Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Once again, it's good to see everybody back. I hope everybody had a chance to relax, and I wish a happy new year to everyone.
I'm going to speak in favour of the motion. If I get right down to the chase here, I don't want to comment on events that have just been ruled upon, but we're here because it's Monday and, up to now, we haven't heard anything from the chair about what the proposed schedule would be. I heard the chair reference that this Friday we would be doing the mental health study. I haven't seen any notification of that.
One thing we all share is a sense of urgency. I would have hoped that last week we would have received a proposed schedule of meetings from the chair that allowed us to meet today, this Friday and next week in an orderly way, so that we can get right to business. However, that didn't happen.
I also want to point out that a Standing Order 106 meeting is an extraordinary meeting. It's the prerogative of any four members of this committee to sign such a letter and cause us to meet within the prescribed time period, and that can be at any time. With great respect to the chair, that operates in addition to the normal business of the committee. It doesn't contradict, in any way, any motion that's previously been passed, so I find this motion in order.
The real question is this: What does this motion do? The motion calls the ministers before this committee. I think it gives them until February 5, which I think is respectful. I'm open to suggestions. I know the ministers are busy but it's January 25 today, so that's a good 10 days from now. I think I speak for all members of Parliament and every Canadian when I say that we're extremely anxious about the state of vaccines in Canada. Governments do what governments do. The government may try to put forward as positive a picture as possible, but the fact is that we're receiving no vaccines this week and receiving 79,000 vaccines next week. The United States last week vaccinated an average of 1.1 million people a day. We haven't even vaccinated 800,000 people in Canada to date, so we have production issues.
I want to also point out that, just this morning, there was disturbing news out of the EU that they are thinking about proposing export controls on vaccines manufactured in Europe. The government blithely says that this is just a temporary disruption and not to worry about it, but there could be other problems coming. The fact that the government has not released a single word of a single contract it has signed with seven vaccine manufacturers leaves us in the dark on this. I think all Canadians deserve to know what's going on as much as possible, and I think the ministers have an obligation to come to our committee to address this.
The other thing I like about the motion is that it proposes a way forward. I'm open to some finessing of the dates, but the way I read the motion is that Monday hence, we have our fourth meeting on mental health, which was the final meeting of the Liberals' priority on the COVID study, so that takes care of next Monday. The following Friday we begin the first meeting of the Conservatives' priority, which is on vaccines. By the way, I still think as a committee we need to pass the assessment of how many meetings we will attribute to that. Ms. Rempel Garner's motion mentions four, but we do have to formally decide that. I personally will support four meetings.
That leaves us with the question of when we schedule the ministers if they have to appear before February 5, which is next Friday, as the motion suggests. That would mean we would have to have the ministers here between next Monday and next Friday.
I'm not going to move this at this point, because I want to hear what my colleagues have to say about this, but it would make sense to me to reschedule this a little by saying this Friday is the fourth meeting of the mental health theme of the COVID study. We then begin the Conservatives' first day of vaccines on Monday, and then we invite the ministers to come the following Friday to give the ministers the maximum amount of time to come.
I would be interested to see how Ms. Rempel Garner feels about that, if that's a friendly amendment or if she feels strongly about that. I don't see in the motion what we're doing with this Friday. Given the urgency that she so eloquently spoke of, and that I think we all feel, I would like to use this Friday, if at all possible.
The final thing the motion does, and I think it's positive, is that it gives a deadline for our submitting witnesses for the vaccine component of the study. I think it's January 28, which gives us several days to submit what amounts to four witnesses. We each get one witness per meeting, assuming the committee agrees that we'll allocate four meetings to the vaccine part of this study, which I personally will support. I think most of us will, because we all know how important vaccines are.
Those are my thoughts on why I support the motion. I would support it the way it's presently written, but I think my suggestions of utilizing this Friday and putting some shape to these meetings make sense. I'm interested in hearing my colleagues' thoughts on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.