Document reveals why Canada sent protective equipment to China as COVID-19 threat was growing

OTTAWA-Canada's health minister gave the approval to donating personal protective equipment from the national emergency stockpile that was on the verge of expiry to China, a newly released email shows.

A Jan. 31 email written by Public Health Agency of Canada chief of staff Marnie Johnstone indicates Health Minister Patty Hajdu had offered "notional agreement" to donate supplies that were due to expire in February and March.

The Conservatives have lambasted the Liberal government for its donation, contending it left Canadian hospitals and health-care workers short of critical supplies.

The memo says officials were in a rush to nail down that decision so the supplies could be shipped via a flight chartered to repatriate Canadians stuck in Wuhan, the epicentre of the viral outbreak.

It also says the donation would not "compromise" Canadian supplies.

At the time, Canada had only four confirmed cases of COVID-19, while China had more than 14,000 cases and the virus had spread to 26 countries. The World Health Organization had declared a global public health emergency, but had not yet designated it as a pandemic.

In the memo, Johnstone wrote, "We have some stock in national emergency stockpile (incl stuff that is expiring in feb and March) that we are able to donate without compromising Cdn supply.

"Urgency around this one is related to getting this supply on the repatriation plane that is departing for China. Looking for concurrence as soon as possible that the Minister is in agreement with donation approach in memo."

The email with the subject line "Re Urgent: personal protective equipment" is contained in thousands of pages of documents given to the health committee. It was sent to individuals whose names and email addresses are redacted, and to a policy analyst.

It's not clear from the documents whether the final donation of 16 million tonnes of personal protective equipment did indeed contain items that were about to pass their best-before date.

But they were clearly in play, and time was of the essence.

According to the memo, PHAC president Tina Namiesniowski spoke to Hajdu earlier in the day on Jan. 31. The Canadian Red Cross, which was working with Ottawa to co-ordinate the shipment to China, wanted to pick up the supplies the next day, by noon at the latest.

Nine days later, the federal government announced that it shipped 16 tonnes of personal protective equipment to China between Feb. 4 and Feb. 9 - items "such as clothing, face shields, masks, goggles and gloves" - in collaboration with the Canadian Red Cross.

A Health Canada spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada said Monday that it could not respond to the Star's request for clarification due to the statutory holiday.

"I still think sending supplies to China, whether they were set to expire or not, are certainly a terrible message to our front-line workers," Conservative health critic Matt Jeneroux told the Star Monday.

"I imagine some of these supplies could certainly have been useful on the front lines, certainly at the very beginning of this crisis. What does an expired mask or expired gown looks like? Is it no longer protective to the extent that it was?"

While Jeneroux said that's a question best answered by experts, he added, "I would think it's better than having no mask and no gown at all."

"At the end of the day knowing that it's coming here - and we'd already seen cases here - then why were we not preparing to use every piece of PPE possibly available to protect our front-line workers?

Ottawa has defended its donation to China since it was publicly announced Feb. 9, saying the WHO and many countries were trying to help China contain the outbreak.

The federal government insists the federal stockpile was never intended as a go-to default source for provinces, but rather that provinces and territories are responsible for keeping their own supplies of necessary gear.

Last week, the government acknowledged the national stockpile was "likely" inadequate to meet all the needs anyway.

Hajdu said the "exact numbers" of medical equipment in the stockpile being distributed to provinces changes "day to day as we dispense equipment across the country."

However, she acknowledged that "we likely did not have enough.

"I think federal governments for decades have been underfunding things like public health preparedness and I would say governments all across the world are in the same situation."

Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc