Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the colleagues who are contributing. I feel like we're making progress with Mr. Bergeron's subamendment that we've taken on.
I'd like to answer to what my colleague Mr. Oliphant mentioned with regard to this one statement in the current amendment that we're looking at:
The committee further recognizes that this failure by the government to secure domestic supply makes Canadians more vulnerable to dangerous variants and extends the detrimental global...impacts of COVID-19 by delaying vaccinations to high-risk people in poor countries.
As my colleague Dr. Fry mentioned, we always have to be so careful in what we put forward in the public realm about our discussions of what we're doing, because there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty. There is a tremendous amount of anxiety with Canadians right now about variants and supply, which vaccine is safe to take and which isn't, and on and on it goes.
In this committee we have the responsibility that any statement that we put forward is based on evidence and is based on clarity of the facts. That is what we're here to present, to do.
As Mr. Fonseca said, the proposal was to pull a draw of 1.9 million from the COVAX stock that we contributed to with 92 countries that are participants in the Gavi COVAX makeup. We were a leader in investing to make sure that, not just for domestic supply—the agreement does allow for domestic draw—but on an international scale there was a collective effort. We were leaders in setting up this structure, and we were leaders in investing in the structure.
That aside, if we want to perhaps say that it is a little bit partisan, let's go to the facts as of March 22. What has COVAX achieved? It's shipped over 31 million vaccines to 57 participant countries, 31 million.
This motion debates about 1.9 million, which we always said we'd have the ability to draw from, versus the eight million that are arriving in Canada by the end of March and the slated 100 million available to Canadians by the end of September.
Let's just deal with the facts, which are the numbers, and numbers don't lie. We know what we are participating in, and we know what we've invested. My colleague Mr. Fonseca really mapped out the amounts of investment that we've put in and the leadership role that we've played.
This statement to say that our draw of 1.9 million is delaying vaccines to high-risk people in poor countries, well, 31 million have already gone out to 57 participating countries, so that statement, to me, really is misleading. It doesn't show the truth of where this program is going, what it is providing globally and what we are leading participants in.
Really, it puts anxiety in the minds of Canadians about what this program is, why we participated in it and what we are contributing to a global effort to address and make sure that every citizen who needs one gets a vaccination and that every person around the world who wants a vaccine can be protected, because we all need to be protected as countries, as individuals and as states. We all have a role to play in this, and Canada has played a leading role.
My colleague Mr. Oliphant has raised his concerns and offered a solution to address this line, and I really feel that we need to look at the numbers that are on the table. They're up on the Gavi website, and you can see the numbers of distribution right there. It's constantly moving and it's constantly changing. The numbers are higher every day in terms of the provision of vaccines to participating countries. The facts are there: 31 million by March 22. I think that is a tremendous accomplishment by COVAX and Gavi, and we can be proud of that.
I really think we need to take some time to consider what the purpose of what we're putting in this statement is, this one line about the committee recognizing the failure and the global economic impacts, because it wholeheartedly isn't in alignment with the data that is available.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.