I'll keep my remarks short.
I think I've been clear that our position is that Canadians do have a right to know the number of units that are coming in. Somehow or other we've arrived at a situation where we have an extreme shortage. I think I might not be exaggerating by saying there's a dangerous shortage of children's analgesic medication.
We have to always take the opportunity to point out that unfortunately this is not a unique incident. We heard that hundreds of drugs are listed on a shortage list every year in this country. I think it's a good warning to us that we'd better start trying to understand the structural causes of why Canadians are faced with dangerous shortages of medication. Whether it's pediatric analgesics or EpiPens, or vaccines or anaesthesia or oncology drugs, we know we have a problem in this country with supply chains and overreliance on foreign suppliers.
What I would say is this—and maybe it's the middle child in me here—I'm wondering if there's a compromise at biweekly. The reason is that I'm not sure what weekly numbers will tell Canadians. If we find out there are 310,412 units coming next week, and the week after we're having 270,504, I'm not sure anybody—I know I don't—has any basis for taking any meaning from that.
What I would notice is the pattern, though, but even a pattern can be concerning. So if the point of this is to reassure Canadian, then I think if we have a weekly report, that almost may have the unintended consequence of making people nervous, thinking, what happened so that we have less this week than last week? I think what Canadians want to see is they want to see their government is acting, they want to see we have exceptional efforts being put in place, we want to make sure the problem is being addressed and we want to see progress.
With great respect to my Liberal colleagues, it can't just be a “trust us”. I think what we want to see is we want to see what the numbers are. Frankly, I don't hear any resistance from the Liberals, and I appreciate they put the motion to disclose that information.
I think what we have to do is we have to come up with what's a reasonable time period that can reassure Canadians that progress is being made, we can yet hold the government to account and make sure the numbers are published. To me, for some reason, “weekly” seems like it may be too frequent and maybe won't even necessarily accomplish what we want. “Monthly”, I think, seems almost a little bit too long, although it also would address the issue.
I'm just wondering. I don't think there can be a subamendment to a subamendment.