Question Period Note: COVID-19 surge supports for Provinces and Territories

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• In fall 2020, the Government of Canada created the COVID-19 Federal Rapid Surge Capacity initiative as a means for provinces and territories to access critical services, equipment, and resources needed to help manage outbreaks in their jurisdictions. These supports are being offered for potential deployments across Canada, including rural and remote locations as well as Indigenous communities.
• The Government of Canada is ready to respond to provincial and territorial requests for assistance for COVID-19.
• The Public Health Agency of Canada gathers information, monitors, and actively collaborates with our provincial, territorial, and federal partners to support COVID-19 outbreak management.
• Throughout the pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada has coordinated with Public Safety, Indigenous Services Canada, and Health Canada to proactively engage with provinces and territories to better understand and respond to their surge support needs.
• Based on these collaborations, the Public Health Agency of Canada provides surge supports such as public health expertise, safe voluntary isolation sites, personal protective equipment, medical equipment, testing and contact tracing assistance, health human resources, and various immunization supports.

If pressed: examples of surge support provided to provinces and territories
• Direct support provided to provinces and territories has included:
• Epidemiologists mobilized on site and remotely to support outbreak management, including in isolated, remote and Indigenous communities.
o This was the case for Nunavik, a region in Northern Quebec with a low vaccination rate and high vaccine hesitancy, and the James Bay area, a region with several First Nations communities, including Kashechewan, which saw over 10% of its population infected and several residents requiring hospital interventions.
o Similarly, the Northwest Territories experienced outbreaks in multiple community settings. Field Epidemiologists provided support on two separate occasions.
• Infection prevention and control professionals deployed to provide hands on support.
o This was the case in the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut where professionals were deployed to provide in-person and remote support.
o In the Northwest Territories, the infection prevention and control team and the Canadian Red Cross Humanitarian Workforce Program co-led an assessment of COVID infection prevention and control support needs in healthcare facilities, COVID testing and quarantine sites in the city of Yellowknife and the remote northern community of Behchokǫ̀ (Beh-cho-Ko) The needs assessment led to support being provided to the Stanton Hospital in Yellowknife as well as the Inuvik Regional Hospital on two separate occasions lasting up to 5 weeks.
• Over 63 isolation sites in 53 communities have been funded, and supported over 20,000 individuals across Canada to access safe isolation accommodations to keep themselves, their families and their community safe.
• Six federal laboratories and two mobile laboratory trucks across Canada, with capacity to process 15,000 tests per day, are available to supplement provincial and territorial testing capacity.
o In some cases, like Manitoba, the National Microbiology Laboratory provided laboratory technicians as surge support.
• The Public Health Agency of Canada embedded staff in less populated jurisdictions, such as the Yukon and Northwest Territories, to support real-time coordination of the COVID-19 response.

Provinces and territories (PTs) are responsible for prioritizing requests from their local jurisdictions. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) serves as the single window to coordinate PT requests under the COVID-19 Federal Rapid Surge Capacity initiative. The Government of Canada triages requests based on needs and the capacity available at the time of the request.

This initiative was complemented by the Safe Restart Agreements (announced on July 16, 2020), which provided PTs with over $19 billion in federal investments to support:
• health care system capacity
• outbreak management, testing and contact tracing
• social services to support Canadians

The Fall Economic Statement 2020 committed a further $150 million to support the Canadian Red Cross and other non-governmental organizations with enhancing their surge capacity workforce to support Canada’s response to large-scale emergencies, such as COVID-19. This funding is being delivered through the Humanitarian Workforce Program which currently sunsets on March 31, 2023.

In fall 2020, the Government of Canada established the Safe Voluntary Isolation Sites Program (SVISP) to complement the efforts of municipal, provincial and territorial health partners to reduce COVID-19 community transmission by providing self-isolation spaces to support people who lack the space and means to safely isolate in their usual place of residence, often due to crowded housing. During the first two years of operation (September 2020-March 2022), approximately $113 million was allocated to support projects in communities throughout Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, the Northwest Territoriesand the Yukon. As announced on February 10, 2022, the SVISP was extended from March 2022 to March 2023, providing an additional $68.4 million to help communities and people across Canada with their isolation needs. With this new funding, the Government of Canada is providing over $181 million to the SVISP over three years.

Between April 2021 and March 2022, the Government of Canada delivered the Health Human Resources Assistance Program (HHRAP) which provided funding to PTs in support of their deployment of resources to other jurisdictions in need. The HHRAP aligned with the intent and spirit of the Federal Provincial and Territorial Operational Framework for Mutual Aid Requests (OFMAR). OFMAR was created in 2013 as a mechanism that could be activated by PTs to identify and share healthcare professionals and health assets inter-jurisdictionally during emergency events, with a facilitation role from PHAC. The HHRAP sunset on March 31, 2022; notwithstanding, support continues to be provided to PTs through the OFMAR.

Through these initiatives and others, surge support resources and mechanisms are made available to PTs to augment existing services related to: rapid public health assessments, public health specialists (e.g. epidemiologists, infection prevention and control support, outbreak management support), testing equipment and supplies, laboratory services (e.g. test processing at surge site laboratories, laboratory technician support), medical supplies (e.g. personal protective equipment such as masks, and biomedical equipment such as ventilators), health human resources (such as nurses), therapeutics to treat COVID-19 patients, safe voluntary isolation sites, and contact tracing. These supports are primarily provided by PHAC.

Statistics Canada provides contact tracing support. Public Safety Canada administers the Humanitarian Workforce Program (launched in 2021) and coordinates a variety of federal efforts through the Government Operations Centre. Indigenous Services Canada oversees services and supports to Indigenous communities. As a measure of last resort, the Canadian Armed Forces provides a variety of surge supports to jurisdictions across Canada.

• The Government of Canada has been actively engaged with provincial and territorial, Indigenous, as well as municipal governments to support a collaborative whole-of-government approach to monitor and to respond to COVID-19 surge capacity needs across Canada.