He will get his chance. That member always does get a chance to speak, even though he wants to heckle when we are talking about something this important.
The Liberals want to be patted on the back when all we have seen is incompetence and failure. That failure, quite frankly, has a grave impact on some of our most vulnerable citizens. Twelve months ago, the military alerted the cabinet that this pandemic was occurring in China. Ten months ago, we had a major shutdown of our economy, because we did not really know much about COVID-19 and we needed to take that step at that time.
Now, we find ourselves, 10 months later, still facing the same restrictions. This is particularly acute in long-term care facilities. It is heartbreaking. It is tragic, what is happening to our seniors in long-term care. We saw this early on, the devastating impact that COVID-19 had in long-term care. The government has tried to react to it by locking seniors away in their own bedrooms for months at a time. This has been the response, locking seniors away from their loved ones.
This is why this is so critical, when we talk about the importance of rolling out a vaccine now, when other peer countries are doing it. It is because that will allow us access, once again, to our family members in long-term care, who have been locked away, who have been suffering mental anguish and physical suffering. They are being told that while people they know in the United States, Australia, Brazil, and going down the list, 2.7 billion in countries that will have access to a vaccine before we do.
Why does it matter? It matters that we are not getting it now, we will get it months from now. A lot of these people do not have a lot of time left. That is the tragic reality here. They are being locked away from their families and the people they love at a time when they need them the most. That is why I am upset about it. It is not because I am looking to score political points here. It is because we are 10 months past the start of this, and we are no further ahead. People are no closer to being able to go see their aged parents or grandparents. They are locked away.
Then an outbreak comes to their long-term care facility and maybe they die alone or can FaceTime their family, instead of their being able to hold their hands at the end. That is why every day matters. That is why this delay matters. That is why putting all of our eggs into one basket at the start of this matters. We are taking months and time away from people who do not have a lot of time left. That is unacceptable.
People can get money. We have supported the supports given to Canadians who have lost their incomes, business opportunities or have had to shut down again, and for much longer, because there will be no viable vaccine here in Canada after other countries get it. We cannot give people $2,000 a month and have it make up for lost time. We cannot put a price on lost time. That is what we are talking about here today.
The government wants us to believe it has a diverse portfolio of vaccines available, but just not now, while other countries are rolling out their vaccines. Other countries are being very open on the dates the vaccine will be available, how it will be deployed, who will get it first and how they will determine which people need it the most. What we get from the government is that we should trust it. It was going to be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. It got an A for announcement and an F for delivery.
Time and time again, every opposition day motion that is brought to the House is a requirement for the government to share information with Canadians, because it will not give it to us. It is hard to believe the government is giving us good information when it is giving us no information. The Government of Australia published its distribution plan on its website for all of its citizens to see. The government loves to compare itself with Donald Trump, as though that is some sort of bar it is very proud to have beaten.
We want to be better than that. We should be looking to other countries that have done much better in similar situations to us, those that have responded in a way that will allow their senior citizens in long-term care facilities to see their kids and grandkids, that will allow their families to be reunited and that will allow people of faith to once again gather together in corporate worship, something that is so important and integral to who they are. We should be doing all of this, yet we delay month after month. By the government's own admission, the first quarter of this year will only see three million doses available. That does not even cover our over 70 population let alone other vulnerable Canadians.
Once again we are asking for information so Canadians will know when they can receive the vaccine if they want to get it. The government should have that information, although it seems like there is a bit of a back-of-the-napkin approach. We heard today that two weeks ago the military did not know it would be involved in this and now it has stood up a rapid deployment force. That is fantastic. The military will always do what it is called upon to do.
However, this is something the government has been late on because it made bad decisions at the outset. Instead of focusing like a laser on this issue, it was focused on getting money to Liberal-connected firms. It was focused on the WE Charity scandal and getting money to people with connections to the Liberal Party. It has been focused the entire time on the wrong things and has given Canadians the wrong information.
The government does not like to hear that and wonders why it is helpful to be reminded of it. It is helpful because this is how we got here. This is why we are not where some of the other Commonwealth countries we would compare ourselves to are today. We are behind the eight ball. What do we do now? We need to get the information to the provinces, which will deploy the vaccine when they know how many doses they will get and who they will be giving the vaccine to.
For too long the government has taken the wrong approach. It is time it started to give Canadians the information they need so that we can get our lives back and get our families back together, something that we have been waiting for too long to do.