Good afternoon.
Mr. Chair, thank you for having me here alongside my colleagues from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
With me today is Alain Dorion, Director General within the Procurement Branch at Public Services and Procurement Canada.
It is our pleasure to appear before this committee to talk about our department's role in Canada's National Emergency Strategic Stockpile.
As you know, the stockpile is managed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. It contains supplies that provinces and territories can request in cases of emergency.
These supplies include a variety of items such as personal protective equipment, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and social service supplies, such as beds and blankets.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is responsible for maintaining the stockpile, assessing the composition of the stockpile, and restoring supplies that are distributed. Public Services and Procurement Canada is responsible for purchasing supplies on behalf of, and with direction from, the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, PSPC has worked closely with PHAC to acquire supplies for distribution to provinces and territories to support our frontline health care workers. These purchases are supplementary to the existing national emergency strategic stockpile as well as to the stocks and supplies that exist in and are being procured directly by the provinces and territories. We've also provided procurement support to PHAC regarding warehousing and distribution services when needed.
In the beginning, much of the supplies we were buying were coming in from overseas, and we were operating in a highly competitive international market. Canada simply did not have the domestic manufacturing capability at the time for vital equipment such as N95 respirators and other critical supplies.
We have since established important domestic sources of supply that, in the early days of the pandemic, PSPC had to take an aggressive approach to buying in a complex global environment, especially when it came to personal protective equipment for frontline health care workers. That approach included buying large quantities of supplies in bulk with delivery spread over several months and supplementing those orders by purchasing everything immediately available that met Health Canada's requirements.
As part of these efforts, just over one year ago now, the PSPC launched a call to action asking suppliers to come forward with products or services they could offer to support Canada's response to the pandemic. The response was overwhelming, with approximately 26,000 responses from both Canadian and international businesses.
At the same time, due to a plan to mobilize industry being led by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, domestic manufacturers began to retool and ramp up domestic production of much-needed supplies. In all, so far, the Government of Canada has purchased approximately 2.5 billion pieces of equipment to help Canada fight COVID-19, with many of those supplies now being made in Canada.
Today, domestic production is now set up in many places across the country, and marketplaces for PPE are much more stable in general. That is why, over the past few months, we have been able to return to using competitive bidding processes to secure the goods and services needed to meet Canada's evolving pandemic needs where circumstances permit and when the needs are not urgent.
Open competitions for goods and services are now regularly being launched on our website for a range of PPE, medical equipment and supplies. In addition, to further support domestic manufacturing, we've also issued a number of competitive procurement processes limited to Canadian manufacturers only.
By continuing to securing vital supplies through competitive processes, and with domestic suppliers now making up a greater portion of our supplier pool, we are better equipped for the longer term.
I can tell you that we are committed to continuing to support the Public Health Agency of Canada in their efforts to maintain and replenish the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions.