Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks for all the comments that all the members have made today.
I said last week that I felt it was really important to.... Over my non-Thanksgiving turkey dinner while I was in isolation in Nova Scotia, I went over the motion the Conservatives had put forward. I took the time to review it. I've called it an omnibus motion, but clearly it's a fishing expedition. Now, today, we have another surprise. Some people say it's almost the same; some people say it's different. Regardless, it handcuffs people when things are thrown at them and then they have a brand new motion that's similar but not exactly.
Maybe, as Don said.... I believe and very clearly try to listen to Don when he speaks, because so often he makes sense. In his comment earlier about how this committee has worked well together, he was going back to a time prior to that of most of the members on this committee now, but the committee did work very well together even in the short time that we were all together.
We have a different motion, and we have 30 minutes to have a conversation about this motion. For 18 of those 30 minutes, I was waiting for the motion to come into the mailbox, because it took a while to come.
I can tell you, Mr. Chair, and I can say this first-hand from talking to my constituents, that Canadians want members of Parliament to work together. They appreciate it, they notice when it's done, and they want solutions and not games. I've said this before: We need to look forward rather than back.
We've heard from Sonia, from Tony Van Bynen, from Don, from Luc, from Mr. Barlow that they have motions they want to move forward. But we're now well into our second meeting, and the agenda has been hijacked, for lack of a better term, with this one particular motion, which as I started out I called an omnibus motion.
I enjoy the work we do on this committee and the committees I've been on in the past. I was on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. What an excellent example of a committee that worked really well together. We had all parties working together and produced really good, substantive reports. We had a unanimous report on protected areas across Canada, and I think that led to an investment of around one billion dollars into protected areas across Canada—incredible investments and partnerships in nature protection. Mr. Chair, it led to solutions.
I was hopeful that this committee could be a place in which members worked together for all Canadians. I listened to Don's comments about finding a way forward. I am hopeful—I was hopeful—that enough members on this committee would want to work together and undertake studies in a meaningful way so that we could provide.... This is what it's all about; this is what committees do. They provide solid recommendations to the government. This committee has done so in the past and can do it.
Make no mistake; we absolutely should continue studying COVID-19 in some form that is focused and less broad. That will allow us to study COVID-19 in a really meaningful way. We had an incredible opportunity to work here again as a committee and undertake focused and meaningful studies that would benefit Canadians now and moving forward. As was said earlier, we're in the second wave or the resurgence or whatever you want to call it. This is the time for us to be focusing on aspects of that.
Just to go back to Mr. Van Bynen's motion, on which the opposition parties voted to adjourn debate, I believe this is a massive issue. This is an issue that I hear about from constituents all the time. Canadians lost loved ones. Canadians couldn't see loved ones. Isolation was a problem before COVID-19. I can tell you that it's going to be one of the issues of our time, when we finally find a way out of this. We do have an incredible opportunity.
Going through the new Conservative motion—and I won't say the word, Mr. Chair, because I know you'll shut me down—the new motion, the amended motion, or whatever you want to call it, the first part is fine. I honestly can't wait to get back to work on this. I do feel that this is important. It's probably, as Marcus said, one of the most important things of our time, at least in the last hundred years.
First of all, I'm not moving an amendment, but obviously we would have to move the date in this motion because that's tomorrow, and I think it's physically impossible for us. That's a small thing. Although I look forward to getting to work, due to logistics I don't see how we're going to be able to start that study tomorrow.
When I go through the second part, I can't help but think, wow, who are the busiest people in the country right now? It's front-line health care workers and health-related public servants. As Don said, and I agree, public servants are always working, but I'd say that this is a little bit of a different situation and a different life. Public servants, many of them having to work from home, are tasked with massive jobs in front of them here, and I think it's a little different from the norm.
This motion is asking hard-working public servants to stop what they're doing or to do something in parallel while they're trying to keep Canadians safe. They're learning about this disease, this virus, COVID-19, as the science changes on a regular basis and as we learn more about it, so let's stop all the work that the public servants are doing or let them find a way to work in parallel to do all these things when it comes to producing all these documents. We're talking about reams and reams of documents.
Mr. Davies also said that the opposition loves to produce documents like this. I'm not negating that fact, but this is a massive document grab, asking the busiest public servants to stop everything or work in parallel.
Maybe the Conservatives have forgotten that we're in a pandemic. You know, some of the provinces have indeed. I'm safely ensconced in the Atlantic bubble, but we have to take this very seriously. Some provinces are in bad shape. They need our help, and we've been helping and partnering with them from day one.
Canadians are best served and represented in this committee when we all work together. The focus here must be on keeping Canadians safe. We talk a lot about transparency. Transparency is very important, and there are ways to make sure that we have the information we need. If members feel that they need more information than the government's response from officials as we study specific topics, they should absolutely request a briefing from officials or documents related to that specific topic. Specificity will make sure that we're not wasting the time of folks who are working to keep Canadians healthy. We can get briefings.
Going back to the previous year on this committee, every time a member asked for briefings, we got briefings. We had briefings all the time, and they were invaluable for what we were trying to do, so we can get briefings. We can get that important information to move forward, to do our jobs, to study the impacts of COVID-19.
I like fishing as well, but fishing belongs in our beautiful oceans, rivers and lakes, not in the House of Commons or in a House of Commons committee.
Let's study COVID-19 without forcing Canada's hard-working public servants, the folks who are working hard to keep all of us safe, to spend hours and hours sifting through old emails and documents for the sake of somewhat partisan games, Mr. Chair.
I just want to address specifically one of the things in the first motion and the second motion, and that's personal protective equipment. The government, including so many of these public servants who are extremely busy, everyone is still working around the clock to make sure that we have that personal protective equipment, the PPE that we need to fight COVID-19.
Our first priority in this pandemic was getting equipment and supplies directly into the hands of our front-line health care workers to keep them safe. Recognizing the challenges and the opportunities of an increasingly competitive global environment—my gosh, Mr. Chair—Canadian industry stepped up in a huge way to support our procurement efforts.
Mr. Kelloway spoke about this earlier. This is an incredible team Canada effort. Across the whole country, companies have been working with the Government of Canada or working directly with provinces and territories to manufacture and procure PPE. Our government has been focused on solutions for keeping Canadians safe, and these Canadian companies have been doing incredible work.
A while back, I had the opportunity to visit Stanfield's. Mr. d'Entremont will know exactly what I'm talking about, and so will Mr. Kelloway. Stanfield's is, arguably, a historic company in Nova Scotia and it has between 300 and 500 employees on a regular basis. The folks who work there or who were hired over the summer because of COVID-19, as well as the communities of Truro, Bible Hill and the surrounding areas, are hugely proud of this company for doing a pivot, a retrofit. They stepped up and they are producing tons of medical-grade gowns.
They're not alone. Canada has 15 separate contracts with Canadian manufacturers for the production of millions—at last count, I think it was 32 million—of medical-grade gowns. That's just from Canadian manufacturers. I can show you the website that shows how many medical gowns Canada has procured locally, domestically and internationally. Deliveries are arriving regularly, not just from Stanfield's, but also from Canada Goose, from Roudel Medical in Scarborough, and from George Courey in Laval.
Speaking of PPE, we've already had Canadian companies commit, contribute and deliver over seven million face shields from companies like The Canadian Shield in Kitchener, Ontario or Toronto Stamp, with orders for over 43 million more just from Canadian companies.
We've all heard about the importance of N95 respirator masks, and so many have already been procured for Canadian front-line workers. I am particularly impressed with Quebec companies that have stepped up for this procurement, companies like Medicom, with 20 million N95 respirator masks and 24 million surgical masks per year for the next 10 years, so we're protecting Canadians now and we will work to protect Canadians into the future.
Also a huge thanks goes to New Brunswick's LuminUltra for stepping up and producing enough reagent for 500,000 more tests per week to help meet Canada's needs now and well into 2021.
We have talked about ventilators. I know Marcus loves to hear about ventilators. Canadian companies have delivered hundreds of ventilators.
To go back to transparency for a moment, we talk about that a lot, the accountability and the transparency, and yes, it is critically important. Canadians, I'm sure, know that we are in a fierce global competition for PPE produced beyond our borders. We need to make sure that we, as a country, are cautious about disclosing certain information on specific contracts or suppliers that could jeopardize Canada's supply chains for these life-saving products. But I will say to the committee that whenever possible we are publicly announcing contracts through this pandemic. We will continue to do so. You may have noticed, Mr. Chair, that we're posting this online. Important details on orders and deliveries of PPE are posted online.
Let me reiterate. I firmly believe that it's important to Canadians and it should be important to all of us to continue focusing our efforts on COVID-19. We truly feel we need to do so with some specificity. I think we have an incredible opportunity here to work together to undertake a focused, meaningful study that will benefit Canadians now and moving forward. I will ask all of my colleagues in all parties to please do what we've done in the past and work together on this. Let's be specific; let's pinpoint our focus and let's get to work.
Mr. Chair, I'm trying to find a possible way forward here, as Mr. Davies suggested.
If I could, Mr. Chair, I'll read what I have here as a suggested amended motion:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Health commence a study on the emergency situation facing Canadians in light of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this study evaluate, review and examine all issues relevant to this situation; and that this study begin no later than...
Obviously, we would have to change the date. I would suggest, for argument's sake, that we add a week to that.
...that the Committee table its findings in the House upon completion; that the government provide a response to these findings within 30 sitting days, and that evidence and documentation received by the Committee during its study of the Canadian response to the outbreak of the corona virus commenced during the 1st Session of the 43rd Parliament be taken into consideration by the Committee in the current study, and that each party be entitled to one witness per one hour witness panel, and two witnesses per two hour witness panel; and that in order to fully study this emergency situation, we request pertinent documents, topic by topic, after hearing from witnesses and ascertaining which documents are relevant to a productive study of the issue.
Mr. Chair, I'm penciling that together to the best of my ability. I'm not sure if that speaks to what Mr. Davies suggested.
Perhaps what we could do, out of respect for the members.... I'm not sure if you are willing or able...or if the committee wishes to take a five-minute suspension to have folks take a look at that. I don't want to, by any means, handcuff anyone.
That is pretty much taken verbatim from the Conservative motion, and then modified based on the things Don was saying to find a way forward.
Mr. Chair, I seek your guidance on that. Would you permit maybe a five-minute look at that?
