House Passes Pandemic Preparedness Bill

The House of Commons has passed a bill that calls for Parliament at preparing Canada for the next pandemic. It was opposed by the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois and now goes to the Senate. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

The House of Commons has passed a bill seeking to help prepare Canada for the next pandemic, but a clause ordering a federal review of the handling of COVID-19 was voted out.

Bill C-293, The Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act, passed third reading on June 5, with 164 votes in favour and 144 against. The Liberals, NDP, and Green Party voted in favour of the legislation, while the Conservative Party and Bloc Québécois voted against it.

The private member’s bill, introduced by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith in June 2022, calls for Parliament to learn from the mistakes of previous pandemics and use a “multisectoral and multidisciplinary collaborative approach” to pandemic planning.

The legislation reads that the pandemic preparedness plan must ensure collaboration with province governments; establish surveillance systems for infectious diseases; support local public health capacity building; train health care workers to deal with sudden increases in patient volume; report on manufacturing capacities related to pandemic preparedness; and identify the “key drivers of pandemic risk and describe how Canadian activities, domestic and abroad, contribute to the risk.”

The bill requires the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and Minister of Industry to provide measures to reduce the risk posed by antimicrobial resistance, regulate commercial activities like industrial animal agriculture that can contribute to pandemic risks, and promote the “production of alternative proteins” that do not carry the same pandemic risks.

Within two years of Bill C-293 coming into force, the health minister is required to prepare a report detailing the pandemic preparedness plan, table it before the House of Commons, and publish it on the Department of Health website.

The bill would modify the Department of Health Act by appointing a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from Public Health Agency of Canada officials and “delegate to the coordinator the powers, duties and functions that the Minister considers appropriate.”

A previous version of the bill called for the establishment of an advisory committee to assess the public health and pandemic response capabilities of all levels of government and agencies to respond to pandemics. However, that clause was removed with the NDP saying it would not vote for the bill if it remained.

NDP MP Peter Julian said during debate on June 3 that preparing for future pandemics required a public inquiry, and not an advisory committee, that would have a “very full and comprehensive review” of the government’s pandemic response. “The idea that the minister would put together an advisory committee, which is what is foreseen in the bill, is simply not adequate to the size and scope of what needs to happen,” he said.

Opposition

During debate on June 3, 2023, Mr. Erskine-Smith said the bill was important to “ensure accountability not just in the current Parliament but also in future Parliaments.”

“No one wants to relive what we lived through, but let us remember what we went through, because if we do not remember, we are destined to live through something very similar,” he said.

Bloc Québécois MP Sylvie Bérubé said the party would vote against the bill because of several “problematic elements.” She took issue with the bill’s call for Ottawa to collaborate with provincial and municipal governments to assess their public health and pandemic response capabilities.

“We also think that it is up to Quebec and the provinces to conduct their own assessment. Ottawa interferes enough in areas of provincial jurisdiction as it is. We will not give them an additional opportunity to meddle,” she said.

Conservative MP Richard Bragdon raised concerns with the bill calling for preparation for pandemics through the “One Health” approach outlined in the bill. One Health is defined by the World Health Organization as a “unifying approach to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and the environment” that focuses on food and water safety, nutrition, pollution management, and combatting antimicrobial resistance.

“Let us make sure we never surrender our sovereignty over the rights to our approach to any kind of a health crisis in this country and make sure that we are best prepared now by learning the difficult lessons to be learned coming out of COVID,” he said.

Bill C-293 is now heading to the Senate for review.