Mr. Speaker, dealing with a pandemic is not part of our normal routine.
The last pandemic, the Spanish flu, was over 100 years ago. Obviously, no one here today was alive at the time, not even the member for Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel—I love you, Louis—despite what some people may think. As much as we would have liked to draw lessons from that last major pandemic, it would have been difficult because the context and realities were so different back then.
Over the past few months, we have experienced huge disruptions in all areas of our lives, including the personal, social, economic, technological and other aspects. We came together and worked shoulder to shoulder. We needed to act quickly to help our fellow citizens. What I have heard in my discussions with representatives from the Regroupement des gens d'affaires de Beauport is that the programs were not perfect, but quick action was needed.
We have not won the battle yet: The virus is still here. Our fellow citizens still need help and support, and they need reassurance about the future. Do we have everything we need to face another wave or another pandemic? How can we ensure that we can meet our health care needs as well as those of the public without getting so far into debt that we cannot get out again? How can we hold our heads high and still be a country aware of its own needs and those of less fortunate countries?
My training is in high school history and geography. Knowing our history helps us learn about our successes and failures both as humans and as a society. Knowing and understanding our past, even our recent past, helps us prevent certain errors and build on our successes. To accomplish that, like historians, we need more than one source of information. Today, my aim is to emphasize the importance of planning, openness and collaboration.
Let me go back a bit. In October and November 2019, when many of us, including myself, were barely starting to understand our responsibilities and duties as members, we learned of a new disease raging in Wuhan, China. The disease was so contagious that the authorities quickly decided to lock down the city. In fact, one of the first issues I was entrusted with had to do with repatriation. I made sure that, once citizens were back home, they quarantined. I also made sure that they had access to a support network during their 14-day quarantine.
Not long after that, we learned that the Chinese authorities had built two new hospitals in record time. I began wondering about our level of preparedness. What did we learn from the SARS crisis in Toronto? What would we need? Did we have it? If we did not have it, or if we did not have enough of it, how would we get it? Could we produce it ourselves? How long would it take? What would it cost? Are our health care infrastructures prepared? Are our government infrastructures prepared? What is our plan to help the population deal with the lockdown?
Essentially, I wanted to know whether Canada had an emergency plan. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always asking 15,000 questions. Unfortunately, today, I cannot say that we had a plan, despite the fact that we lived through SARS and had a unique opportunity to see what was going on elsewhere in the world.
We rapidly established contact with Asian suppliers to obtain surgical and N95 masks, latex and nitrile gloves, and gowns. Ordinary folks stepped up. Distilleries like Stadaconé Distillery in Beauport—Limoilou and Vice & Vertu Distillery in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures began using their facilities to produce sanitizer.
Others retooled their production lines to manufacture respirators. A sewing cooperative in Montreal managed to recruit sewing enthusiasts to churn out thousands of masks. Individuals like my friend Daniel Carré used their own 3D printers to print face shields. Not only did the parties in the House work side by side, but the entire population joined in.
In terms of procurement, the contracting process was shortened to be able to meet demand promptly. Despite all the good will, there were shortcomings. We must learn from these shortcomings to avoid repeating them. We must protect our constituents’ health and our public finances. After all, we must never forget that the money we spend comes from somewhere, namely from the taxes paid by the public.
Procurement is a complex process. It involves keeping a lot of balls in the air, because every government department and agency has needs that require contracts for goods and services to be negotiated with suppliers.
History has shown us that preferential treatment does happen in times of crisis and only gets found out once the crisis is over. We need to prevent this from happening. We need to maintain public trust in our institutions and in what we do.
What we need most, as I have said before, is personal protective equipment. I will not go through the whole list again. Every week, the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates held conference calls with Public Services and Procurement Canada to track the procurement process and ask questions. In particular, they wanted to know why we were not prioritizing Quebec and Canadian suppliers, and they were told that it was because of a lack of resources.
How can we access these resources? What is the plan for reducing our dependence on China? Why did two planes come back empty? Why are we receiving so much non-compliant PPE? Can it not be tested over there instead of over here? How many companies have procurement contracts right now? Why did two million masks sit in a warehouse until they were five years out of date? Why is there no plan for purchasing and restocking supplies?
We have yet to get answers to some of these questions, even with a so-called “made in Canada” plan. It might be a good idea to have a “made in Canada” emergency plan. We have the innovation skills to pull it off.
To fight a virus, we need research on the virus's RNA, immune responses, treatments and vaccines. At the beginning of the pandemic, everyone agreed that we needed to ensure that industrialized countries did not monopolize access to the vaccine. Everyone agreed that if governments blindly invested public funds directly in private companies, it could result in a monopoly. Everyone agreed that the studies should be collaborative and should not lead to a new form of competition between countries. The boys' club culture among government leaders is getting tiresome. It used to be “my missile is bigger than yours”, and now it is “my country can produce a vaccine faster than yours”. Could we not all just work together for a change? That would be better.
Canada announced in April that it was going to invest in research for a homegrown vaccine. The day after this announcement, a company from British Columbia was given money. A committee was magically formed overnight, and no other company received money. Months went by before companies in Quebec and the other provinces got research grants to develop a vaccine. Meanwhile, contracts were being signed with foreign companies. Could we see those contracts?
Let us talk about rapid testing. The government invested in a company that was supposed to produce rapid tests. However, if I remember correctly, the tests cost $8,000 apiece and had too big a margin of error. What is happening with that contract? Is the company still doing research? We do not know. We need rapid tests, and we just found out that we have 100,000 available. That is great, but that number of tests would last Ontario and Quebec just five days, and then that is it.
Now I will move on to respirators. A Canadian consortium was created to manufacture innovative, lower-cost respirators with fewer parts. What is happening with that project? We do not know. However, we did find out that two guys set up a company and became multimillionaires 10 days later. Forget the American dream, this is the Canadian dream. How many of us could set up a company and become multimillionaires 10 days later? Not many.
I gave just a few examples, but I could go on for another 30 minutes. I am a teacher, so I am used to talking for an hour.
As I said, procurement is a big file, but it is also a hot topic. Procurement is where each and every procedural gap and error will stick out and every aspect of the process that needs to change will become obvious. This is the area where most scandals seem to come to light.
Quite frankly, my constituents and I have had quite enough of these scandals. We are sick of them. Like me, my constituents want us to act honestly and transparently. Not only are these values important to me, but they are what my constituents expect from me. I would hope that honesty and transparency are values that the government members and their constituents care about, too.