Thank you, Mr. Chair.
A lot has been said here by our colleagues on the Conservative side, especially where the rollout of vaccines and rapid testing is concerned. It's worthwhile correcting the numbers and to share them with our witnesses here today and with Canadians who are watching.
We've heard our Prime Minister say time and time again that we've really ramped up our purchasing, that vaccines are being received and that any Canadian who wants to be vaccinated will have the opportunity to do so by the end of September. About 8.1 million vaccine doses have been administered to Canadians, and we've delivered more than 10.5 million doses to the provinces and territories.
I know Ms. Jansen finds this funny. I'm really glad I'm offering some comic relief, but this is a serious issue.
In terms of rapid tests, almost 42 million have been shipped to the provinces and territories. Of those 42 million rapid tests, only 9.7 million have been deployed, per an article from the National Post, but if you go to canada.ca you'll see that 10.5 million have been deployed.
You'll also note on that site—which is great, and I invite everybody to check it—that some provinces are doing better than others. For instance, for my own province of Quebec, we've shipped 4.8 million rapid tests, and almost 1.9 million have been deployed and administered. If I look at British Columbia, where my colleague Ms. Jansen is from, almost 2.8 million have been shipped but only 357,000 have been deployed. One has to take a step back and wonder why.
The government is doing everything it can to make sure we have the tools needed to come out of the COVID pandemic safely and reopen our economy. We're doing everything possible and more, and Canadians know that.
My question is for anyone, but maybe specifically for Mr. Roy.
What do you think the current barriers are to the use of rapid tests by businesses? Is there a role the federal government can play in supporting the provinces and their rollout of these tests? What do you think the delay is?