To get the best possible answer to this question, I think you should ask my colleagues at Health Canada and perhaps my colleagues at the Department of Public Services and Procurement.
I can only speak from my own experience. When ISED worked with Canadian industry, it was honestly almost impossible to get all the products people needed.
In Canada and around the world, production was failing. Our goal was to protect Canadians and get products from wherever they came from. It was necessary to get Canadian industry moving to make these products. As I said at the beginning, there was zero production of disinfectant products in Canada, and the country now produces almost half of them, 40%. ISED really encouraged companies in their choice because it was necessary. Why did we buy products abroad and not in Canada? I can't answer your question directly. I'm sorry.
However, we are very proud of the efforts made by the Canadian industry. In my opinion, we worked with the industry because we needed these products.