Thank you very much, Chair, and I appreciate it.
I have a question for our witnesses. The Public Health Agency of Canada is requesting about $1.1 billion under vote 1a, operating expenditures; vote 5a, capital expenditures; and vote 10a, grants and contributions for border and travel measures and isolation sites related to COVID-19.
The funding would be used to implement enhanced border and travel measures relating to COVID-19 travel restrictions for individuals entering by land or at the four designated Canadian airports, and for federally designated quarantine sites across Canada. It would strengthen national border and travel health programs, including enhanced compliance and enforcement, such as home checks; safe voluntary isolation spaces in municipalities; and enhanced surveillance initiatives to reduce COVID-19 importation and transmission at points of entry.
This funding request is interesting. In Windsor—Essex, we received through the safe voluntary isolation sites program about $18 million from PHAC for an isolation and recovery centre, and it was used for temporary foreign workers who were working on farms.
Windsor—Essex receives about 10,000 temporary foreign workers per year, so this was a critical piece of our COVID-19 response. We had large outbreaks on our farms during the year, so this isolation recovery centre provided us with a bit of breathing space. It took a lot of pressure off our ICUs, our hospitals and our health care system. It allowed us to safely quarantine and isolate temporary foreign workers who were COVID positive or who had been in contact with folks who were COVID positive.
First and foremost, how many isolation sites were federally funded in Canada?
It's an open question. I'm not sure who it's directed to.