Mr. Speaker, we have been following the 2006 pandemic plan that was approved by provinces and territories. We invested $1 billion to get that pandemic plan implemented across the country.
Dealing with this pandemic has been a challenge. It has involved great co-operation from provinces and territories. The chief medical officers of every province, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Quebec and Ontario have all been working together collectively to get the vaccine produced.
The decision of the medical experts at the time was it was important to ensure vaccine was also available for the regular flu season, recognizing that over 4,000 Canadians die every year from the regular flu. This came from the province's recommendations and we agreed to that. Then afterwards we started production of the regular vaccine for H1N1.
We are ahead of schedule. We are getting the information out to all Canadians. The vaccine is being rolled out by provinces and territories. In fact, in some jurisdictions the vaccination program will be completed by next week.