Mr. Chair, early on in the pandemic, there were some challenges with the provinces and territories being able to very quickly identify their current holdings of personal protective equipment. In that regard, the Public Health Agency moved forward quickly in collaboration with our partners at Public Services and Procurement Canada to engage in bulk procurement so that we could secure for Canada the personal protective equipment needed. Then we had a very transparent allocation framework where 80% of those procurements were moved quickly as they came in to the provinces and territories, with 20% being held back for the national emergency strategic stockpile.
We developed systems to collect information throughout the pandemic in terms of the holdings of the jurisdictions to help understand where the pressure points might be and where we might be at greater risk in terms of the supply coming in. We're fortunate to have very effective governance structures, including the Logistics Advisory Committee, where we could discuss the challenges and facilitate sharing across the jurisdictions where there were pressure points as Canada moved forward to increase its holdings of personal protective equipment.