it was panicking.[4]

Conservatives note that the United States signed its first Advanced Agreement for COVID vaccines on March 27, 2020 and had concluded all its Advanced Agreements by July 2020.  All with brand name pharmaceutical companies. Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force did not hold its first meeting until June 16, 2020 and made its recommendations June 29, 2020. Canada then proceeded to negotiate advance purchase agreements signing the first in July 2020 and the final seventh contract in January 2021.

The United States has concluded all its advanced purchase agreements before the Government of Canada had even received any scientific advice on vaccines. The United States concluded its agreements fully seven months before the Government of Canada. Conservatives can only conclude form the evidence that this delay relative to our neighbour the United States, occurred because the Government of Canada made a political decision to sign an agreement with China-based CanSino before receiving any scientific advice. This decision delayed access to efficacious vaccines over the China option and costed lives because of the delay in access to vaccines and cost Canadians financially as well.                                                                                          

We also observe that Canada’s raid of the World Health Organization's COVAX initiative as further evidence of the Government of Canada's mishandling of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. As highlighted in the report, the COVAX program aimed to distribute vaccines equitably to low-income countries to establish vaccine equity internationally. Canada’s need for the COVAX program as a high-income country to vaccinate its citizens highlights the shortcomings of the federal government's rollout by demonstrating that it needed international aid in order to meet the country's vaccine needs.

When the need for COVAX vaccine doses no longer became necessary, the Government of Canada committed to donate over 200 million doses back to the COVAX program. As of May 2022, the federal government has only managed to donate 15.3 million of the estimated 200 million doses initially promises. This falls far short of their public commitment to help low-income countries and has further resulted in the expiration of tens of millions of vaccine doses without them being sent to the COVAX program.[5]

The Global Context

The report further fails to provide adequate context regarding the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically regarding Canada’s vaccine procurement strategy in comparison to the rest of the world. During drafting instructions, Conservative committee members requested that a more detailed contextual section be included in the report to provide future readers with a solid understanding of just how deadly the COVID-19 pandemic had been in Canada.

While several federal public servants commended Canada's ongoing vaccine rollout plan during witness testimony, we observe that individual witnesses often sang a different tune. For instance, Dr. Kobinger highlighted that by the end of January 2021, Canada ranked 58th in the world in terms of per capita vaccinations. Dr. Kobinger attested that Canada’s lack of COVID-19 vaccines in comparison to other countries resulted in a greater number of fatalities that could have been prevented had Canada’s vaccine rollout been quicker.[6] Poor international rankings concerning per-capita vaccination highlight that Canada failed to procure vaccines quickly enough for its citizens.

We observe that this point is not adequately reflected in the committee’s report. Nowhere does the study make a mention of Canada's ranking on the international stage with regards to per capita vaccinations despite numerous mentions in witness testimony. The Government of Canada’s slow vaccine procurement strategy and inability to produce vaccines quickly enough for our citizens delayed the receiving of life-saving medicine during a time when thousands of Canadians were dying of COVID-19. While Canadians did eventually receive vaccine doses in large quantities by April 2021, by this time approximately 5,000 Canadians had died of COVID-19 since the time vaccines first became available in December 2020.[7] We observe that the sluggishness of the rollout in comparison to the international community does not reflect well on Canada’s status as a G7 member.

Acquiring more than ten times the vaccines needed compared to our population while paying a premium per dose appears to have been the only way for Canada to have jumped the line after at least a three-month delay with the government's sole contract with CanSino. This delay had severe financial impacts directly on the Government of Canada’s spending as well as the economic costs of additional lockdowns because of the delay caused in Canadians having effective vaccines available. It also had consequential impacts on the health of Canadians because of the delay in the vaccine rollout availability.

The report also inadequately deals with the issue of over purchasing and vaccine expiry and waste. According to the Auditor General’s report on COVID-19 Vaccines, approximately 32.5 million doses were set to expire at the end of 2022 with an estimated value of one billion dollars. The report indicates that this was the direct result of over-purchasing by the federal government specifically the purchases of optional vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.  

Supplementary Recommendations

Given these observations, the conservative members of this committee recommend that the following two recommendations be added to the committee's report:

Recommendation 11: To prevent the delay caused by the Government of Canada's sole source contracting for a vaccine with CanSino without the advice of the COVID-19 Vaccine task force, in planning for future pandemic vaccination strategies, the Government of Canada should only contract to acquire vaccines on the scientific advice of the National Vaccine Taskforce set up to advise the government on the appropriate, and effective vaccines for Canadians during a pandemic.

Recommendation 12: That the Government of Canada work to ensure that it never has to acquire vaccines from the World Health Organization COVAX vaccine stockpile depriving low-income countries of access to critical vaccines in a timely manner.

Conclusion:

In providing our observations and supplementary recommendations, the Conservative committee members would like the thank the House of Commons analyst and clerks for their hard work in adding to the completion of this report. This supplemental report is by no means a way to cast doubt upon their work but rather to highlight the shortcoming of the report adopted by a majority of committee members. Despite the committee failing to address many of our observations, we hope that this minority report provides the Government of Canada with insight as it moves forward with policy to prepare us for the next global health emergency.

Respectfully,

Rick Perkins, MP, Vice-Chair

South Shore – St. Margaret’s

Bernard Généreux, MP

Montmagny–L’Islet–Kamouraska–Rivière-du-Loup

Brad Vis, MP

Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon

Ryan Williams, MP

Bay of Quinte