Seeking to Understand lines of authority in international health treaty negotiations

Sharing my letter to inspire others to ask their questions too!

NOTE: When I receive answers, I will link this post to a follow up post. Maybe then we can see more clearly how Canadians can get their views on World Health Organization Treaties, International Health Regulations and the like heard and incorporated somehow. (I am being an optimist, I know… Or I’m waiting for someone to tell me there is no way… that would be a reason to “make some noise” and become more active from the ground up moving forward!!)

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Email to: PI.engagement.IP@phac-aspc.gc.ca

Hello, I first sent a few questions to hcinfo.infosc@canada.ca who forwarded them to  info@hc-sc.gc.ca. I was then directed by someone writing at the info@phac line to forward my questions to your office.

They had given me this response to my initial questions:

Thank you for contacting the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) about the WHO meetings regarding pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.

Please know that Canada is actively participating in all Intergovernmental Negotiating Body meetings to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement, or other instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Canada is represented by a team of officials from the federal Health Portfolio's Office of International Affairs; Global Affairs Canada's Global Health and Food Security Bureau; and our Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva. If you need further information, please email: PI.engagement.IP@phac-aspc.gc.ca.

Thank you again for writing. We hope this information is helpful.

So now, I realize you are yet another office (the Public Engagement office).

How can I get these questions to the people who are actually going out and representing Canada? Some might be ones you can answer, but others are written to address our representatives directly. I am asking you to pass these in their direction along with the links I include at the bottom. (Being Substack links, I trust that you do not consider them to be from a suspicious source and will feel safe opening them up.)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH // UN GROS MERCI!

Signed xxx

1) Does each country have ONE voting representative and then a bunch of aides and assistants to that representative (for example at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body)? Or does the "team" consist of ONE person coming from EACH body in the list provided, making it at least three people showing up to represent Canada?

2) I am aware that there were 2 weeks of negotiation meetings from Nov 4 - 15 in Geneva with both formal and informal sessions. And that in the next INB meeting from Dec 2 - 6 WHO member states are supposed to decide on their future course of action.  What are the choices before you? How will you know which to support? (I have heard one might be to reframe the Pandemic Treaty as an addendum to the already supported IHR... which to me sounds sneaky and not transparent. Hopefully you have other choices.)

Do the same individuals who were present at the first set of meetings continue at the second set or will it be different people?

3) Last summer, when the IHR was apparently agreed upon (although I did not see footage with raised hands and a vote count) it was declared that each country has up to a certain date to "ratify"  the document. Please confirm next steps here in Canada - what is our deadline by which to suggest Canada pulls out of a Treaty that many do not see as being to our benefit? What have you done to ensure that Canadians understand the text of what is to be ratified? Will there be public engagement sessions along the lines of what was done when items of national importance were up for decision making, for example the Charlottetown Accord back in the day! Then, the CBC and likely other media produced multiple features so Canadians could understand the significance of the document. In the 4 months since the passing of the IHR I have not noticed any communicaiton to the public about Canada's decision as to whether we support this newer package of Regulations. (I realize previous negotiators supported it in the past, but no one has given us even a sense of what is new, or different in the updated version and what the consequences of the changes could mean for us. Since the COVID Crisis, Canadians are so much more aware of the phenomenon of corporate capture at the WHO that this time around they will want to take a more active role in considering the merits and potential pitfalls of WHO proposals.)

4) Do any Canadian "non-state actors" approved by the WHO to vote alongside national delegates travel alongside you to these meetings? Do they have unmonitored access to the negotiators that other members of the public do not have? Do they have full voting rights? How many such "actors" would have been included in the final count when it came to "passing" any recent treaties, policies or other instruments? Who might they be? I understand that organizations like the Canadian Cancer Society or Lung or Diabetes etc. have a vested interest in health policy. I am trying to understand their role in the policy making and voting process. Surely many are not represented, like the tiny community around ME/CFS which is essentially the illness that LongCovid turns into so they would also have a vested interest, yet there might be no one representing them. Ditto for Acute Intermittent Porphyria and the many other tiny support groups for illnesses now seeing many more diagnoses since the rollout of mRNA injections. If some have a place at the table, what about the rest? What about corporate non-state actors, i.e. company reps? Are they treated like lobbyists and is their access to you limited by lobbying rules? That would preclude them from voting, And what about health related think tanks certain corporations are prone to lke funding as a means of access into the policy making arena?

5) Who is at the TOP of your line of authority? Is it the MInister of Global Affairs? (or Health?)  Do they essentially guide you in your deliberations with a predetermined policy perspective? What if the two of them were to not agree? Would that split your vote? Or is the head of PHAC (Dr. Teresa Tam) the final authority on your voting direction? I am assuming the UN Reps in Geneva play a more figurehead role, like the Governor General and do not engage in policy matters. Or am I wrong? OR are our higher ups looking to YOU for policy direction for example as you deem that too many Canadian positions are not being taken up into the majority consensus, it is possible for you to recommend to the Minister for Canada NOT support a WHO treaty, or other document as a result?

6) Who strategizes, for example, when Canada works with a few other nations to propose a new resolution or redraft an existing one? Are you free to take the initiative on your own, or do you need to get the OK from someone else first?

7) Where can Canadians follow your deliberations? Given that we can read transcripts recorded when Senators or MPs gather in committee or in their chambers, we would like to better follow your deliberations as well. To better understand what considerations you all had as you prepared to jet off to the November negotiating meetings, what can Canadians see? What will we be able to see as you prep for the December dates?

8) Finally, we have the very ODD problem that you as GOVERNMENT employees were somehow required to represent a GOVERNMENT position these past 4+ years. The GOVERNMENT position shaped the thinking of many of you. Those who maintained a more critical and independent stance have likely long left the public service, possibly as a result of pushing back against GOVERNMENT directives like mask and vax mandates. Other critical thinkers may have come up with stories for leaving, like early retirement or "better opportunities" elsewhere. Then we have the problem that much of the MEDIA has been funded to become a GOVERNMENT mouthpiece so it is likely that most of the GOVERNMENT workers are following mostly GOVERNMENT funded news and/or mainstream "corporate backed" and corporate "fact checked" news. Given that the GOVERNMENT narratives have been that COVID vaccines are safe and effective, masking and social distancing and quarantining and lockdowns and isolation of seniors and keeping kids indoors saved lives. Sadly backed by corporate investment-tied tech censorship companies, the government narrative became dominant, not because of its scientific accuracy but rather because of the outside power keeping other reporting out.  

So now Canadians have yet another challenge in addition to trying to understand how the lines of decision making flow - we need to open people's eyes on the INSIDE OF GOVERNMENT to the reality of censorship in this country on many levels - forces that censored those scientists who have been trying to show you ANOTHER WAY to deal with pandemics, to show the FLAWS and terrible consequences of following the corporate captured WHO narrative for pandemic prevention. These are people with evidence and science backed information that is being left OFF THE NEGOTIATING TABLE, which only means a furtherance of perpetual harms, instead of another way out!

Many have written letters to Senators and MPs re: Canada's Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Bill, but without knowing who makes these decisions at the international level, we are stuck. Clearly, Canada's Bill C-293 is a MINI-VERSION of the WHO One Health + Pandemic related documents condensed.

Is it possible to get PDF attachments and weblinks to you and those making these decisions? These links lead to PDF downloads, the first one for a Science update online event on November 21.

CSN Press Room - Hearing from “SILENCED” SCIENTISTS to remove Confusion on mRNA technology

& this one showing how gain of function research, not plain animal human contact, leads to pathogens with pandemic potential.

CSN Press Room - 'One Health' vs 'Gain of Function': Which pandemic cause has stronger evidence?

&  this quiz on Bill C-293 but the questions have direct relevance to Pandemic Treaty/IHR content... some questions relate to the history of Global Health Governance:

CSN Press Room - 'One Health' vs 'Gain of Function': Which pandemic cause has stronger evidence?

Let’s see how long it might take to get answers for this many questions!!!

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