Thanks.
I also have been on this committee for a number of years and from the beginning of COVID-19, and I remember that back in January, February and March, two things were going on. One was that we clearly had a shortage of personal protective equipment in this country. You've spoken of the expired masks, the destruction of two million N95 masks and the clear shortage. At the same time, our chief public health officer, Dr. Tam, was advising Canadians that masks would be harmful, never mind not recommending them. As well, clearly a number of health care workers were not getting the PPE they needed.
Do you think there was a connection between those two things? Do you think the reason the government was not recommending masks to the Canadian public in the early stages of this pandemic and was not providing them to front-line health care workers was because we had a national shortage?