Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity.
I have a question for Ms. Omeniho. You brought up some really concerning problems that we had actually seen. I'm the northern affairs critic, so it's part of my responsibility to see what the PPE situation is for the territories and northern Canada. I was very alarmed to see that the national emergency strategic stockpile had somewhat seemed to evaporate.
The problem you brought up is that there was this assumption in many of our communities that there was this stockpile they could rely on, so if they made the request from the stockpile, the masks and the ventilators would arrive. Then, even one of our reserves just north of Fort St. John, where I live, was left scrambling to get hand sanitizer, masks and cleaning supplies from Canadian Tire, Walmart and all these other places, when we were all of the understanding that there was this equipment waiting for us.
You also brought up one thing that affected one of our reserves too. As you mentioned, many of these community members are caregivers for their elders, so not having this equipment really puts them at risk, and the elders as well. I'm really alarmed by that.
I just want you to speak to that, and I guess the next question after the response is, where do we go from here? We certainly don't want to see this happen again.
Go ahead, Ms. Omeniho.