Mr. Speaker, for weeks now I have been asking the government about why it failed to procure rapid tests for Canadians. Anybody who is watching this tonight would know that if they went out to get a rapid COVID test to get results within 15 minutes, they could not. The technology is not available, even though countries around the world have managed to provide this life-saving and economy-saving technology for their citizens. This is a huge failure on the part of the government. It is ridiculous, it is embarrassing and it is dangerous.
The interesting thing is that today, an article in The Canadian Press reported that the government has managed to somehow procure 100,000 units of a certain rapid test. I note that that is not even half of the basic demand of Toronto for one day's worth of testing. Today, The Canadian Press tried to contact Health Canada and tried to contact the minister's office to ask about who would be getting those tests and what criteria they would be using. The Canadian Press received no answer to that.
I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary to do what his boss failed to do today and answer this. What criteria is the government using to distribute rapid tests, and who will be receiving the first tranche of tests and when?