Mr. Chair, first, I'd say that the national emergency strategic stockpile is similar to our colleagues' one in the United States. It's seen an evolution in its mandate and the scope of the programming. Certainly, from its inception in 1952 when it was focused more on health care supplies, there's been an evolution where post the 9/11 crisis, the mandate has been expanded to look more towards medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear.... With the post-SARS environment we looked more at scoping in the antivirals. Personal protective equipment had not formed a large part of the mandate or need for the national emergency strategic stockpile.
Despite this, with the onset of COVID-19 and the fierce global competitive market that we saw, the federal government leaned forward to do bulk procurement of personal protective equipment and was able to actively bring in a significant number. We were able to purchase 3.8 billion units of personal protective equipment to supply the provinces and territories.