The federal government is establishing a new agency to improve Canadians’ ability to respond to fast-growing infectious diseases and protect Canadians from future pandemics.
Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said the agency aims to retain the “top team” of civil servants who led Canadians through COVID-19.
Health Emergency Preparedness Canada’s mission is to strengthen Canada’s life sciences sector by accelerating the move from research to commercialization, and ensure Canadians have rapid access to vaccines, medical therapies and diagnostics.
“Without a permanent institution somewhere, there was a risk that the collective knowledge accumulated during the pandemic would end up being dispersed and lost within the public administration,” Champagne told reporters on Tuesday.
“We’re bringing them together as a team so that people know where to go when they want to talk about their health and emergency preparedness.”
The new agency would be housed within the industry ministry and would include staff from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. Champagne said no new legislation would be needed and would build on spending already approved by Parliament in this year’s budget.
“We want to maintain a very close relationship with the industry,” he said.
The institute aims to coordinate efforts between Canadian industry and academic researchers, as well as international partners.
This follows a similar move by the European Union to set up an institution in 2021 to prepare the continent for pandemics and learn from mistakes made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada was ill-prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic, with outdated emergency stockpiles, low inventories and a virtually non-existent vaccine production industry.
Last year, the British Medical Journal criticized Canada’s “serious pandemic failures,” including jurisdictional disputes and high death rates in long-term care homes.
The Trudeau government has resisted calls from health experts and the NDP to follow the example of countries such as Britain and conduct studies into how governments handled the COVID-19 pandemic and how they could be better equipped to handle future pandemics.
Asked about the research, Champagne said the announcement was focused on having the right materials and researchers on hand when needed.
“We all hope there won’t be another pandemic, but the responsible thing to do is to have teams on standby and ready,” he said.
Champagne told a biotech industry meeting on Friday that as countries began considering how to prepare for future events, officials found Canada was not prepared to coordinate “health emergency preparedness.”
“I noticed things were scattered all over the place,” he said.
He said Canada is in danger of becoming the only G7 country “without a dedicated team” to combat the pandemic.
Once fully operational, the agency will have an “industry game plan” to fast-track research and industry mobilization if a new health emergency, such as a pandemic, is declared.
Champagne said the pandemic and investments in personalized medicine have made the public enthusiastic about the biotech sector.
“If there’s one industry that Canadians are falling in love with again, it’s definitely this industry,” he said.