Opening Statement before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts
COVID-19 Vaccines
(Report 9—2022 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada)
6 February 2023
Karen Hogan, Fellow Chartered Professional AccountantFCPA
Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our report on COVID‑19 vaccines, which was tabled in the House of Commons on December 6th, 2022. I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. Joining me today are Susan Gomez, the principal who was responsible for the audit, and Nadine Cormier, the director who led the audit team.
This audit examined how the federal government procured, authorized, and distributed vaccines to the provinces and territories to immunize Canadians against COVID‑19.
Overall, we found that the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, and Public Services and Procurement Canada worked together to respond to the urgent nature of the pandemic and secured enough COVID‑19 vaccine doses to vaccinate everyone living in Canada.
Health Canada helped get vaccines to Canadians by adjusting its usual authorization process. The department did this by reviewing information from the vaccine companies as it became available rather than waiting to receive a complete application package before starting its review. We found that Health Canada followed a systematic process to authorize the COVID‑19 vaccines.
In 2020, Public Services and Procurement Canada established advance purchase agreements with 7 companies that showed the potential to develop viable vaccines. Between December 2020 and May 2022, the federal government paid for 169 million vaccine doses. Over 84 million were administered to eligible people across the country. On average, the Public Health Agency of Canada delivered vaccines within 2 days of receiving a province’s or a territory’s request. This is successful considering the logistics of transporting temperature-sensitive materials to sometimes remote locations.
We found that the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada collected and analyzed COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data to monitor the safety, coverage, and effectiveness of the vaccines. However, a lack of finalized data-sharing agreements with the provinces and territories meant that the agency struggled to effectively share detailed case-level safety surveillance data with Health Canada, the World Health Organization, and vaccine companies.
We raised concerns about the sharing of health data between federal and provincial or territorial health authorities in 1999, in 2002, in 2008, and again in 2021. These long-standing issues, including implementing a pan‑Canadian framework for sharing information, must be urgently addressed because the sharing of health data is a cornerstone of effective surveillance to keep Canadians safe.
We also found that problems with information sharing affected the Public Health Agency of Canada’s ability to gather wastage and expiry information. Delays in implementing important functionalities of VaccineConnect also reduced the agency’s ability to track wastage.
By the end of May 2022, Canada had 32.5 million doses of COVID‑19 vaccines—estimated to be worth about $1 billion—in federal, provincial, and territorial inventories. Another 50.6 million doses were deemed surplus and offered for donation.
Between December 2020 and May 31st, 2022, which marked the end of the period covered by our audit, 15.1 million doses were wasted. The Public Health Agency of Canada told us that from June to December 2022, another 11 million doses expired before they could be used or donated. Wastage can happen for many reasons, and given the evolving nature of the pandemic, some wastage was to be expected.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have. Thank you.