Thank you very much for that, Mr. Chair.
I really do appreciate the question from my colleague, although I'm struggling to understand this, knowing that, again, other committees are taking up this work. Just going back to my original point in previous meetings, I'm struggling to understand the value of this particular committee taking up this study at this particular point in time.
When we look at where we are today and where we were many months ago when it comes to medical procurement, we've taken a whole-of-government approach focused on responding to the COVID-19 outbreak. We've worked with partners across all levels of government. We've worked with industry to secure PPE and life-saving medical supplies.
My wife is a nurse practitioner. I remember early on having a conversation with her after seeing what was happening in countries such as Italy with the challenges they had with PPE and medical equipment. I recall the conversations we had, not just about what was happening in Italy, but about what was happening right across the river in Detroit and southeast Michigan. We were seeing hospitals being inundated and overwhelmed and doctors and nurses struggling to get PPE, struggling to get medical equipment, as the first wave washed over Detroit and southeast Michigan. We saw it literally. We saw it on the news every single day.
Mr. Chair, I have to tell you that in Windsor we have 1,500 Canadian nurses who live in Windsor and who travel across the border each and every day to work in American hospitals. We didn't have to watch the news. Many of us know such Canadian cross-border nurses. We were getting information first-hand on what they were experiencing in Detroit with the lack of PPE and medical equipment and the challenges they were facing. Some of them were asked to carry their masks home with them in a paper bag and bring them to work the next day.
Those are some of the things we were thinking about back then, when the first wave hit. With this tremendous effort on the part of the government and on the part of local industry, Canadian industry, we mobilized. We've had the largest peacetime mobilization of industry to produce PPE and medical equipment. We've made this incredible leap from where we were to where we are now. It's absolutely incredible.
We have this momentum that we've established over the last number of months. I think it's important that we see that momentum carry through. We've heard over the last six months and in the summer that we're in a much better position now than we were back in March. That's thanks to the tremendous work of the government, the tremendous work of our officials, the tremendous work of industry and partners—our provincial partners as well—and others who really worked together to acquire the necessary PPE.
We've also been able to bring online production, in terms of long-term planning—the 3M facility in Brockville, and Medicom—to make N95 masks, face shields, gowns, as well as makers of non-medical masks. Again, we've mobilized all our forces and all our folks in order to address PPE and medical equipment, not just in the short term but also in the long term. At this point in time, well over 70% of our orders for face shields have been received. And I might add that the majority of those are from Canadian manufacturers. We received 85% of our orders for hand sanitizer, including from companies like Fluid Energy in Calgary.
Again, we're heading in the right direction. We're gaining momentum here, and that's important because we are preparing for a second wave. The last thing we need is to take the attention of our officials, and all the partnerships that we've built, away from developing and continuing to build up our stockpiles, continuing to build up our PPE, or continuing to build up our medical devices. We can't afford for folks to take their eyes off the ball at this critical juncture, especially knowing that there is a second wave upon us.
Again, you look at the fact that as the numbers are rising around the country, we are starting to get nervous. I can tell you that, again, even having those conversations with my wife, who's a nurse practitioner, my number one priority is to make sure that we have the PPE and the medical devices necessary to protect not only Canadians and their health, but also the health and safety of Canadians who are front-line health care workers.
Again, my concern—and this is something my colleague had brought forward—is that we're asking officials to basically attend meeting after meeting and take time away from their important, critical work just as we're entering the peak of the second wave. We're asking them to take time away from their important work to come here and testify, and to produce documentation, duplicate meetings rather than having one meeting focused on those discussions.
It represents for me a real clear and present—