Mr. Chair, committee members, good afternoon.
I will keep these remarks short, preserving time for your questions.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
The COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve rapidly. In the battle against this virus, Canada’s scientists, innovators and industry are working on multiple fronts to fight the pandemic.
On March 20, the Prime Minister announced Canada’s plan to mobilize industry to fight COVID-19. This plan introduced measures to directly support businesses to rapidly scale up production or retool their manufacturing capacity to develop products made in Canada to help meet the needs of the front lines of the health care system. Since that time, our department has received over 5,000 offers to help from businesses across Canada.
We are reaching out to each of these businesses to explore their offers and have moved many forward into new partnerships. As a result, Canada is securing the capacity to produce necessary medical equipment and supplies.
For example, we are purchasing critical made-in-Canada ventilators, securing new supply chains to produce medical gowns, producing large volumes of disinfectants, and producing and procuring surgical and N95 masks. At the same time, we have issued challenges to innovative companies to support research and development on new technologies and products.
We are also working with the life sciences industry on treatments that will help Canadians who become infected and on vaccine research to provide population-level immunity for all Canadians. In all of these efforts, Canadian researchers and businesses are stepping up to meet this challenge, and we will continue to support them.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.