That this House do now adjourn.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the shadow minister for health, the MP for .
This is an emergency debate so that Parliament can be seized with the lack of vaccines and the lack of an effective and consistent rollout of vaccines in a pandemic.
Today, the described the situation as things being in “good shape”, which is his quote, for vaccine deliveries in Canada. He thinks we are in good shape while COVID cases are setting record numbers in a week that Canada is receiving zero vaccines. He thinks we are in good shape when Canadians will only receive 8% of the vaccines his government promised Canadians just last month, 8%.
If this is what the considers “good shape”, what does he consider terrible shape, 3%? Canadians need a prime minister who understands that things are not okay, that Canadians are not okay.
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the first presumptive COVID-19 case in Canada, and since then, almost 20,000 Canadian families have had to face the loss of a loved one due to COVID-19
[Translation]
Today the Prime Minister is telling us that everything is fine, but I refuse to bury my head in the sand like him. We have to be honest with Canadians: Everything is not fine.
Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Canada's first presumed case of COVID-19. Since then, 10% of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs, and thousands of businesses have closed their doors.
[English]
We must secure vaccines; we must secure jobs and we must act now to secure our future.
What has the Liberal government done to improve its slow and confused approach? We want to see the government succeed in securing vaccines for Canada because vaccines let us turn the corner on COVID-19, but in reality, time and time again the government lets Canadians down.
Last spring, we saw countries hoarding PPE when faced with a global crisis. Planes full of supplies were diverted or never arrived. We saw countries stop the export of PPE from their countries. The called trying to secure medical supplies during the first wave the “wild west”, so are we really surprised to see the same thing happening with vaccines? It seems that time and time again the and the Liberal government never learned a single lesson from the first wave of this pandemic.
There is no plan B because there was never an effective plan A for the distribution and securing of vaccines for Canadians. Now we are learning the European Union is stopping vaccines before they leave its borders. All of our present vaccine supply comes from Europe, so where does that leave Canadians?
This week, in the midst of a raging pandemic, we are receiving zero vaccines. Is that an indication of where we are going in the next few weeks? The health and prosperity of Canadians is at stake. The bottom line is we need vaccines to secure our future, rebuild our economy and get Canadians back to work.
While Canada's Conservatives are committed to protecting jobs, the Liberals appear to be holding meetings to save their own. With the return of the House, our team will relentlessly focus on the COVID-19 recovery, jobs, rising wages and getting Canada's economy and finances back on track.
The Liberals, by contrast, view this pandemic as an opportunity to experiment on risky, ideologically driven and unproven schemes involving the Canadian economy. They want to reimagine the economy, which means they will decide which Canadians get jobs and what sectors they target for recovery.
This Liberal "Ottawa knows best" approach is a distraction from getting vaccines into the arms of Canadians and getting Canadians back to work in every sector and in every region of this country.
[Translation]
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Liberals decided to send some of our medical equipment to China. We ended up having to buy that same equipment at exorbitant prices.
Now the wants to play with our economy instead of finding a stable solution for vaccines. This is not the time to experiment with our economy. This is not the time to push an ideology. The only goal should be acquiring vaccines so we can get our economy up and running again. The government needs to work with the opposition parties to improve distribution.
[English]
Canadians are also feeling a range of pandemic side effects. We are all seeing this in our ridings. Some two-fifths of Canadian workers are worried about the mental health and wellness of one of their colleagues. Hundreds of thousands of surgeries across this country have been delayed. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions of people have not been able to see their family members, in some cases for months.
[Translation]
The pandemic is having numerous side effects. Mental health problems are growing every day. Families are being left to educate their children at home.
[English]
The ability to get our country to rebuild the economy and get Canadians back to work in every sector, in every part of the country, so that we can pull together and bounce back from COVID, hinges on a smooth and stable rollout of vaccines. As I have said several times this week, the opposition Conservatives want the government to succeed. We want to see these vaccines. Our nation literally depends upon it for turning the corner in this pandemic.
In October, the opposition passed a sweeping motion to direct the health committee to study the COVID-19 pandemic. That included information about the government's vaccine rollout and key related documents. It became clear then, with each week and with more documents, that the government had no real plan to speak of. It was late to the game on vaccine procurement.
The Liberals then took a victory lap when they announced deals with Pfizer and a few other companies. They boasted about their portfolio of vaccines over the next several years. However, Canadians do not have several years to wait. They need vaccines now, just as other countries are getting. At the very least, Canadians need the knowledge of when they can anticipate receiving a vaccine and life starting to return to normal.
Even the government's own MPs are confused. Last night the member for said the government was counting on vaccines yet to be approved to reach its own numbers. If Liberal MPs do not know what the plan is, how are Canadians supposed to know what the plan is?
[Translation]
The key to getting our country back on track is vaccines. We need a reliable government. The truth is that there is now a shortage of vaccines. The Prime Minister talks a good game, but the reality is that we will not receive any Pfizer vaccines this week.
[English]
Premiers report they are running out of vaccines. This week Canadians know we are receiving zero vaccines. Next week, according to a revised schedule, Canada will receive less than a third of what the government said we would have just a month ago. The following week, the schedule uses the term “unknown”. Unknown is proof there is no plan.
Between now and the middle of February, Canada was supposed to receive a million vaccines. Instead, we will be getting 8% of that. Perhaps the thinks that 8% is acceptable. The Conservatives do not.
We need to secure our future. We need better from a slow and always confused government, and a who chose to partner with a Chinese firm to develop a vaccine. It was a reckless partnership that broke down and resulted in us being months behind our peer countries.
The Liberals did not move quickly. They partnered with the wrong country. They lost the chance to manufacture the vaccine here at home. Again, the Liberals learned nothing from the first wave of the pandemic. The and his deputy rode us back into the Wild West, where vaccines can be withheld and Canada is falling behind. We need to do better.
[Translation]
We want our government to succeed, but the Prime Minister is letting us down.
We need to work together.
[English]
It is imperative we work together to get the vaccines we need to get this country moving and get people working to secure our future. Canadians deserve leadership. They deserve a plan tonight. We will work together to push for just that.
:
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the for his leadership in bringing forward a debate that concerns all Canadians. All Canadians watching tonight are unified and should be unified in their concern about the topic we are looking at. For those who are watching, I want to break down exactly what the problem we are facing is and what the and the Liberals need to do to fix it.
Tonight we are trying to get answers on the COVID-19 vaccine. Canada has a huge vaccine shortage. This week, Canada got zero doses of vaccine, none, while countries around the world like Romania, the Czech Republic, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and virtually every other country that had a contract got doses of the vaccine this week. That is great for their citizens, but what about Canadians?
The did a great job empathizing with every Canadian watching this debate tonight. Those who are watching are probably sitting at home feeling the mental health effects of not seeing loved ones, losing a job or losing somebody to COVID. It has been a year so far and we need to move on. I am sure nobody watching this tonight wants to keep hearing about more lockdowns and more removals of civil liberties. People who are watching this debate want us to get it right. They want to see solutions from the government.
A year into this worldwide crisis, things have been developed to get us out of the crisis, such as rapid tests, therapeutics and vaccines. The problem with Canada is that, as a democracy, a G7 country and a leader in the world, we have not been provided with those tools by the government. Therefore, it is incumbent upon every person in this place to ask why and to get those answers. We should not be sitting in lockdown and talking about more curfews and more restrictions. We should not be asking Canadians to sacrifice more. We should be asking our government to do better. That is what the did tonight.
I want to break down exactly what the problem is, how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.
This is my suspicion. About a year ago when all of this started, I really do not think the federal Liberals or the took the pandemic seriously. We saw that because they did not lock down the Canadian borders. They did not want to cancel flights from China. They said there was no person-to-person transmission of COVID. They were relying on data that was not coming from Canadian sources. They were doing a lot of things to downplay this issue. Let us talk about what that means in the context of a vaccine.
We know that the federal Liberals at that time when they did not think it was a big deal, and here we should remember that Canada did not close our borders until middle to late March last year, signed a deal with a company called CanSino. This company has ties with the Chinese government. They put all of our eggs, all of Canada's hopes that we are now relying on to get out of lockdown, in that basket. I do not know why. We do not have a lot of clarity on that. The , I, and all of my colleagues have been fighting for answers on that. I think they were working on scientific diplomacy with this company, and not actually getting Canadians vaccines.
What does this mean? Because they were working with this company, and I do not have any evidence to the contrary because we have not been provided with contract details to refute this, we wanted the government to succeed, but because it put all of its eggs in this one basket, it failed. The Chinese government would not roll the dice.
We did not come to the table. The and his cabinet did not get Canada to the party. We were late to the vaccine negotiating party with the companies that were producing vaccines that would work, like Pfizer and Moderna. We are seeing these plane loads of vaccines coming in, giving hope to countries like Brazil and the United States, but not here. That is because our government did not come to the table.
What have we been trying to do to address this issue? We have been trying to get information, because with information we can create solutions. If we do not have information, if the Canadian public, those who are watching, do not have information, we cannot create solutions. Therefore, we need to know why the government started negotiating those contracts so late. Why? What did it actually negotiate?
Pfizer, within a year, created this amazing product that could stop the pandemic in its tracks. Why is it that other countries this week are getting vaccines, but we are not here in Canada? We need to know that. Why is that? There have to be reasons and those reasons lie in those contracts.
Because Conservatives have been trying to drive to solutions, want Canada to get vaccines and want the government to be successful, we tried to pass a motion in the House for the government to release some of those details and be transparent with Canadians. What did it do? It put forward a minister who said that we are not going to get any vaccines if those details are released. It is politics at its worst at a time when we need to come together. Information means answers, information means solutions, information means vaccines, information means an end to lockdowns.
What has disappointed me is that in the last few weeks we have seen the government do something that no government should do in a situation like this, which is point fingers. The federal government said that it is the provincial governments' fault, but provincial governments cannot deliver vaccines they do not have and it is the 's job to get us those vaccines. The federal government even said that it was the drug manufacturing company's fault. Maybe it is, but we do not know because the government will not release the details of those contracts. Even a lot of media today are asking why it is not releasing those details.
Countries around the world that are facing production delays are starting to put forward the details of their contracts, saying that they are going to fight for the remedies they have in those contracts, the recourse they have when things go awry with companies, so that their citizens have a tool to move forward, but the federal Liberals and the have not been doing that. We do not know.
To move forward, the first thing the government needs to do is make those details public so that provincial governments of all political stripe can start planning for the delivery of these vaccines, so that when provincial governments talk about ending lockdowns and ask about the variants, they have some hope or some information on these variants. That is what the Conservatives are fighting for: we are fighting for that information, to start. We are doing that at committee meetings by compelling ministers to appear, and this is happening with all of the opposition parties. We are working together on this because we understand that this is not about politics; this is about getting answers.
Tonight, this debate is about holding the federal government's feet to the fire and telling it to come clean so we can move forward. There are so many other things. Last night, I was on national television with a senior Liberal MP, who was put forward by the 's Office to talk about vaccines and these issues. He started talking about how a lot of the federal government's plans were banking on vaccines that had not been approved by the government yet. Information means vaccines, information means a way out of lockdowns, it means hope and the government could not tell us what the approval process was for these vaccines or how many doses it ordered. That needs to stop; it really does. We need to have those answers. We need to understand what happened so that we can move forward.
For those watching tonight, I do not care if they vote Conservative or not. We are all Canadians and we need every Canadian to help us demand answers on this. That is the only way we are going to move forward and what my party wants. There are a lot of stories. I encourage people watching to ask themselves this one real question: When could I get a vaccine if I wanted one? Right now, the cannot answer that question. That is a big problem because it means that we do not have hope as a country while other countries do. We need to do better. It starts with that information and with demanding more.
As the said, it is about doing better to provide hope and compassion for all Canadians. On this side of the aisle, that is what we are fighting for.
:
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have endured so much since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Extended families have been separated, unable to see each other or travel because of the stringent restrictions that we need to follow to curb the spread of the virus. Many are feeling isolated and alone.
While we have seen some positive signs over the last few days that the spread is slowing, these past few months have been hard ones as we have experienced a resurgence of the virus. The pandemic continues to take a toll on all aspects of our lives, including our economic well-being and our mental and physical health. Many are unable to work, and of course many of our small business owners have had to close their doors while we grapple with bringing case numbers under control.
Our government has taken numerous measures to ensure that Canadians are supported in their time of need, and with that support we are laying the foundations for an economic recovery, one that will have Canada bounce back stronger than ever. I know that members agree that we need to do everything we can to get our economy back on track, and we all want that recovery to happen as soon as possible.
However, most importantly, we need to keep Canadians safe now. Since the first case was reported in Canada, nearly 20,000 Canadians have died from the virus. That number is a stark reminder of what is at stake here as we hold this emergency debate. Each one of those deaths represents a grieving family that has lost a loved one, be it a grandparent, a parent, a sibling or even a child, in so many cases not even having the opportunity to say goodbye. It is true that Canadians are tired of restrictions and limiting their contacts, but most are doing their part because they know the cost. They have been doing their part since day one, and our government has been doing everything it can to get us all through this unprecedented crisis.
Since the beginning, my department of Public Services and Procurement Canada has worked diligently to procure the necessary supplies to support our front-line health care workers. We worked non-stop to procure vital PPE and other medical supplies for front-line health care workers. This work was not easy. Global demand meant that early and urgent supplies largely came from overseas. However, Canadian industries stepped up, building domestic capacity so that many of our procurements are now Canadian-based. With over 2.5 billion individual pieces of PPE and medical equipment secured, we are increasingly returning to competitive procurements wherever feasible.
In this same competitive environment, we have also made great strides in purchasing much-needed COVID tests, including rapid testing, an important element for Canada's ongoing response. To date, we have delivered more than 15 million rapid tests for use by our provincial and territorial partners. Ultimately, though, we know that the only way out of this pandemic is by getting vaccines to Canadians as quickly as possible.
Our approach to procuring vaccines has been deliberate, strategic and comprehensive. At the outset of the pandemic, when pharmaceutical companies took on the challenge, none of us knew if it was even possible to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.
Once vaccine candidates began to show promise, we knew that we would be dealing with a highly complex and competitive global market. Scientists, manufacturers and regulators around the globe would be working under intense pressure to develop, produce and carefully assess safe and effective vaccines. Not unlike our experience in procuring medical supplies and equipment, we knew that we would be operating in a highly competitive marketplace. To say the least, the risks were high and the unknowns were many. For that very reason, starting last summer, we pursued a diversified vaccine procurement approach, one that allowed us to secure doses as early as possible by signing agreements in principle while the details for the final purchase agreement were being negotiated.
At the same time, we were proactive in acquiring critical goods and services such as needles, syringes and more in order to support the provinces and territories when it came time to administer the vaccines.
As a government, our decisions and our response to the pandemic have always been based on the best and most recent scientific understanding of the virus. Our work here was guided by our COVID-19 vaccine task force, the creation of which was a key element of our government's vaccine strategy early on. The task force is composed of experts and industry leaders, providing scientific and technical advice.
On the advice of this task force, we began signing agreements with potential suppliers as early as last July on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada. In all, our government managed to gain access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines from seven different manufacturers, resulting in one of the most robust and diverse portfolios of COVID-19 vaccines in the world. Our goal was to solidify early access to a highly diversified portfolio so that Canada would be well positioned to receive doses quickly once they were deemed safe and effective.
In December, our approach began to pay off when Health Canada was close to authorizing the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. We were similarly able to negotiate the arrival of doses earlier than scheduled. Similarly, Canada was successful in negotiating the delivery of the Moderna vaccine beginning in December, which proved important for distribution to indigenous and remote communities, given Moderna's less stringent refrigeration requirements.
Through our agreements with Pfizer and Moderna, we were guaranteed 20 million doses of each vaccine, with options to purchase more. Soon afterward, the vaccines began to roll in and, thanks to the flexibility of those agreements, we were able to exercise options for 20 million more doses of each. Because we laid the groundwork, because we took action as early a possible and because we took a strategic approach, one that would ensure the best outcome for Canadians, we have secured 80 million doses of authorized vaccines under contract to be delivered this year. I would add that when candidates from the five remaining manufacturers we have under agreement receive Health Canada approval, we will take a similar course of action, with a view to getting vaccines into this country as soon as possible.
As for timing, the shipments of Moderna and Pfizer we have secured are already bringing relief to communities across Canada, with vulnerable people in long-term care homes and health care workers being vaccinated. So far, we have received and distributed a total of 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the provinces and territories. It has been truly a team Canada approach; thanks to the work of the provinces and territories, vaccines are now getting into the arms of Canadians.
Just as I have committed to being transparent and up front with Canadians about our progress on vaccines, I am also committed to being up front with Canadians when issues arise. As I have said, we have always known that we would be operating in a highly complex and intensely competitive environment. We knew that vaccine manufacturers would need to ramp up production at unprecedented speeds as they fielded orders from around the world. That is why we pursued a number of agreements early on in the pandemic when the vaccines began to show promise so that Canada would have more security through a diversified portfolio.
When Pfizer informed us that there would be a temporary delay in its shipments, starting this week, I was disappointed and frustrated, to say the least. My team has been in direct communication with Pfizer, as have I, to make sure that Pfizer meets its commitments.
I can also assure the House that I have personally been in contact with Pfizer almost daily to firmly reiterate the importance, for Canada, of returning to our regular delivery schedule as soon as possible. It is important to note that the temporary delay in deliveries is so that Pfizer can increase its production capacity. We can expect a ramp-up of deliveries of the vaccine following this disruption.
It is also important to note that Canada is far from the only country impacted by the disruption. All countries supplied by Pfizer's European facility have had their shipments impacted. Pfizer has confirmed that while the next few weeks will be challenging when it comes to deliveries, hundreds of thousands of doses will be delivered the week of February 15 and in the weeks that follow. It has also confirmed that we will receive all four million doses owed to us in the first quarter of this year, on time, before March 31.
Between Moderna and Pfizer, we still anticipate receiving six million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of March. After that, we can expect a significant acceleration in the delivery of authorized vaccines. From April to June, we expect that at least 20 million doses of vaccines will be available to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
Between Pfizer and Moderna alone, we remain on track to have enough vaccines by the end of September for everyone in Canada who is eligible and wants to be vaccinated. We also continue to follow developments concerning vaccine candidates from the five other manufacturers with whom we have agreements: Sanofi-GSK, Medicago, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. I can tell Canadians that we will continue to pursue even more doses through these agreements as more vaccine candidates are deemed safe and effective, with a view to getting them into Canada as quickly as possible.
The toll that COVID-19 has taken on our citizens and our economy has been devastating. I have to reiterate that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are on our way to getting through this. The vaccines are here and more will arrive very soon. In working with the provinces and territories, we have established supply chains to get vaccines into the arms of Canadians as soon as possible.
The immunization effort will be one of the greatest undertakings in this country's history, but it will not happen overnight and there will be bumps along the way. I will always be transparent and upfront with Canadians about the status of our efforts, and while the global market is complex and can be unstable at times, the fact is that now we can see a way out of this pandemic.
We are in the final stretch, with vaccines being rolled out. As the reported to Canadians on Friday, Canada is now approaching three-quarters of a million vaccine doses administered across the country. The average number of doses administered daily is now almost four times what it was just three weeks ago.
There is more work to do, and we must remain vigilant. For Canadians, that means continuing to follow guidelines from our local health officials, doing everything we can to limit our contacts and once again flatten the curve. It will not be easy, but our actions quite literally will be saving lives over these winter months. For our government and for all members of the House, it means continuing to support Canadians in their time of need. As we returned to the House yesterday, it marked one year since the first recorded case of COVID-19 in Canada.
Not many of us here could have anticipated what the past year would look like, but we found a way to come together in the face of such adversity. Our work is by no means done. Yes, the vaccines are arriving and Canadians are doing their part to flatten the curve until we can inoculate everyone who wants a vaccine.
Thanks to our efforts so far, through our collaboration in the House, working with provinces and territories and because of our team Canada approach, we are making progress. By this time next year, my sincere hope is that the pandemic will be behind us once and for all.
While I appreciate the fact that this emergency debate is addressing the most pressing issue facing our nation, now is not the time for scoring political points. The fact is that we are getting the job done when it comes to vaccines, and despite bumps in the road we are on track to meet our goal of inoculations being available to every eligible Canadian who wants one by September. I know that if we can keep working for Canadians together, we will get through this and we will make our hopes a reality.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from .
We did not need to cite many reasons, Mr. Speaker, to convince you of the urgency of this debate, and rightly so. There is a total lack of transparency with respect to the vaccination schedule and the contracts.
The key words in my speech this evening are “the urgent need for action” and “transparency”. To date, the virus has resulted in 19,238 deaths in Canada and infected more than 753,000 people. In Quebec, 256,000 have been infected and 9,577 have died. I want to stress these numbers because we should never see them as mere statistics and downplay these deaths and human suffering.
We have all been directly or indirectly affected by the death of a parent, friend or acquaintance, or we all know someone who has lost a loved one. Not to mention all the patients not suffering from COVID-19 who are awaiting treatment. It will be too late for some of them. There is also the exhaustion and desperation of front-line workers, those who were direct or indirect victims of the virus. This evening I am thinking with compassion of the family of the young doctor who recently took her life.
People have lost their jobs, they have declared or are on the verge of bankruptcy, or they are living in a state of perpetual stress. Many Quebeckers and Canadians of all ages are experiencing mental health issues. This virus is pernicious and insidious. It demands that each and every one of us adopt an impeccable hygiene routine and ironclad perseverance. A single misstep can have unfortunate consequences for ourselves and for others.
Managing a health crisis of this scale involves making decisions. This virus is always two weeks ahead of us, which is why we need to be proactive. I will come back to this point later. One thing is certain: We must never waver or hesitate. These decisions are urgent.
To date, Quebec has vaccinated 225,000 people. It is two weeks ahead of schedule, but supplies have run out. There are no more vaccines this week. The should apologize for claiming that the vaccines would end up sitting in refrigerators.
A year ago today, we were taking stock of the enemy at our gates. We knew then that the only way out was vaccination and that, in the meantime, we had to manage time and space. We had to manage time to develop a vaccine, we had to take the time to wash our hands regularly for at least 20 seconds, we had to take the time to put on a mask. We had to manage the space between ourselves, from a total lack of contact in lockdown to two metres of physical distancing, to avoid contaminating one another.
If we were not ready for the first wave, we had to be ready for the second wave, and we had to be ready for the solution to get out of the crisis, namely vaccination. There have been several decision-making steps since the beginning of the management of this pandemic. These included border closures, quarantine requirements for foreign workers, the wage subsidy and amendments to the subsidy to prevent political parties from taking money away from the companies, employers and employees who really needed it. They also included changes to the CERB to incentivize work and the necessary changes to the commercial rent relief program.
More recently, there was talk of banning discretionary travel, including travel to sunny destinations and other vacation spots during school breaks. There has also been discussion of starting to monitor travellers in quarantine for greater control and to better protect Canada from the threat of virulent new variants.
There is also the matter we are considering this evening, namely vaccine procurement.
The Liberal government is dragging its feet. Unfortunately, this has become a pattern in how the Liberals are managing this historic pandemic. From the very beginning of the pandemic, we have known that vaccination would be the light at the end of the tunnel, a chance for survival for a patient who might otherwise have been seriously ill, and a chance to finally get out of this enormously difficult situation and our restricted economy.
How did we get here?
The boasts about the size and diversity of the vaccine portfolio, but it is important that those vaccines arrive on time and that the provinces and Quebec can plan for the deliveries. A predictable vaccine supply is critical for Quebec, the provinces and territories. Transparency is crucial when it comes to the delivery schedule. Currently, we know the amount, but we do not know either the costs, the contractual agreements or the delivery times. I suppose the government negotiated in good faith, but it is as though it did nothing to ensure delivery. However, when it comes to any procurement deal, the basic equation is amount, cost and delivery. In this case, only the amount is known.
On November 27, 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada told us that the entire population would be vaccinated by 2021 but did not specify if it would be vaccination or immunization. Dr. Njoo said that three million Canadians would be vaccinated during the first quarter of 2021. To be honest, I am not sure how anyone could think that, especially now with the Pfizer delivery delays. Earlier, the talked about six million doses, but we have to divide that in two, so does six million doses really mean three million immunizations?
One thing is certain: The government should share scenarios ranging from the best to worst case. That would give us a sense of the numbers and the hypotheticals underpinning its vaccination time frame, assuming there is a vaccination plan, which I doubt this evening. Even so, there is still time to do things properly. Better late than never.
How can the government claim that everyone who wants the vaccine will get it by this fall? Personally, with the data I have in hand and considering how little the government is telling us about its hypothetical vaccination plan, I cannot guarantee that. That is the least we can tell people who are currently on lockdown and under curfew in Quebec.
The government must not make the same mistakes. It did not properly invest in our self-sufficiency in terms of vaccine production. The government needs to quickly reduce our dependence on vaccines produced abroad.
The government needs to take the necessary measures to increase local production because there are going to be other pandemics. We cannot continue to depend on others. I imagine that the agreements the government negotiated are ironclad because it divested itself of the means that it had. It had the legal means to ensure a minimum of local production.
I would like answers to all of these questions. Fortunately, this evening's debate gives us an opportunity to ask those questions.
:
Mr. Speaker, the last pandemic dates back 100 years. The last national immunization campaign was for polio and dates back to 1952. Since then, there have been dramatic changes in knowledge, techniques and technologies.
This time, we were almost lucky. Since the 2003 SARS crisis, scientists around the world have been warning governments about the extremely high risk of an impending pandemic. They were ready to bet their boots that the pandemic would be caused by a coronavirus. However, governments around the world made cuts to academic research. That was a bad idea.
We were even lucky enough here, thanks to technology, to see the devastation that the virus caused in China a few months before it came to Canada. A year ago today, questions were asked in the House about the measures being taken to limit the spread of the virus in Canada by imposing a mandatory quarantine on people arriving from China.
I was looking at the situation and thinking that we were lucky to have been warned, that we were going to be prepared. I was wrong. I am going to talk about procurement, simple mathematical calculations and the importance of information.
Procurement is by nature a complex matter. The pandemic has made things even more complicated because the government has to take on new obligations on top of fulfilling its usual duties. It was clear that we needed PPE, but procuring enough was sometimes very difficult given that Quebec, the provinces and Canada pretty much abandoned their manufacturing capacity when they decided to rely on Chinese manufacturing.
Another element that took some planning was vaccines. The government had to invest in research and reserve supply. It was sensible to reserve doses with several companies because we did not know which ones would come up with safe, effective vaccine candidates first. How much did those reservations cost? We do not know. What kind of timelines were attached to reservations and deliveries? We do not know. What percentage of the weekly vaccine production at each of those facilities is destined for Canada? We do not know. No matter how much the government pats itself on the back for having the biggest portfolio in the world, there are no vaccines to be had.
When it comes to vaccines, as a result of changes made to the Patent Act, pharmaceutical companies that were once here moved elsewhere. As a result, Quebec and Canada have very few plants producing vaccine candidates. I feel fortunate that my riding is home to Medicago. Not only is it in the midst of clinical trials for its vaccine candidate, but its manufacturing plant should be ready sometime this year. We will be able to get vaccines quickly.
A pharmaceutical company from western Canada announced today that it is also able to produce its vaccine. That is good news, but it almost did not happen because the financial support promised in April to Canada's pharmaceutical companies did not arrive until July or August. Meanwhile, open negotiations were happening internationally, as our domestic companies were waiting for assistance. Comprehensive planning should have included follow-up in the 's highly publicized announcement.
I would add one final point regarding planning. It is not normal for a company to advise on January 19, or Thursday, January 14, that it will not be able to supply the number of doses set out in the agreement for the coming weeks because it needs to update its facilities. There is no mention of emergency repairs. An update is planned months, sometimes even years in advance. Let us say months. These kinds of decisions are planned, and we did not hear anything about it at the time.
Why was Canada not informed in advance of this update, especially when the vaccine delivery schedule was being finalized? We do not know. If the government had been informed of this facility update before January 19, or January 14 according to what the minister told us, it could have asked Pfizer to use its Michigan plant to supply us. Why was that not done? We do not know.
If the government had known this during the negotiations, it could have turned to other suppliers, such as Moderna. This is called basic planning.
I want to do some simple math. I wish I had my whiteboard here, but since I do not I invite my colleagues to grab some paper and a pencil.
Since December, the government has been saying that all Canadians will be vaccinated by the end of September. This morning, the specified that there will be vaccines for every Canadian who wants one. That being said, in order for us to achieve herd immunity and finally get a break from this virus, 70% to 80% of the population has to be vaccinated. Say that 75% of the population wants to get vaccinated. That means that out of 38 million Canadians, 28.5 million will have to be vaccinated. Since it takes two doses of vaccine, we will need 57 million doses.
Since there are 35 weeks between now and the end of September we will need a little more than 1.6 million doses delivered and administered every week for eight months to keep the promise made by the and the .
The minister told us that between the beginning of the vaccination campaign and the end of March, we will receive a total of six million doses. That leaves a shortfall of 51 million doses before we achieve herd immunity.
There are about 24 or 25 weeks between the end of March and the end of September. What does that mean? It means that we will have to receive and administer 51 million doses. During that six-month period, we will have to administer about 1.9 million doses per week.
Based on its calculations, will the government manage to achieve herd immunity by the end of September? We do not know. According to the government, how many people will receive two doses by the end of September? We do not know. Would it be possible to see someone's, anyone's, calculations? It could be jotted down on a piece of paper or a napkin. I do not have a problem with that, as I am not picky. I just want to understand. I want the public to understand.
It is easy to tell governments that they must not hold back doses and have to distribute the vaccines, even if they point out that a second dose is required. Once the governments start distributing the first dose of the vaccine, however, the directive changes and the governments are then told to wait because a second dose is required. It is easy to blame others. We need a plan. Where is this plan? We do not know.
I understand that there are trade secrets to be kept, but there must still be a way to show a schedule to the members and the provinces so that everyone can adjust. It would also help the government to see that the figures do not match what was promised, unless the government has information that it is keeping to itself.
Information is power. People often think that they hold a lot of power when they have a lot of information and keep it to themselves, but when the perspective is switched, we find that people work together and are more open when they are properly informed and not kept in the dark.
I have found that sharing information gives people a reassuring sense of control over their lives. There are two versions of the old saying: Either we use information to wield personal power to benefit one person or a small group of people, or we use information to share power that benefits the entire country.
I have a few questions. Why is the government keeping information about the vaccine delivery agreements to itself? Is it thinking about the purely electoral value of the information, or is it thinking about the common good? Personally, I have made my choice: I am thinking of the common good.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for .
I want to begin by talking about the impact of COVID-19 in Canada. To this point, over 19,000 Canadians have lost their lives. Families are grieving their loved ones. We have seen losses on the front lines among front-line health care workers. We have seen loved ones lose their lives.
Seniors have been the most impacted, though. Long-term care centres, which have already been in crisis, have been devastated by COVID-19. What is happening in long-term care right now is being described by over 200 doctors in Ontario as a humanitarian crisis. To be clear, the crisis in long-term care existed before COVID-19, but COVID-19 has laid bare the crisis in a devastating way.
To compound this crisis, we have even worse news: delays in receiving vaccines, which are a part of the solution to protect those who are most vulnerable, including our seniors in long-term care. We see surging numbers around the country and variants that are even more likely to spread and even more contagious. Every day the vaccine is delayed, every day the rollout is delayed, more Canadians die. One physician, Dr. Dosani, noted there is one senior dying every hour in Canada. That is a staggering number.
Given how serious this is, it is clear the Liberal government's plan for procurement and rollout has been inadequate to meet the severity of the crisis. The rollout has been too slow and has not procured enough doses, and people are hurting as a result.
We know additional measures need to be taken in addition to procuring and delivering the vaccine, but I should make very clear that it is not enough to just procure the vaccine. Seniors who are vulnerable are safer only if they are actually vaccinated. We need to get the vaccines into people's arms.
In addition to the problems around procuring and delivering the vaccine, which is one major part of the solution, we also have to identify some of the key problems. One of the biggest problems right now in the COVID-19 pandemic, and the reason we need vaccines so badly, is the crisis in long-term care, specifically the crisis in for-profit long-term care. A recent report indicates that for-profit long-term care residences in Ontario have 78% more COVID-19 deaths than non-profit residences. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that for-profit long-term care means more infection and more deaths among residents.
One of the points we laid out at the beginning, months ago, is that Canada lacked a clear plan, the Liberal government lacked a clear plan, and the outcome would be that we would not meet our goals. When we contrast that with other countries, we see there was a very clear plan in Australia, in the United Kingdom and even in America. They had a clear plan for procurement and delivery, and they are doing better than we are.
The Liberal government has certainly failed in having a plan that gets us to our goal. It is not enough to say there is a goal to vaccinate a certain number of people by a certain date unless there is a plan, a road map, to achieve that result.
What do we need right now? We need a clear plan with deadlines, timelines and specific details about vaccine procurement and delivery. We want the Liberal government to be clear and transparent with Canadians about when we will receive vaccines, who will get vaccinated and how quickly that will happen. We need details month by month. We need to know the plan for the next 100 days, and we specifically need to know the plan for the most vulnerable Canadians.
[Translation]
Today we are talking about vaccination and vaccines in general. This is an emergency debate because we are in a state of emergency. To date, COVID-19 has taken 19,000 lives in Canada. That is not just a number. Those 19,000 people were our loved ones, our seniors, our front-line workers. Families are mourning the loss of their loved ones.
Over 200 doctors and health experts in Ontario have called the long-term care situation a humanitarian crisis. Canadians are extremely concerned about the impact of the Pfizer vaccine delays on Canada's vaccination schedule. This interruption will further delay the vaccination of Canada's highest-risk populations even as the incidence of COVID-19 is rising and very contagious variants of the vaccine are spreading across the country.
Each day's delay in rolling out the COVID-19 vaccination plan will result in avoidable infections and deaths. When the Liberals announced that Canada would finally be getting the vaccine, people were relieved that this horror story would be coming to an end. Unfortunately, the Liberals are not deploying the vaccine fast enough. Canada seems to have fallen well behind other countries. As Canadians are being forced to wait, people are dying.
The number of cases in long-term care homes is rising, and families are losing their loved ones. A recent report revealed 79% more COVID-19 deaths at for-profit long-term care homes in Ontario than at not-for-profit homes. People are making huge sacrifices to keep their communities safe because they know that every day counts during this pandemic.
Other countries have implemented clear and concrete plans, and Canada's lack of such a plan has created this crisis and this situation. We call on the government to present a clear and detailed plan. When are we going to get the vaccine? Who will be vaccinated? What are the details for planning purposes? What is Canada's plan for the next 100 days?
This is essential. We know there are problems. We must act now. We can save lives, but we need a concrete plan to do so.
:
Mr. Speaker, I began by saying that I think I speak for all parliamentarians when I say how surprised perhaps we were at having to deal with this completely unique situation, which has faced not only our country but also our globe. I think that none of us envisioned that we would be dealing in 2021 with the colossal dislocation in our communities, our economy, our families and our health care systems that we have been confronted with. I think I also speak for all parliamentarians when I say that the hope we all have to restore ourselves to some sense of normal, hopefully a better normal, is that we all get access to a quickly administered and broadly effective vaccine or treatment.
The proximate cause of this very important debate tonight is Canadians' concern about the impact that delayed shipments of the Pfizer vaccine will have on our country's vaccination schedule. Of course, this was generated by news last week from Major-General Dany Fortin, our military commander overseeing vaccine logistics for the federal government, who confirmed that Canada will receive only one-third of expected deliveries between January 18 and February 7.
This was the third time in two weeks that the federal government's delivery schedule was revised downward. Canada will not receive any COVID-19 vaccine doses this week at all, and will only receive 79,000 doses in the first week of February. That is one-fifth of what was once expected. Major-General Fortin has yet to confirm how many doses will arrive during the second week of February.
Despite previous assurances from the Liberal government that countries will be impacted equally by supply reductions, the European Union will in fact have a much shorter interruption in deliveries than Canada. However, even before this delay, Canada's vaccine rollout had fallen far behind that of our closest allies and trading partners. For example, last week the United States administered an average of 1.16 million doses per day, but as of today Canada has only administered a total of 863,000 doses overall. Now we hear that the Biden administration is aiming to provide vaccines to 1.5 million Americans per day. The Government of Canada, by contrast, has not even established a daily target.
The government claims that the current supply interruption is a temporary and isolated incident, due to a factory expansion at Pfizer's Belgium plant, but unfortunately other factors could further disrupt Canada's delivery schedule. Just today the European Commission announced a new plan to require companies to register any exports of COVID-19 vaccines out of the European Union.
The EU is also poised to impose export controls to preserve supply on that continent. That proposal would require drug companies to seek approval before shipping vaccines to countries outside the trading bloc. Given that Canada is entirely dependent on importing COVID-19 vaccines, we could very well find ourselves squeezed by this growing vaccine nationalism.
That is the specific context for the debate, but there is a broader context. The broader context is that the 's talking points really amount to this: We have secured the biggest portfolio of vaccines in the world, and not to worry. The truth is that Canadians are not interested in how many vaccines we could get. They are interested in how many vaccines we will get.
Moreover, the federal government's response on the entire COVID file, in my view, has been slow, weak and inconsistent. It has been marked by a shocking lack of transparency, and that is now borne out in performance. Canada is now 16th in the world in terms of vaccinations per capita, and we still have no clear plan for vaccinations in this country.
That is why New Democrats are calling on the federal government to do a number of things to rectify the situation and fulfill the dreams and hopes Canadians have for returning their economy and health to a more normal state of affairs. First, we are calling on the federal government to establish a public drug manufacturer, so that Canada is never again dependent on foreign drug companies for vaccines and critical medications during a pandemic.
It is a well-known fact by now that the government failed to negotiate with a single one of the seven drug manufacturers the right to manufacture a COVID vaccine in Canada. Many other countries did, including Australia, India, China, Malaysia, Japan, etc., and yet we still cannot receive a single explanation from the government why it failed to do so in this country. Today we are seeing the results of that as we wait, receiving no doses of vaccines while we see vaccines produced in other countries by other companies.
In the immediate term, the federal government has an obligation to outline a detailed plan in case Canada's vaccine supply is further curtailed. This morning the claimed that he is very confident that Canada is going to receive all promised doses by the end of March 2021 and that our vaccine supply is in “good shape”. However, he provided no explanation for this confidence, and confidence is not a plan. Unfortunately, the 's glib response typifies the federal government's opaque, confusing and often contradictory approach to communicating Canada's vaccine plan.
As I said, for months the federal government has been totally secretive about the terms of the deals it signed with drug manufacturers. It has failed to release a single word from a single contract of the seven contracts it has signed on behalf of Canadians. This is not only unfair to the taxpayers who are paying for these doses, but also, transparency is essential for maintaining the public's trust and confidence in Canada's vaccine strategy. Taxpayers also have a right to know how their money is being spent and the provinces and territories need clarity from the federal government to adjust their vaccination programs in response to supply shortages.
New Democrats are also calling on the federal government to reveal how many vaccine doses have actually been secured for each month until September 2021; confirm if Canada is actually guaranteed delivery of four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of March and what recourse is available to us if this deadline is missed; and provide full transparency on the terms and conditions of all vaccine supply agreements between the Government of Canada and drug manufacturers. Furthermore, the insists that Canadians do not need to worry about the current vaccine shortage because the government's goal of securing enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to immunize all Canadians by September remains feasible. However, this talking point obscures the grim reality that Canada's current supply disruption will have severe consequences for our most vulnerable citizens.
Indeed, Canada's vaccine shortages will further delay inoculation of the highest-risk populations, namely, seniors, long-term care residents, indigenous communities, teachers, first responders and front-line health care workers, at a time when COVID-19 cases are surging and highly contagious COVID-19 variants have reached our communities. Every day that the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is delayed will result in avoidable infections and deaths across Canada. That is not positive news.
The Public Health Agency of Canada's latest modelling projects that Canada is on track to hit 10,000 new daily cases by February. We remain on a rapid growth trajectory with widespread community transmission and increased outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Public health experts are also issuing dire warnings that dangerous COVID-19 mutations could undermine Canada's COVID-19 efforts.
Yesterday, epidemiologists from Simon Fraser University warned that a massive spike in COVID-19 cases could be coming to Canada if the U.K. variant becomes further established here. The researchers looked at the exponential growth of COVID-19 cases linked to new variants of concern and concluded that failure to prevent or contain these strains now will spell disaster for Canada as early as March. The authors do not expect to see much impact for about six weeks. However, if and when the spike comes, they expect it will come steeply, with a doubling time of one to two weeks in case numbers. This would represent a sharp increase from the doubling times of 30 to 40 days recently recorded in provinces like Ontario.
The U.K. variant is believed to have a substantial transmission advantage of a 40% to 80% increase in the reproduction number. A transmission rate increase of this magnitude is worse than a higher severity or mortality rate because so many more people can get infected.
In most of Canada, we have been able to control previous variants of COVID-19 with strong physical-distancing measures. However, we are being warned that a variant with a 40% or more increase in transmission rate would likely not be contained with the measures we have in place today. Therefore, instead of relying on the 's ambiguous assurances and unfounded confidence, we must be willing to act decisively to curtail the spread of COVID-19 in Canada now.
The federal government must take immediate steps to prevent the introduction of new variants into Canada through stricter border controls, a ban on non-essential international travel, mandatory hotel quarantine like Australia and New Zealand have introduced, and improved detection.
The federal government must also take immediate steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within Canada through additional essential public health measures such as paid sick days, national standards for long-term care, frequent rapid—
:
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share my time with my hon. friend and colleague from the national capital region, the member for . I am pleased to have the opportunity, at least metaphorically, to rise in the House and speak about vaccine delivery.
Canadians have been struggling through this pandemic for almost a year now. From the very beginning, we have had their health and their safety at the forefront.
[Translation]
That is also true in my riding, Gatineau, where people are patiently waiting, as are the people from Vancouver Island or Newfoundland and Labrador for whom this pandemic has been a challenge. That is what drives and motivates us every day to ensure that we can secure supplies, provide vaccines, the necessary material and equipment for all Canadians and get through this pandemic more quickly.
From day one of the pandemic, Public Services and Procurement and the team at the department have focused on one thing: ensuring the protection of all Canadians. I want to make a point about our current situation and assure Canadians by telling them that we are still on track to provide vaccines to all Canadians who want one.
From day one of the pandemic, we started buying hundreds of thousands of N95 respirators, gowns, surgical masks and any other personal protective equipment that front-line workers need to ensure the safety of Canadians. That is also why we started negotiating early with the manufacturers of vaccine candidates.
[English]
In fact, Canada was one of the first countries to sign agreements with Pfizer and Moderna, which are of course the only two currently approved vaccines in Canada. This we did back in early August. We knew that having a diverse portfolio of vaccines with strong delivery schedules and options to increase our orders would ensure that we would have enough vaccines for every Canadian who wanted one as early as possible.
[Translation]
I can assure Canadians that we are on track to vaccinate every Canadian who wants to be vaccinated by the end of September 2021. Through our sound negotiations with these companies, we prepared for every eventuality, in the event of delays in vaccine delivery and in the global supply chain. We are prepared for this situation and we believe that we will still be able to meet our target by the end of September.
[English]
We understand that Canadians are urgently awaiting vaccines. They certainly are in my riding, and I know that all members share in that urgency from their constituents. Whether they are people in long-term care homes, front-line workers, grocery workers or drivers, everyone is anxious and wants access to a vaccine quickly. That, of course, motivates and animates us every day. Let me reassure all of those people through their members of Parliament that we are still on track.
Allow me to provide an explanation of the delays that we are seeing with the Pfizer vaccine this week. Pfizer is retooling its distribution at the moment. While this is temporary, it means that the vaccines that we were meant to receive this week will be coming a little later, but let me be clear: We are not losing any doses, not a single one, as part of this retooling. We are still in position to have at least three million people vaccinated by the end of March.
[Translation]
I remind members that we were one of the first countries to approve a vaccine and start distributing it across the country. To date, we have distributed 1.1 million vaccines, which puts us among the top five G20 countries in terms of COVID-19 vaccinations.
As we have been saying, we will continue to receive deliveries of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the coming weeks, and three million people will be vaccinated across the country by the end of March. By the end of June, 13 million people will be vaccinated, and by the end of September, we will be able to vaccinate 36 million Canadians with our orders from these two manufacturers alone.
[English]
That is with Pfizer and Moderna alone. Because of our strong agreements with these candidates, we have ensured that we will be able to vaccinate all Canadians who wish to receive a vaccination with just these two vaccines. We have agreements with five other candidates, two of which are currently in rolling reviews with Health Canada. With these contracts, we will far exceed the number of doses that we need to vaccinate all Canadians.
With the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, we have also ensured that the logistics of distribution to provinces are strong and secure. To ensure that vaccines will be delivered effectively, we entered into contracts with FedEx and Innomar Strategies to provide vaccine logistics.
[Translation]
We have also ensured that we have enough freezers to keep the vaccines stable so that they are ready for use. Furthermore, we have bought syringes, needles, gauze, bandages, sharps containers and all other supplies needed to administer the vaccines. All of these supplies will be provided to the provinces and territories at no cost. We have kept Canadians informed throughout the process so that they can see we are making informed decisions in their best interests. This has been our approach all along.
[English]
We started strong by procuring the PPE and medical equipment front-line workers needed. When the global market was incredibly volatile and demand was high, we were still able to begin acquiring and delivering much-needed PPE in a matter of weeks. We took the same approach with vaccines, and we are seeing the benefits of the strong agreements we made unfold now.
Despite our assurances in the House and to the public, sadly the opposition is once again trying to say that this government has somehow missed the mark. Nothing could be further from the truth. I understand that opposition members have the right, the privilege and sometimes the need to raise issues, but one thing that I think we can all agree on is that Canadians require the clarity needed and the assurance that their government is there for them and will provide the vaccinations that we need to get through this pandemic.
[Translation]
The opposition's rhetoric last fall was nothing but hot air. A few days later, we announced that the first vaccines had been approved and that distribution was set to begin.
[English]
The Conservative Party tried to instill fear and panic in Canadians by implying that vaccines would not be received until 2030. We know how ridiculous that claim was. How can Canadians be expected to entrust them with their confidence now? It is irresponsible to continue to sow doubt and fear despite clear evidence that we are on track to receive enough vaccines this quarter, the next quarter and throughout this year.
[Translation]
While the Conservatives continue to be partisan and attempt to gain traction with fear tactics, we will continue to work hard for Canadians and to prove that we have their fundamental interests at heart.
With regard to claims that we are far down the list of countries for supplies of vaccines, I want to say that we continue to be in a good position among the G20 countries. In fact, Canada began receiving vaccines in December, well before a number of countries. Countries such as Japan, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea have not yet started vaccinating their citizens.
[English]
In response to the claim that we should have seen production delays coming and done something about it, I would like to clarify that we did anticipate that there would be delays in delivery schedules. It is a high-tension, high-pressure race to vaccinate citizens across the world in every country. We anticipated the pressures on this system, and that is why we planned carefully, had a diversified strategy of procurement for vaccination and ensured that any delays would be minor. That is why we are still on track for deliveries in this quarter.
As usual, the opposition's rhetoric holds no water. Once again the members are making bold, unsubstantiated claims, and once again we are proving that this government is there to deliver for Canadians.
[Translation]
As we have demonstrated on multiple occasions, our government puts Canadians' interests first when making any decision. We know that vaccine distribution will be a decisive and complex element of our COVID-19 response. We want to ensure that we are ready to face any situation and that Canadians will be able to receive a vaccine as soon as possible.
That is exactly what we did. The and our team negotiated solid contracts with seven suppliers of vaccine candidates, an unprecedented number of contracts, to ensure that we will have enough vaccines for every Canadian who wants one.
[English]
We have created a strong logistics plan so that as soon as these vaccines are delivered to Canada, they can be distributed to each province and territory as quickly as possible. At every turn, we have done our best to protect Canadians, and that certainly will not stop now.
[Translation]
We will continue to stay focused and to work hard until every Canadian who wants a vaccine can get one. While the opposition and the Conservatives continue their partisan games, we will focus on Canadians and do everything we can to ensure their safety and good health.
:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging the stress that Canadians have been under during the second wave of the pandemic.
We are all tired, anxious and frustrated by the resurgence of the virus, the ongoing uncertainty and the constant disruptions to our daily lives. The pandemic has been going on for a long time, and things have been hard as the virus continues to wreak havoc on all aspects of our lives, including our economic, physical and emotional well-being. We know that the only thing that will let us get back to normal is the COVID-19 vaccine. We have all been looking forward to it. It cannot come soon enough, since the pandemic weighs on us every day.
Today more than ever, I am asking that we rise above our political differences and party lines and work together to help the country get through the most difficult stage of the pandemic. Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic requires everyone's involvement to ensure that we make it through these hard times and turn the corner. We cannot get caught up in brinkmanship. We are at a critical point in the pandemic, and we must join forces to make it through this last leg. For Canada to get to the finish line, all of us in the House must work together as part of a completely collaborative approach. This approach has been central to our strategy from the beginning, and it is especially vital now.
Our government has kept its promises to Canadians. We worked day and night in a hyper-competitive global market to obtain vital personal protective equipment, build one of the most diversified vaccine portfolios in the world and act quickly to provide doses of the two currently approved vaccines to the provinces and territories. Only by working together will we get through this situation. It is time to lower the temperature and focus on what Canadians need us to do.
As we started rolling out the biggest vaccination campaign in Canadian history, we knew that there would likely be some bumps in the road. That is to be expected when undertaking this type of initiative during a global emergency. We saw that in the recent slowdown in delivery of the Pfizer vaccine, which, I would remind hon. members, is true for every country being supplied by the European plant. We knew we would be facing challenges when it comes to supply given the complexity of production, an unprecedented global demand and a rapid acceleration of production.
It is precisely with these types of questions in mind that Canada signed seven agreements with the key vaccine manufacturers and developers in order to guarantee the diversity and flexibility of our supply chains. To be clear, I understand and share the concerns of Canadians over this temporary delay in delivery. We can rest assured, though, because the minister, the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada are in constant contact with representatives of Pfizer to strongly reiterate how important it is to Canada to get back on schedule as soon as possible.
As we have said many times, Pfizer assures us that we will receive every dose that we have been promised and that we have bought. I agree that this is an unfortunate and unwelcome situation in light of our urgent situation, but we are living in volatile times. I want to assure the House that Pfizer has committed to meeting our quarterly objective and has said that deliveries will increase considerably as promised in the spring. Between Moderna and Pfizer, we will have access to 80 million doses in 2021 and we will have enough vaccines for everyone in Canada who is eligible and who wants to be vaccinated by the end of September.
We want this to be a safe and speedy vaccination campaign. Unfortunately, we have to expect that problems like this and others may arise. As always, we have to adapt. As part of our procurement strategy, our government has secured a diverse portfolio, signing seven agreements for the main vaccine candidates.
These seven agreements will provide access to no fewer than 234 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine and the option to buy up to 164 million additional doses. From the start, we adopted a diversified approach to vaccine procurement. We did not put all our eggs in one basket. We made sure we diversified our risk by ordering vaccines from many different suppliers. That means Canadians will get guaranteed access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are available.
Obviously, we cannot defeat this virus in Canada if we do not eliminate it everywhere. That is why we will participate in COVAX, a global vaccine supply initiative that will develop and deploy safe, effective, accessible COVID-19 vaccines around the world. Supporting other countries in their fight against COVID-19 is an essential investment that will help put an end to this pandemic around the world.
Make no mistake. We are tackling this pandemic head on, and this government's top priority remains protecting people from COVID-19, saving lives and helping Canadians get through this crisis. Our government is continuing to do everything in its power to overcome the challenges presented by this pandemic. However, we can be more effective if we work together. As elected members of the House of Commons, it is our duty to rise above our political interests and focus on protecting Canadians. This is a pivotal moment in our history, and it calls for rapid, unified action. We must unite to serve Canadians. Every day here in the House, we must work to fight the pandemic responsibly and effectively as we head into the home stretch. Canadians expect nothing less from us.
While we continue to see an increase in the number of infections, our government is remaining focused on its response and on rebuilding the economy, while preparing for any scenario during these uncertain times. Nonetheless, we know that the real solution, the wide-scale administration of an approved vaccine, will take time and there will be challenges along the way. In the meantime, Canadians must continue to manage the risks of COVID-19, follow public health advice and make a concerted effort to slow the spread of the virus. It is hard work that challenges us in a way that we could never have imagined. However, we will get through this together and come out of this even stronger.
I want to reiterate how essential it is that we commit to working together for the health and safety of all Canadians. To overcome this pandemic once and for all, we must all work together, every level of government, every community, all Canadians.
In closing, I want to thank the medical officer of health of eastern Ontario, Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, and his team who have already started the vaccination campaign back home in Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. They are an incredible team.
:
Madam Speaker, I want to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for .
Today's debate has to do with vaccines and how hard it is to get vaccines, but I want to take this opportunity to say the following.
This evening, I heard many of my Liberal colleagues talk about a lack of co-operation on the part of the opposition parties, particularly the Conservative Party. I would like to remind everyone that, exactly one year ago today, when the virus first appeared, it was the Conservative Party that called for an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on Health to talk about the virus. As the shadow minister for public safety, I personally attended the committee meeting to ask questions about what was happening with our borders. At that time, on January 30, 2020, I was told that the government was beginning to look into that. From the start, we have taken a collaborative approach.
What we found worrisome was that the government, the minister of health at the time and the were somewhat in denial. They said that this was not dangerous, that there was no need to worry and that Canadians did not need protection or masks. They said that the virus was not transmissible. From the start, the government was in denial, which worried us.
Then we realized that the easiest and fastest way to stop the virus in Canada was to control our borders, so that is what we called for. I said that the border was our first line of defence. The government did nothing. It said it was watching this closely and that border service officers were providing information to international arrivals. We said that much tougher measures were needed. Sometimes we were told that Canada is a big country and the territory is huge. I am trying to understand, but the fact is that there are three major international airports: Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. If we direct our flights to those airports, we are talking about three locations. Even though the country is 10 million square kilometres, we can still control three airports. That is no worse than a smaller country with the same number of airports.
What bothers us is the government's very weak and listless response. If we had worked together as team Canada, if the government had agreed that what the Conservatives were saying made sense and we could have agreed on how to respond, then we could have easily worked together.
It is easy to say that the opposition parties do not want to co-operate, but we are taking concrete action to try to work together. It is not working. At some point, we have to come to an agreement.
Over the past year, the key word, as far as I am concerned, has been “consistency”, and this applies at every level, whether we are talking about the border, vaccines or even economic programs like the CERB. When it comes to matters involving the government, “consistency” will be the key word for me in 2020 and early 2021.
We are doing what we can to help. Even when discussing the economic agenda, we brought forward solutions whenever we saw a problem. Just because we are an opposition party does not make us stupid. We are still experienced people. We already had lives before becoming MPs. We brought forward amendments, and they were rejected out of hand. Worse than that, they publicly said that the Conservatives do not want to help Canadians...
:
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak in this emergency debate to try to address some of the issues that I know many of my constituents are concerned about. The goal of what we are trying to achieve with this debate on vaccines, vaccine distribution and procurement, is answer some questions that many Canadians have. I know I am not the only member of Parliament here who has had numerous calls of frustration, anxiety, depression and mistrust from constituents. They just do not know who to believe anymore.
If I may, I would like to back up a bit to where we started with this, and the mixed messages and inconsistencies from the very beginning from the Liberal government when it came to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Liberals dismantled Canada's early warning system which would have allowed us to learn much more about this pandemic than we did before. We had members of our military warning the Liberal government about the impending impacts of the COVID pandemic and the Liberals ignored that. They were flip-flopping on travel restrictions. At first they said that wearing masks was not important, was not necessary and did not help. Now we have a very different message.
The Liberals even talked about accessing rapid and home-based testing. They compared rapid testing to selling snake oil to Canadians, when at the same time our allies, our partners and western democracies around the world were accessing technology like home-based and rapid testing to keep their businesses open, keep their schools open, keep their front-line health care workers safe and allow their constituents to travel. That is where we started, how we got here and why we are so adamant to learn more about the vaccines and where we are.
That came to a head when we saw that no vaccines are being delivered right now, zero. I saw a map on the Health Canada website that said our vaccination distribution process is well under way. In many jurisdictions around Canada, it is about 1% of Canadians who have been vaccinated. We can compare that to the United States where it is well over 5%.
I have constituents who have family in Texas and Oklahoma who have said their families will be vaccinated by this spring and many of us may not have that first dose until next September. That shows us the very stark difference between what is happening in Canada and what is happening in other parts of the world, why we are so far behind and why, as Conservatives, as members of Parliament and elected officials, we are so concerned with this information and certainly, in many cases, this lack of information.
We have come full circle on the vaccines. I spoke about some of the numbers we have right now, but I am going to talk about why I question why we are here and where we could have been if the Liberal government was not discriminating, and I do not know another better way to say that, against a made-in-Canada solution. Canadian vaccines could have been developed and manufactured here in Canada.
The Liberal government originally started with an agreement with CanSino, a Canada-Chinese partnership to develop and manufacture the vaccine. The Liberal government poured literally millions of dollars into that partnership at the beginning. I would question after everything we have been through with the Chinese Communist Party why we would have ever put our trust in a partnership with the Chinese government. Why would that have been the one solution that the Liberal government looked at?
Not surprisingly, that partnership fell apart in the spring and early summer. As a result, the Liberal government had to scramble to find what other solutions were out there. Unfortunately, we do not know what agreements it signed. We do not know the details of what it relinquished or what we gave up. Did we give up the licences to manufacture the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines here in Canada? What I find the most frustrating is we did not have to go through any of this. We could have had a made-in-Canada solution.
We saw today in the media Providence Therapeutics in Calgary began its first clinical trials of a Canadian vaccine earlier this month. What I found most frustrating is this. When I was watching the representatives from Providence Therapeutics on the news this afternoon I was angry. They said they approached the Liberal government in March with a vaccine based on the same technology being used by Pfizer and AstraZeneca and were ready to begin trials and hopefully production. There was silence from the Liberal government. Now they have gone public with the position they were put in.
Brad Sorenson, the CEO, said today, “We have a Canada solution. We've sourced it. We've followed the rules. We've done what we were supposed to do and we're not getting any engagement from the government.” The company even offered to transfer its production and studies to the Montreal facility the Liberal government had initially funded to increase capacity to manufacture another vaccine. However, it received radio silence from the Liberal government. Meanwhile, we have a Canadian technology that could have been in clinical trials and maybe even production.
Another example is Solstar Pharma out of Laval, Quebec. It approached many members of Parliament, including Liberal members of Parliament, last March. I have the emails that were sent back and forth to the and the . It has a very unique antiviral technology and was asking for help from the Canadian government. Again, there was no response, just silence. It is frustrating as it wanted a made-in-Canada solution.
This antiviral technology requires no special storage. It is a powder that is inhaled. Unlike the vaccine, it attacks the virus in the body and kills it. Although the vaccine is important, it does not stop people from being infected or the spread of the virus. The antiviral on the other hand kills the virus in one's body. Again, it is a Canadian solution.
I spoke to the CEO of the company today. He said if it had the support of the Canadian government last spring it would be in clinical trials now and ready to begin production. As it did not get any support or even a response from the Liberal government, out of utter frustration it applied to Operation Warp Speed in the United States. It immediately received a response. It is now being fully funded and is working with Pfizer and research companies in San Diego.
Here again was a Canadian solution and the company received no response from the Canadian government and had to go elsewhere. It is incredibly frustrating when a Canadian company like Solstar Pharma, born and raised in Laval, Quebec, receives no response from the Canadian government.
That makes two. We could have had a vaccine and an antiviral on hand right now if they had received a response.
We also have the ClearMe rapid testing technology out of Calgary. It is 98% accurate and was approved for use in the United States and the United Kingdom last spring. It is still waiting for support, an answer and an approval from Health Canada and the Liberal government.
Why is there discrimination against Canadian companies that have a Canadian solution and want to be there? Unfortunately, it seems like the Liberal government is treating this like a Seinfeld sketch.
Anybody can order a vaccine, but the most important thing is actually having a vaccine that one can distribute and deliver to Canadians. This is not a joke; this is very serious. Imagine where we would be today if we had an antiviral, a vaccine and rapid testing made and manufactured in Canada. Where would our economy be? Where would the mental health of Canadians be? Would we be relying on global supply chains? The EU may block the distribution of vaccines. Can we really rely on a vaccine manufactured in New Jersey that people in New Brunswick are going to get before people in New York? That is what we are facing.
I want to offer a solution as I conclude. It is not too late. These Canadian companies still want to work with Canadian organizations. The Ontario and Quebec governments have reached out to Solstar to offer help with its lab testing at Western University. The Liberal government needs to reach out to these Canadian companies that are ready to go and expedite their approval processes and clinical trials. It needs to be there to support the Canadian companies that desperately want to be part of a Canadian solution so we can get our economy back up and running and Canadians back to work.
:
Madam Speaker, yes. I apologize.
Thank you. I am splitting my time with the hon. member for .
That being said, vaccines are going to have an incredibly important role in getting us through this pandemic. That is why our government prioritized the signing of contracts and making sure that vaccines would be available in Canada. That work required a lot of information going into the background. This work began with our government back in July. At that time, there was so much uncertainty about vaccines, including their timing and when they would be safe and effective. That is just something that politicians and politics cannot control. It had to be science-led, which is exactly why our government made sure to have a diverse portfolio and to work with industry experts to prepare for all possible scenarios.
Frankly, the Pfizer delays for the next few weeks are disappointing, but demonstrate precisely how our government's plan was to diversify and to ensure that there would be a variety of vaccines and that once they were deemed safe and effective by Health Canada, Canada could then access them.
In addition to that, even prior to the vaccines' development, our government was working to ensure that we had all the materials we needed to help deal with the COVID-19 virus. That meant we heard early calls to ensure that we would have enough PPE, which we then delivered on, and calls for increasing rapid testing, which we again delivered on. Every step of the way, every twist and turn of this pandemic, we have been there for Canadians in ways that have been very responsive and fast, all things considered, given the dynamics of this pandemic globally and the global competition for all of these same materials.
To see Canada as one of the leaders in ensuring that we have these materials and vaccines for Canadians is precisely why I am very hopeful that we will be able to come out of this pandemic quickly, and also in ways that make us all stronger and, frankly, from which we can learn lessons to ensure that we have strategies in place, not just in pandemic times but throughout governments so that we always keep pandemic planning at the forefront.
Getting back to what we were discussing, which is the vaccines and their procurement, I have heard a lot of members during this debate talk about there being no plan. That could not be further from the truth. Our plan is precisely what we are debating. In fairness, I understand the role of members of the opposition. It is completely their duty and right to pose questions to the government, but there is a big difference between challenging the government or having a difference of opinion and spreading misinformation.
Some members have risen to the occasion in this debate by understanding what is on the line while supporting Canadians during this difficult time, but there are many who, frankly, have used this opportunity to spread misinformation and cause incredible confusion. They have done so for political gain. That is so disheartening. This is an opportunity, whether we all agree or not on the specifics of the rollout, for us to come together as a Parliament and as Canadians to step forward and work together on ensuring the health and safety of all Canadians.
To see members rise in this place but not rise to the occasion is, frankly, very disheartening. We should be discussing strategies and steps for moving forward as a Canadian government and as Canadian parliamentarians looking out for our friends and neighbours, not using this as an opportunity for whatever political game we might see. I remember that back in December Conservative members were claiming we were never going to get the vaccine or we were going to be last, and that did not happen. We had a plan, we stuck to it and we saw deliveries of vaccines in Canada.
We were one of the first countries to get vaccines, and the Conservatives looked deflated after that happened. They should have been elated. They should have been happy that vaccines were delivered for Canadians. Instead, they did not ask any questions about it until this point. There is no question that the Pfizer delay is something we are all disappointed about, but the suggestion that we have no vaccines in this country is simply false. We have over 1.1 million vaccines in Canada to date and we have more vaccines coming next week from Moderna and Pfizer, and as Health Canada continues its work and its reviews, if additional vaccine candidates become approved, we have additional contracts.
As parliamentarians, we have a duty to assure the public that we are working to make sure we have everything that we need in place. We need to build up public trust to ensure that Canadians know that when vaccines are available and it is their turn to receive the vaccine, they can trust that it was not a group of politicians determining which vaccines move forward and which ones do not, that it is instead based on science and evidence and that the regulators at Health Canada are the ones who make these decisions.
This is an opportunity we all have as parliamentarians, and I hope that we will rise to the occasion. The Conservatives should work with us on solutions. I keep hearing Conservatives say there is no plan, yet I have not heard a single solution from them or heard them say that they would have done something differently. Working together is the type of leadership that all Canadians would welcome, and we should get away from the partisanship in a pandemic and crisis like this. If not now, then when? I really think that is what Canadians are expecting.
As we move forward, it is important to assure Canadians that until vaccines are available in their jurisdictions for mass distribution, we need to protect our most vulnerable and continue with these measures. Canada has procured enough vaccines to ensure that every Canadian who wants a vaccination can get one by September. We have six million doses of vaccines coming by the end of March, and from April to June at least 20 million doses of vaccines will be available. They are coming, and we need to work together to ensure that all of us play a role in keeping Canadians safe.
:
Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to address the chamber. I believe this is, in fact, one of the most important debates we will have this year in terms of the significance of a great deal of hope that I believe is out there at the end of the day.
Ever since this world pandemic started to take flight, the government has been aware of it and has been taking action. Canadians understand and appreciate that we made an early decision to listen to what science, health experts, civil servants and Canadians as a whole, the different stakeholders, had to say on this very important issue. I believe that when we take a look at how Canada has managed through this whole process, we will come out okay. I really and truly believe that.
For example, with regard to the vaccination issue, which is today's debate, we have the COVID-19 vaccine task force. We have to remember that this is the group that, in essence, recommended that we go out there and secure these contracts. There was concern about capacity here in Canada. At the end of the day, the most important thing we have to do here is ensure that we have a vaccination that is free, safe and effective. Those are the expectations of Canadians from all regions of the country.
When we hear about this lack of a plan, nothing could be further from the truth. We have known for weeks, if not months now, of the government's commitment to ensure that every Canadian who wants to get the vaccination will in fact have that opportunity by the end of September of this year.
We are working day in, day out with provincial and territorial jurisdictions to ensure that not only is Canada acquiring the vaccines that are so critically important but also that there is high co-operation with provinces to make sure the distribution is there. I believe that Canadians can be confident of the system we have in place.
Opposition members will pick and choose and talk about country X doing better or country Y already vaccinating, but it is important to realize that Canada received vaccines back in December. Many other countries did not receive vaccines late last year. Some countries such as Japan, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea have not even started vaccinating. Someone mentioned earlier today, and I believe it was the health critic, my New Democratic colleague, that the United States is going to bring vaccinations up to 1.5 million people per day. There are over 350 million people living in the U.S.A. Do the math: There are 37 million people in Canada.
I believe Canada is doing exceptionally well in meeting the expectations Canadians have of the national government. We are doing that because we are working with those health experts and groups that have a vested interest in making sure we get it right.
Some of the criticisms are interesting. The member of Parliament for says that the government's first priority was a deal with China. That is just not true. It is not the only thing members of the opposition will say that is factually incorrect. There is misinformation out there, and opposition members have to take some responsibility for the type of information they are passing on to Canadians.
I believe, at the end of the day, Canada is in a great position. Based on the recommendation of the COVID-19 vaccine task force, Canada actually signed agreements with seven different companies to reserve vaccine doses for Canadians. Those who want to be vaccinated will be able to be vaccinated, at the very latest, by the end of September. There should be no doubt about that. We know we will have six million doses by the end of March and that we are on target to be able to get them. These are pretty straightforward and fairly easy to understand.
When I heard that we were going to be talking about the vaccine and having this emergency debate today, I thought it would provide us an opportunity to provide some other thoughts. I had some correspondence from the Manitoba Teachers' Society. One of the things I really appreciated them raising, and I want to share with members tonight, is the impact school closures have on our economy. It is incredibly significant.
Members should do some research and try to understand, when our public schools start to shut down, the impact it has on our economy, as well as society in general. They are recognizing that the government needs to urgently look to maintain and return in-person schooling as a key component toward Canada's economic recovery. We all know that it is the provinces that establish these priorities, but Ottawa does have a role to play in terms of sharing some of our thoughts.
We parliamentarians all agree that there are situations where we need to establish priorities in terms of the vaccine. For example, everyone agrees those in long-term care, and the health care workers who have been working in long-term care facilities serving seniors, have to be a priority.
The government relies on the advice of the National Advisory Committee for Immunization to inform vaccine priority lists across the country. Being able to share thoughts on that issue would be of great value. We recognize that Pfizer and Moderna are the two we have secured and that have met the requirements from Health Canada and their regulations. Because of that, we know they are safe and effective vaccines. We have an organization, through our regulations, that is second to no other in the world.
We also know that there are still five others that are out there. AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson are under current review, and hopefully we will see more approvals not that far in the future. We cannot include or incorporate those into the numbers, because they have not been approved, but at least we have a government that recognizes that the best way we can guarantee that every Canadian will get vaccinated is to have that diverse portfolio.
If members want to use stats and say that country X is doing this and country Y is doing that, in an attempt to try to make Canada's vaccination plan look bad, I would suggest that they are being very selective, in terms of what they are using.
There is no doubt in my mind that, whether it is the , cabinet members or members of Parliament, to a certain degree, from all sides of the House, we understand the importance of getting this right. There will be an opportunity for us to be able to get more into the details in the weeks, months and years ahead, so that we are better positioned to be able to deal with this.
To say that we would not have wanted to see a made-in-Canada solution is ridiculous. Of course it would have been nice. Members can take a look at what we did with some of the personal protective gear and how industries in Canada responded that need.
I see my time is already expired. I appreciate the opportunity to share a few thoughts.
:
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time tonight with the member for . Before I begin, I want to thank the , our colleagues in the NDP and the member for for asking the Speaker to grant time to what I think is the most critical issue that is facing the country today.
I say that from the epicentre. Just 10 minutes away from here, we have an unfolding situation with the Roberta Place long-term care centre that requires Parliament's attention. At Roberta Place, 127 residents have tested positive, 92 staff have tested positive and 46 members of this long-term care centre are dead as a result of COVID-19.
I have been representing this area, as a city councillor and as a member of Parliament now, for the better part of 14 years. I have built tremendous relationships with not just the staff, but the people who live in that residence and their families. It is heartbreaking to understand what has been going on there. As a country, I ask everyone to not only pray for the staff and the residents, but also those who are helping them, such as the staff from the Royal Victoria Hospital, from the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, and from Soldiers' Memorial Hospital.
I also ask everyone to pray for Edwin Ng. Edwin is a support worker who is on a ventilator right now in critical condition at the Royal Victoria Hospital. His wife Samantha and his three children are dependent on Edwin to provide support for them. He is in critical condition. I ask that Canadians pray not only for everybody involved in this situation, but also for Edwin.
There have been 99 of these cases confirmed as the U.K. variant. For 10 months, Roberta Place had built a wall around itself. There were no cases. Everything was going well. Then, all of a sudden, the U.K. variant came in and, like a firestorm, it raged through that building resulting in the situation I described earlier.
There is a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety within our community. In particular, the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Gardner, is warning of the potential for this to spread and of community transmission. I have spoken to Dr. Gardner several times. The only way to deal with this and respond to the U.K. variant is to use immunization, and that means vaccinating.
I know that Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit and RVH have been doing their best to look after those in long-term care facilities and seniors facilities within their jurisdiction. However, the stark reality is that we have run out of vaccines. Any thought of using immunization as a response to this U.K. variant right now is not going to happen unless and until we get more vaccines. The challenge this week, as has been documented tonight and why the importance of this debate is upon us, is that we are not getting any vaccines this week. Based on the numbers we have from the Province, Ontario will only be receiving 20,000 vaccines next week. That is hardly enough to deal with the situation that is unfolding in central Ontario.
The challenge with that is it is not just who we are vaccinating in the long-term care and senior homes. Many of them have received their first vaccines because the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit has had to prioritize our most vulnerable.
A total of 10,000 people have been vaccinated. Many of them are front-line health care workers, personal support workers and long-term care workers who received their first dose of the vaccination and were expecting, within a 28-day period, that they were going to receive it last Thursday. However, they were told that it had been put off and that they would not be receiving the vaccine. They were further told on Friday that they were not going to be receiving a vaccine in the near term. Think of what that does to the front-line health care workers who are putting it out there every single day for our community and not knowing when that second dose is coming.
I have been dealing with phone calls. The level of fear and anxiety among these health care workers is unimaginable. They are having to go into work every day not knowing when the second vaccine dose is going to be administered. They were counting on it, and it is heartbreaking. For anybody who thinks this is all about politics, this is about solutions. I know that our local MPP has been working day and night trying to coordinate this multi-agency effort that has been going on, but there is significant concern, not just among our community but among health care providers, the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, Dr. Gardner and others.
There is a lot going on, and this was predicted last year. The opposition was talking about how Canada had been at the back of the line.
Last May, I had a conversation with my next-door neighbour, who works for AstraZeneca. He asked me if I knew what Canada was doing about vaccine procurement. I said that I assumed that they were doing it. He said none of them had been approached at that point.
AstraZeneca had not been approached, Pfizer had not been approached, Moderna had not been approached, and we find out today from stories that are appearing in the paper why that is.
What was the opposition accused of? It was accused of fearmongering and spreading false information. I have been on this call for a couple of hours now, and I have heard several members of the Liberal Party accuse us of that. We were actually telling Canadians the truth about what was going on.
We need help in central Ontario. This morning, I spoke with Dr. Gardner and received correspondence from RVH and our MPP that speaks to the issue of vaccines. I tried to contact the today, and I am grateful that her director of operations called me tonight. We need 4,000 vaccines to ensure that those who are vulnerable in our community are able to get their second doses by February 8. There are no vaccines available from the province. That is the stark reality. Therefore, I am seeking the federal government's assistance in dealing with this.
The other thing that needs to happen, and I have been on this push for a year now, are rapid tests. There are rapid testing solutions out there, both antibody and antigen solutions. I am aware of at least one company that has had an application before Health Canada since last April or May and it still has not been approved. I am aware of other companies. These are three-minute antigen and antibody tests that must be approved. They are part of the overall solution of not just vaccines, but rapid testing.
When I talk to people about this, they cannot believe that Health Canada has not approved them. Despite the fact that the U.S. FDA and the European Union, with the most stringent testing regime in the world, have approved these antibody and antigen tests, we do not have them here in Canada. That is another thing that Dr. Gardner talked about, as did Dr. Lee, the associate medical officer of health. If we had these rapid tests in place, much of this could have been avoided. Those are their words, not mine.
We are in a desperate situation, as I said, here in central Ontario. Last Friday, I received this correspondence from the chief medical officer of health at RVH:
Unless we receive more vaccine in the interim, it will mean only 25% of Simcoe Muskoka long-term care residents will receive their second dose within 28 days. No new Simcoe Muskoka LTC residents will receive dose one. No new Simcoe Muskoka assisted living care patients will receive dose one, making them ineligible for transfer to LTC or retirement homes, and no Simcoe Muskoka health care workers will receive dose two within 42 days.
The clinic actually closed on Thursday, and all dose two appointments were cancelled. If we are going to be in alignment with provincial direction and protect our region from this highly transmissible variant, we need 4,000 doses, ministers, and we need them by February. Help us, please, in central Ontario.
:
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Barrie—Innisfil for sharing his time with me tonight and for his presentation.
I want to take a moment to thank all of the frontline workers who have worked tirelessly throughout this whole pandemic. Day in and day out they put themselves in harm's way to help those who have contracted this terrible virus. I also want to acknowledge the families who have lost a loved one during this COVID pandemic. Over 19,000 Canadians have died from this terrible virus, and many are battling for their lives as we speak here tonight.
We are still in the middle of this crisis. Millions of Canadians are still unable to work and countless businesses are shut down. Families have been separated for months and many of our youth are not in their classrooms. Long-term care homes are still having outbreaks and some intensive care units are full. The only way to end this pandemic is through vaccinating people.
Tonight we are having this emergency debate because the Liberal government has failed to deliver a reliable supply of vaccines to the provinces and territories. Let me elaborate. The Liberals can twist themselves into pretzels in trying to spin their way out of this mess, but the fact remains that we are falling further behind.
Now the Liberals are promising that every Canadian who wants to will get vaccinated by September. Tonight I hear it might even be the end of the year. Forgive me for not blindly trusting some of these words, as the Liberals have proven a pattern of saying one thing and then a couple of weeks later having to renege. I truly hope we can vaccinate everyone by September, but there is no guarantee it will happen.
We do not know the likelihood of success, as no one has seen the signed contracts. They have been mentioned several times tonight, but no one has seen the signed contracts with the various pharmaceutical companies. Before I go any further, let us discuss what we know to be true.
We know the Liberals have signed contracts with seven different pharmaceutical companies, contracts worth over $1 billion. This does not mean that all seven are going to get Health Canada approval, and it does not mean that we currently have any of those vaccines on standby. It also does not mean that we know when the vaccines will actually arrive. We still do not know if we are able to manufacture any of those vaccines on Canadian soil. We also do not know if the latest Liberal promise of vaccinating everyone by September is feasible, as I said before. Those are the unknowns, and it boggles my mind why the government has not been more transparent.
Before the Christmas break, the health committee started a new study on the government's response to COVID. However, Canadians might be interested to know that we still have not had a single meeting on vaccines since the House came back in September.
Last night, after our Conservative team had to call an emergency health committee meeting, we also had to overrule the chair to pass a motion to finally start talking about the Liberals' vaccine strategy. Not only that, but Canadians should know that the Liberal chair did not like that we pointed out that the health committee had not met in the last 45 days in the middle of the worst pandemic we have ever had.
Thanks to my friend and colleague from , who rightly pointed out to the Liberal chair that we are in the middle of a pandemic, we know time is of the essence. Canadians want answers, and I know the Liberals would prefer it if we did not ask tough question. However, we would not be in this position if they had provided meaningful answers.
It did not help that the shared erroneous information last night on a media panel and then had to text in to correct the record. If the parliamentary secretary does not know the details of the government's vaccine strategy, it begs the question: Who does?
In the past week we have learned that Pfizer has dramatically reduced vaccine shipments to the point that we will not receive a single dose this week. We have also learned it is having problems at its manufacturing facility, but we still do not know how many doses will be delivered in the coming weeks. Now the German government has formally requested that the EU block all exports of COVID vaccines produced within the EU. On top of that, the European Union's health commissioner has said pharmaceutical companies must “provide early notification whenever they want to export vaccines to third countries.” Let me state on the record that if that happens, we will be in even more trouble and will fall further behind. Now more than ever we need to know what can be done if the EU blocks those shipments.
Let us not forget the Liberals announced millions for Medicago, which is a pharmaceutical company, to establish a large-scale manufacturing facility here in Canada. The Liberals also announced $44 million to update the National Research Council's facilities to meet manufacturing standards.
Originally, when these announcements were made, the blamed a previous government from 36 years ago for why he had to do it. If we are going to start pointing fingers over what previous governments did or not do, there is not enough oxygen in the room to carry on the discussion. Instead of blaming others, it would have been wise for the Prime Minister to outline which vaccines can be manufactured at the new facility.
To date, we have not received any updates from the government on this funding announcement, and I think that shows a flaw in the contracts. If we are going to continue to see logistical challenges with getting vaccines into Canada, it would be prudent to know if any of the contracts would allow us to domestically manufacture a vaccine.
For months now, we have been asking for more details about the contracts the Liberals signed with the pharmaceutical companies. While I understand some of the sensitivities around pricing, what I do not understand is the level of secrecy. All these delays and smokescreens are deeply concerning.
While the was sabre-rattling with the premiers, to his credit he recognized his comments were not helpful and said so during a recent meeting with the provinces. Now that the premiers' concerns have proven to be correct, the issue of procuring vaccines falls squarely with the federal government. Because of that unpredictability and the necessity of having to give a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine, the Liberal government has put the provinces in a very difficult situation.
It takes a considerable amount of time to get a vaccine clinic organized. There is a necessity to have an on-site freezer tested for multiple days before using it to store vaccines. Staff must be arranged and notices posted. I know our front-line staff are up to the challenge, but let us give them the greatest chance of success.
For months now, we have been asking for more details about the contracts the Liberals signed with the pharmaceutical companies. While I understand some of the sensitivities around pricing, as I have said, what I do not understand is the level of secrecy. That part of the secrecy could stem from the Liberals not wanting certain details leaking out. For example, iPolitics is reporting that after the Liberals signed a deal with CanSino Biologics, the Chinese government blocked shipments for clinical trials. While we still do not know a lot of the details about that arrangement with CanSino, we do know that it took the Liberals an additional three months to sign another contract with a different pharmaceutical company. In those three months, countries around the world were signing vaccine contracts while the Liberals did not. It was not until the Liberals signed those other deals that the finally admitted that the CanSino vaccine was going nowhere.
In the coming days I fully expect the Liberals to be transparent with Parliament, with Canadians and with our health committee. When did they know that the CanSino deal was off the table? Why did it take them three months before signing another contract? These are legitimate questions that deserve answers.
As the leader of the official opposition has said, we want to work together on getting a strategy that will result in Canadians getting vaccinated. For that to happen it is up to the government to invite us to the table. In all opposition parties there are very talented members. If I were in the government's shoes, I would rather have the member of Parliament for working alongside me rather than being on the other end of her tough questions.
We cannot secure jobs this way. We need to secure our economic recovery, and we can do this to secure our future with vaccines. To protect our citizens and for provinces to lift restrictions, we must get this right.
In closing, it is my sincere hope that the government picks up the phone, calls the opposition parties and invites them to the table. Now let us get to work to secure Canada's future.
:
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for .
It is such an honour to join my colleagues this evening for this incredibly important debate on one of the greatest challenges that has ever faced our country. Many of my hon. colleagues have spoken about the whole-of-government effort to provide vaccines to Canadians and keep Canadians safe. I would like to focus my remarks on one specific aspect of our response, the important work being done by our defence team and the Canadian Armed Forces. No matter the mission, Canadian Armed Forces members have continued to demonstrate the very best our country has to offer.
[Translation]
This is clearer than ever, now that we are now transitioning to supporting the distribution of vaccines. This evening, I would like to speak about how the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence have been reliable partners in our whole-of-government fight against COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
[English]
As we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic has required us all to make important changes to our lives and our routines to stay safe. This has truly required a whole-of-nation effort. From individuals to businesses, to our government, everyone has an important role to play in our response to COVID-19, including our defence team. Most notably, since the pandemic first emerged here in Canada, Canadian Armed Forces members and DND personnel have been working closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Starting in October, when the Public Health Agency of Canada began to develop its strategy to distribute vaccines across the country, defence team members once again answered the call. A number of Canadian Armed Forces members and civilian staff have been temporarily reassigned to support the Public Health Agency of Canada in the planning and coordination of these efforts.
[Translation]
They include Major-General Dany Fortin, who was named vice-president of logistics and operations in November. He is working alongside other leaders on a vaccine distribution task force at the Public Health Agency of Canada, or PHAC.
[English]
He is well positioned for this role, having led complex operations as the first commander of the NATO mission in Iraq from 2018 to 2019. Major-General Fortin is joined by several defence team logistics experts, operation planners, health care workers, engineers and information technology and systems experts. Each of these defence team personnel brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, which are critical to facilitating vaccine delivery, ensuring that vaccines are safely stored and effectively distributed to our provinces and territories. Canadians can have full confidence in their military to support this national effort under Operation Vector.
In December, Canadian Armed Forces members delivered five medical-grade freezers to two of our northern territories in support of our Public Health Agency of Canada partners. Earlier this month, in Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador, they helped transport vulnerable individuals to and from vaccination sites. Last week, they helped local authorities in Watson Lake, Yukon, tear down a temporary vaccine site in the community and the Canadian Armed Forces is working closely with the Government of Ontario and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation to finalize the planning to deploy to up to 32 communities in northern Ontario to help with the public health vaccination program.
Canadian Armed Forces units across the country are ready to support civilian authorities if and when they are needed. However, it is important to note that their primary role is not to administer vaccines. That important responsibility rests with local health authorities.
[Translation]
At this crucial time in Canada's fight against COVID-19, the members of the defence team are providing essential support to PHAC.
[English]
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces remain ready and responsive at all times and have been since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through it all, Canadians have been able to depend on the dedicated professionals on the defence team to help them and to save lives.
This past year has been a testament to their adaptability and resilience, and it is a stark reminder of how Canadian Armed Forces members risk their lives every single day to protect and defend our nation and its people. Despite the unique challenges of the past year, they have continued to make Canadians proud.
In February of last year, Canadian Armed Forces members were integral in bringing Canadians home in the face of the growing threat of the coronavirus. Through this work, we know how critical it is that Canadian Armed Forces members remain safe and healthy to deploy when needed. That is why defence team leadership took decisive action to protect all employees and Canadian Armed Forces. Our focus was on ensuring that critical capabilities remained intact, and many Canadian Armed Forces members came home from or delayed deploying on operations abroad.
[Translation]
All these measures made it possible for Canadian Armed Forces members to be ready to answer the call and help Canadians. That call came quickly.
[English]
By April, thousands of Canadian Armed Forces members were assigned to Operation Laser, the mission to support our government's response to COVID-19. They worked on the front lines alongside health care professionals in 54 long-term care facilities: 47 in Quebec and seven in Ontario.
[Translation]
In Ontario and Manitoba, Canadian Armed Forced members also helped the Public Health Agency of Canada manage PPE in warehouses, to ensure that it could be distributed quickly to the people who need it.
[English]
In addition, more than 1,200 Canadian Rangers deployed in northern and indigenous communities across the country, providing essential support when it was needed the most. Recently, as cases began to surge again in the second wave in the fall and winter months, Canadian Armed Forces members answered the call once again in several indigenous communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.
Among other critical tasks, Canadian Armed Forces medical assistance teams helped establish and operate alternative isolation areas in these regions, and Canadian Rangers are currently supporting the Hatchet Lake Denesuline First Nation in Saskatchewan, delivering food, firewood and care packages to members of the community. They are also ensuring that community leaders have the information they need to mitigate risks and put effective health measures in place for their residents.
Our Canadian Armed Forces are helping out in some of the hardest-hit communities in Canada and deploying abroad to support our partners and allies in training, deterrence and peace support efforts. While they protect the health and safety of Canadians, it is our job to protect theirs. We have worked hard to ensure that they have the appropriate PPE for each deployment and closely follow public health measures and quarantine requirements as needed. Canadian Armed Forces members have begun to receive the vaccine, starting with front-line health care providers. All of this ensures that they remain safe and ready to help Canadians through the pandemic and beyond.
[Translation]
It will take time for things to get back to normal. We need to be patient and stay committed to ensuring that Canadians have access to a safe and effective vaccine.
[English]
However, I am confident in the work of the defence team and our partners across government to reach that light at the end of the tunnel and bring this pandemic to an end.
:
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to virtually rise in my home office today to address the government's ongoing strategy for rolling out COVID-19 vaccinations.
As my colleagues have outlined this evening, from the very early days this government's focus has been on doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes to get us through this pandemic. We know that the only way to conquer this pernicious virus is for all of us to continue to follow public health advice alongside a successful vaccine rollout.
Intense pandemic fatigue only serves to further strengthen our resolve to get vaccines out to Canadians as rapidly as possible. Across the globe, every country is faced with a challenging vaccine supply chain. Every country wants to get vaccines to its citizens as soon as possible, and every country shares the same goal: to get to the other side of this pandemic.
From the beginning, the focus of this government has been to provide safe, effective and reliable vaccines to all Canadians who wish to be vaccinated. Our comprehensive and meticulously planned vaccine strategy means vaccines are getting into the arms of Canadians. We have hit more than three-quarters of a million vaccine doses administered across Canada. As the announced on Friday, the number of doses administered daily is now four times what it was just three weeks ago. That is the good news. The number and pace of vaccine delivery to Canadians is increasing.
However, the government has pledged that it will be up front with Canadians when it comes to bumps in the vaccine rollout road. Yes, the temporary delay of delivery of doses of the Pfizer vaccine is frustrating for all of the countries supplied by that company's Belgian manufacturing facility. That is why when we set out our vaccine strategy we were so ambitious in the large number of contracts that we signed and the doses that we secured.
Here in Canada, during this historic worldwide scramble for vaccines, such bumps in the road were expected. This pandemic is happening in real time. The government's comprehensive planned vaccine strategy means when bumps occur, we are able to respond and adapt in real time.
From the start, our government recognized the highly complex and intensely competitive global market for vaccines, and that is precisely why we pursued a diversified vaccine procurement approach. We knew that temporary production delays such as that announced by Pfizer would be highly likely, given complex manufacturing, unprecedented global demand and a rapid ramping up of production.
Allow me for a moment to remind the House what the world looked like when we started our COVID-19 vaccine procurement strategy. At that time, none of us knew if it was even possible to develop a vaccine that would be effective against COVID-19. We knew that, historically, developing and testing a new vaccine to protect against an infectious disease would normally take several years, but the world did not have several years.
From making sure the vaccine was safe to making sure it was effective, to obtaining regulatory approval to manufacture truly vast quantities of vaccines such as we have never witnessed, we knew from day one that first scientists and then regulators and then manufacturers around the globe would be working under intense time pressure to produce a safe and effective vaccine demanded by every country in the world. Faced with a myriad of differing vaccine types, dosage requirements, as well as manufacturing and finishing needs, working day and night, this government has been dedicated to procuring the very best vaccine candidates for Canadians.
These efforts paid off. Canada invested in one of the most diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolios in the world. We knew that not all vaccines would make it through the clinical trials. We knew that global demand for the safe and effective vaccines would be like nothing previously witnessed, and we knew that the pressure on biomanufacturing facilities could lead to production delays. That is why from the start Canada had plans in place to mitigate the impact of these challenges. Canada had plans in place to make sure that this country would receive as many vaccine doses as possible, as rapidly as possible.
Because of this foresight and planning, Canadians have been receiving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines since last month. We have agreements in place with five other potential vaccine suppliers. We have access to more vaccine doses per person than any other country. We continue to work day and night to get as many vaccine doses as possible into Canada.
So far the government's vaccine strategy has succeeded in delivering 1.1 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the provinces and territories so that they can rapidly administer the shots to vulnerable Canadians and those on the front line battling this pandemic day in and day out.
Yes, the delay in the Pfizer shipments will have a short-term impact on the vaccination rollout, but this is temporary. Let us be clear: We remain on track to receive the four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine we are expecting by the end of this quarter.
As we head into spring, we expect to be able to send out more than 20 million doses to provinces and territories. That will keep us well on track so that each and every eligible person across this country who wants a vaccine will be able to get one by the end of September.
By the end of March we expect to have six million doses of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in Canada and up to 80 million doses by the end of the year. The agreements we have in place for five additional vaccine candidates will provide access to even more doses, which we will bring to Canada as soon as regulatory authorization is in place.
Further disruptions to supply are likely, but again, multiple agreements with multiple manufacturers mean that Canada is prepared. As spring gets under way, Canadians will begin to see a dramatic increase in vaccine deliveries. We remain on track for each and every person across this country, as I said, who wants a vaccine and is eligible to be able to get one by the end of September.
Across this country and around the globe, we all have the same aim: to end this pandemic. Nobody in this House underestimates the pain, the anguish and the grief felt by Canadians. The terrible loss is felt by our friends and by our families across the globe during these past depressing, distressing months.
It has been months and we are all living with pandemic fatigue, but this government is steadfast in its commitment to the health and safety of Canadians. The pathway out of this pandemic will not be straightforward and we will face setbacks, but the meticulous early planning of our government means that we will get through it. By continuing to pull together and to support each other, we will make it to the other side of this pandemic.
:
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to represent my constituents in the riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry and to participate in tonight's emergency debate on the vaccine rollout. Nonetheless, the fact is we are here tonight having an emergency debate on an issue that I do not think Canadians wanted us to have to have. As we watch other countries around the world going on social media, providing their updates every day to their citizens of increased rollouts, increased numbers of vaccines, and increased production, in Canada we are asking ourselves here in the House tonight, “What has gone wrong?”
I want to note that I am sharing my time tonight with my colleague from out west, the member for .
I have been speaking to hundreds and probably thousands of constituents and businesses. This is an extremely stressful time for Canadians.
Locally, I want to acknowledge and thank the first responders and the front-line workers who are doing the work, particularly in our long-term care homes.
My riding and community is heartbroken with the situation at the Lancaster Long-Term Care Residence, where 40 of 47 residents have tested positive for COVID-19. Unfortunately, there have been nine deaths. Numerous staff, I think the number is 16, have been infected. There have also been issues at Akwesasne, where there has been a terrible situation from numerous outbreaks. The Red Cross has been involved. I just want to say how proud we are of their work and thank them all for keeping us safe and doing their work during these stressful times.
Again, this highlights the need for this debate. I have said the line many times, and I know many of us from all parties have said this, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We can see the light; we just do not know how far away it is. When we get news like we have in the last week from the government that what it had promised to provide Canadians will not be happening this week, will not be happening next week, and will not be happening for the next couple weeks, we start to get worried that the light is slipping farther away and that Canadians are getting further away from the finish line for COVID-19.
The key to getting us back to normal, to opening back up, to getting back, lowering the case count and lowering the unfortunate number of deaths in this country is getting vaccines into the arms of Canadians as soon as possible.
I have been in public life here in Ottawa now for about 15 months and counting. I have talked to many constituents on different topics. They will say that the government announced this last week and it is all good. However, I have to say that when we deal with these things and issues, particularly with COVID-19 in the last year, Canadians not only need to listen to the announcement but also they have to follow up on it and see if the government is actually delivering on what it said it was going to do.
I have said this before. I will give a compliment to the government. It gets an A for announcements. The government is one of the best in the business of politics, having the stand out in front of Rideau Cottage and different ministers making announcements, saying that all is good and that they have done X. However, the devil is in the details. We follow up to see if the government is actually doing what it said it was going to do.
It is an A for announcements, and I will say it is an F for follow-through. The vaccine distribution and rollout that we have seen is showing that the government's plan is not working. The commitments the government made are not being fulfilled, and we are losing confidence and asking a lot of questions.
I want to acknowledge the work of our shadow health minister, the member for . We have been asking questions, and I have been here many days, pretty well every day throughout the fall, in question period, asking question after question, wanting to get certain answers. We were told to stop being so negative and to stop asking questions, that we were on team Canada and we are all in this together. We were told not to worry, not to be negative and to stop criticizing. The very things, the very questions and issues we were raising months ago, I wish did not come to fruition, but they are right now.
There are a few things in this situation that we find ourselves in that I want to elaborate a little on. We cannot see the details of the contracts that have been signed. We can look at the details of contracts in the United States and a lot of other countries. I can go online and print off the details of their contracts, what deals they signed with organizations and different companies, with what dates, what guarantees, what perhaps what penalties in certain cases, and the order and priority of the work they have been doing for several months.
We cannot do that or get those full details here. It makes us wonder why. Now, when we see that tens of thousands of vaccines went to other countries around the world this week and we got zero, we start to understand why the government maybe does not want to disclose the full information on this.
The other issue we face in this country is we do not have domestic production. I will go back again to following up on announcements made in April. The government said not to worry, we do not have domestic production, but it would spend tens of millions of dollars in Montreal. I believe it was the National Research Council. We were going to expand so we could have domestic production in our country. It was a great, feel-good announcement. Yes, we need domestic production. As far as I know, we have not even seen a shovel in the ground. That facility is not operational.
We are in the heat of the moment. Other countries that are producing domestically have good contracts and are getting their vaccines. We had an announcement but there was no follow-through in actually getting it done in a timely manner. I think there would be unanimous agreement in the House to say, heaven forbid, that if we ever went through this again in my lifetime, we would be more prepared in making sure we could produce vaccines domestically. We have to ask ourselves what the end game is. The has said several times that the buck stops here, and he is right. It stops with the government.
Over the Christmas holidays, I remember the outrage from certain members on the other side when Premier Ford and the Ontario government said they were not going to do vaccinations on December 25 and 26. There were issues perhaps with balancing health care workers who were working their regular shifts at hospitals and long-term care facilities, and not wanting to overwhelm the workforce. The government was attacked and ridiculed for saying it was slowing down. This week, there are zero vaccines coming into the country. Next week, there will only be 86%. We lose track because the numbers keep getting worse. Over the course of the next months, the government has no idea how many vaccines we are going to get.
I often get asked what I would do differently. What bothers me, and part of the reason for this being an emergency, is that the work should have been done months ago. Back in the summer, when other countries were finalizing and signing deals, getting themselves in the priority queue and organizing their logistics, we had a government that was embroiled in scandal. The finance minister resigned, we had the WE Charity scandal and the Liberals prorogued Parliament, trying to shift attention away from the issues. They started talking about beginning to sign deals much later than other countries did. We see what that is causing here at home now.
Last week, tens of thousands of vaccines were received by a wide variety of countries. We are getting nothing. I follow many world leaders on social media. Under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom last week alone gave the first dose to 2.3 million people. Between 6.2 million and 6.5 million U.K. citizens have received their first dose. They are well on their way. They are ramping up every single week and getting more vaccines. We find ourselves having none this week, barely any next week and we are not sure what the next few weeks are going to bring.
President Biden has said the U.S. vaccines are going up 15% and the government is going to be able to tell the states three weeks in advance how many they can expect and when they are going to be delivered. What did our government do? It took down the website with the number of expected doses, going backward, not forward and ramping things up.
I wish we did not have to have this emergency debate tonight. I had hoped we would have had ourselves organized like other countries are showing we could be. I want the government to do well, because it means Canadians do well and fewer lives are lost. The government's success is Canadians' success, and we need to make sure we get answers about what has gone wrong and do everything in our power to get the vaccination program back on track and get back to normalcy.
:
Madam Speaker, it is a real honour to join this very important debate tonight. As we were heading into the Christmas period, I think many were optimistic. There was a light. We could see the vaccine development that we were so pleased about. What has happened since then has been a real concern.
In the riding I represent, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, we have come off relatively lightly in terms of actual cases. Certainly people were struggling with some of the restrictions, but we have seen a real escalation in our communities. One of the first nation communities now has 25% of the population struggling with COVID infections. An elder died just recently, and the children are locked down in their homes with no Internet to even do their schooling. Our local hospital also has recently announced that it has an outbreak.
We all know that vaccinations have made the greatest contribution to global health of any human intervention, arguably with the exception of clean water and sanitation. Many have noted today that we thought the vaccination for COVID might have taken longer, and we are so glad that modern science was able to move forward in such an effective way so quickly. This vaccine is critical for the health of Canadians, morbidity and mortality, and it is absolutely critical for our economy in terms of getting back up and getting going.
Canadians are very forgiving. They have forgiven the government for a lot of mistakes. They recognize that it was a very unique and unusual circumstance, but the mistakes are starting to add up. I have to start with pre-pandemic. They got rid of our surveillance system, which was world-class. Liberals never even told anyone it was shuttered down, so we did not have that surveillance system. They also got rid of warehouse space that housed our PPE and threw it into the dumpster.
In January, we were worried about what was happening, and the Liberals continually insisted the risk was low. They did not take into account some of the reactions of other countries. Even when our military intelligence reports were saying so, we left our borders open. I find it stunning, even to this day, that people could come in internationally and hop on a domestic flight with nothing in terms of any reasonable kind of surveillance.
There was no rapid testing. Finally, there is a little pilot project in Calgary. We were told we did not need to bother with masks, and now we are told that masks are important. There has been some pretty compelling evidence that the rapid testing is an effective tool. It is not perfect, but it is an effective tool.
Now we have the vaccines, and it would be important at this point to compare what is happening in Canada with a few other countries. The Biden administration in the U.S. has 5.2% of the population vaccinated. We are at 1.1%. President Biden has committed to doing a million a day for 100 days, and people are saying that this is feasible for him to do. While he is ramping up to a million a day, we are ramping down to almost zero for the next who knows how long, with a very uncertain future ahead.
In May, the U.K. decided to contribute £93 million to build a super vaccine facility. It is going to be open in the summer of 2021, a year ahead of schedule. They put significant dollars into it. They will open the facility, and it will have the capacity, which will probably not be needed this time, but it will have the capacity to produce all the vaccinations needed for the whole population in six months. I ask members to compare that to $4.5 million that Canada has put into a few projects here and there.
Certainly, if anyone was listening today to some of the experts in vaccines, some of the CEOs of companies in Canada, in spite of what the said, they said that Canada does have the capacity and the ability. With support we could have been ramping up and perhaps producing our own vaccines here in Canada.
Israel has 25% of its population vaccinated. They started their work, apparently, way back in March with their prime minister phoning regularly Pfizer and making sure that they were at the top of the line. They put a huge priority on this many months ago, both recognizing the importance of vaccines for their population and making sure that they were going to move ahead.
What about Canada? We know that in May the probably talked about his deal with China. He signed a deal and, of course, we all know the challenges in our relationship with China over the last number of years, so certainly at the time I think many people were a little leery. As has been reported, it turns out that four days later China backed out of the deal and refused to ship the necessary items to Canada. The government, for all of its talk about transparency, did not reveal that to Canadians for a long time.
Then, late last summer the government finally got around to signing a few contracts. If members recall, at the time there was the WE scandal and Liberals prorogued Parliament and delivered a Speech from the Throne, and members have to wonder how distracted the government was from doing what it needed to do. Dealing with the WE scandal was consuming all of its energy and oxygen and the government was unable to do the job it needed to do for Canadians, because it was too busy taking care of its own self interests, moving money toward an organization that really was deeply in bed with it and busy trying to thwart the health committee from getting the information the committee needed.
Here we are in Canada, and, as our leader said, everyone wants the government to be successful. Hopefully this debate tonight will make the government sit up and look inside and say that it could have done better, that it needs need to do better for Canadians and needs to be more transparent to Canadians. We can look at contracts from Australia. We can look at contracts from many countries, and we can know what is happening in those countries. In Canada the government that promised that sunlight was the best disinfectant and that it was going to be open and transparent by default is probably the most closed government we have ever encountered.
We have a crisis. The Liberals talk about doses per capita. Doses per capita do not matter if those doses are not going to come for six months or a year. What matters is when we get these doses, when they are delivered and how they are going to make sure that Canadians can move forward. I say this because members can only imagine that if they were sitting in Canim Lake and their six-year-old or 10-year-old cannot go to school, they would have some problems.
We are being critical of the government tonight, because it deserves some criticism on this. The Liberals have not been transparent with Canadians. They need to look in their hearts and figure out how they can do a better job for all of us. Our economy depends on it. Our seniors depend on it. Our health depends on it.
:
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time, to the extent I can, with the hon. member for . If he has a chance to speak tonight, he will be superb.
I want to start by thanking the incredible health care workers in my riding, at the Jewish General Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and all of the long-term care centres in my riding, which have been at the centre of the COVID epidemic. They have done a wonderful job.
Let us be clear. We all want vaccines as soon as possible. Tomorrow is not soon enough for any of us. This is not a Liberal issue, a Conservative issue, a New Democratic issue or a Bloc issue. We all want vaccines. Everybody is doing their best. Provinces are doing their best and the federal government is doing its best. We should not be blaming one another.
There will be times that provinces will have vaccines in freezers because they were not able to distribute it fast enough. There will be times that provinces are short in vaccines because our supply chain is not working as effectively as we would like. In the end, let us try to accept that everybody is being professional and doing their absolute best.
That is why, before I start talking about vaccines, I want to talk about disinformation. We have a responsibility to not exaggerate. We have a responsibility to look at what happened in Washington a couple of weeks ago and to recognize that the words of politicians have great weight. I penned an op-ed with my friend from about the dangers of politicians spreading disinformation, and I think it is an apt lesson.
Whenever we have an evolution in technology, whether it is the printing press, radio, motion pictures or social media, it gives an opportunity to those who would want to spread disinformation a much greater breadth to do so.
In the United States, we had groups such as QAnon touting conspiracy theories that fed into a president who denied he had lost an election. There were people tweeting that Dominion voting machines had switched votes from Trump to Biden, and that was retweeted by the president, members of the Senate, members of the House and those whom the public trusted. When those whom the public trusts spread disinformation and fear, and make people believe an election was not legitimate, we have events like we did where democracy itself was attacked at the Capitol.
My plea to all my fellow members of Parliament is that they can be dissatisfied with what the government is doing, but let us all not exaggerate. Let us try to be accurate in what we are saying. For example, it is not accurate to say that the government has no plan on vaccines. People can argue they are not satisfied with the plan, but there is a plan. There is a plan that people have heard over and over. It is a plan that is up on a website.
It is a plan that has 80 million doses coming in from Pfizer and Moderna by September. Every member of the Canadian population who wants to be vaccinated will have a dose in Canada to vaccinate them by the end of September. We know that we will get six million doses, four million of Pfizer and two million of Moderna, by the end of March. We know that starting in April, there will be a great ramp-up where millions of doses will be coming into Canada. We will need to be ready for that.
We know that the vaccine is not everything. We know that even Israel, the country that has been the most successful in rolling out the vaccine, still has many thousands being infected on a daily basis. We still need to continue with social distancing, washing our hands and following provincial government public health measures.
The federal government is absolutely rolling out a plan, and it is a plan that is actually doing better than we even said at the beginning. The originally said he did not expect doses to come in until January. We had almost half a million doses in the hands of Canadians right after the end of December. There are more than a million doses in Canada today. We are fifth in the G20. We are not last; we are fifth. Out of all of the EU nations, as of yesterday, we are doing better than 21, and we are doing worse than six. To argue that somehow we are the worst in the world is completely unfair and untrue. Someone can say we should be first, we should be the best and we should be like Israel. That is fair enough, but let us not exaggerate.
There are professional purchasers who have been out there since last spring preparing for this moment. Originally, Canada did not have PPE. We had to source all our PPE from abroad. Now more than half of our PPE is made in Canada.
In the same way we sourced PPE and managed to domestically manufacture PPE, we have professional purchasers in the department of procurement who have worked for months and months and months to sign contracts with seven vaccine providers. I heard tonight that because of a deal with the Communist Chinese, somehow we were not preparing to sign with anybody else, but this is utterly false. Moderna has stated that we were one of the first countries to sign with Moderna. We were not one of the last; we were one of the first. The spokesperson for Pfizer, Christina Antoniou, said we were the fourth country to sign an agreement with Pfizer. We were not one of the last; we were one of the first. Again, please let us not spread that type of disinformation.
When it comes to the very, very disappointing shortfall of Pfizer, let us recognize Pfizer has told the world that to ramp up production in Belgium, there will be a four-week shortfall among all the countries being supplied by the Belgian plant.
It is true we received none this week, and everybody is making hay of it. Last week we received 83% of our doses, and some of the European countries that are getting more of their doses this week received almost none.
The has clearly stated that over the course of four weeks, as Pfizer has assured her, there will be an equitable distribution of what comes out of Belgium to all the countries served by Belgium. It is clear; she said it. Pfizer said it. If members want to blame Pfizer for retooling its Belgian plant and not having thought in advance that it would need more doses, then fine. However, it is unfair and untrue to claim that because European countries are getting more than Canada this week, Canada is being treated inequitably by Pfizer. We do not have those stats.
I also heard today that the website came down. The website with our plan did not come down. The website is still there. The only part that came down was Pfizer's forecasts, because we do not have the Pfizer forecasts going forward for the next couple of weeks. We want to be accurate. The Moderna forecasts are still there.
I want to make sure that when it comes to these issues, we understand that while it is fair to be critical, it is not at all fair to exaggerate. We need to be calm and prudent and understand that Canadians are looking to us for leadership on this and many other issues. The more we show that we are being rational and clear-headed and the more we are able to show that we can get along and work together as team Canada, the better we will do in rolling out vaccines, keeping Canadians safe and hopefully finding our way out of COVID-19 by the end of September.
[Translation]
I will be very glad to take questions from my colleagues now.