Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that I have to come back here to talk about the plight of Wayward Distillery in Courtenay, as well as Dave, the owner, and his employees. They are true heroes. They stepped up to help Canadians. They basically pivoted their distillery to supply hand sanitizer at the height of the pandemic back in late March and early April. They supplied hand sanitizer to keep local police, health care workers, people in non-profits, and front-line service workers safe. They then carried on to donate tens of thousands of dollars of sanitizer to the community in the spirit of goodwill and with the understanding that we are all in this together.
In that spirit, I really cannot say enough about Dave, his employees, the sacrifice they made and the sense of urgency and seriousness they took, using their own supplies to help support making sure we were all safe in getting through this difficult period of time.
Dave and his employees were then engaged by a supplier to Loblaws to come up with a large amount of sanitizer for its workers. They were supplying those workers to make sure they were safe. They pivoted their business to stay afloat, keep the ball rolling and keep their employees employed.
Then, they found out, and we all found out, that the Government of Canada had procured hand sanitizer from countries around the world, including China. That hand sanitizer flooded the Canadian market and drove prices down. Little did Dave know, but the supplier had now outsourced a supply from somewhere else, including a foreign supply of hand sanitizer. It then suddenly cut off Dave's contract.
As we can imagine, when a company is supplying a high volume to local front-line service workers at a large chain like Loblaws, it has to order ahead of time. It cannot just order a few days ahead or a week ahead. Therefore, Dave ordered six weeks ahead worth of sanitizer before the contract was just cut off. The foreign sanitizer that flooded the Canadian market was cheap. It was less than the cost for Dave to even afford to get his to market. Dave is now stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars of sanitizer.
I raised this question in December, and the Deputy Prime Minister referred me to her office and to her staff. In turn, they sent the regional director's contact to me, and Dave had a meeting with them. They took his contact information and said they would put it on a list, but they have not ordered any sanitizer and have not helped facilitate that to this day.
Dave is sitting on the sanitizer. Dave cannot collect the wage subsidy because, while he was selling sanitizer at cost, or even below cost, his revenue was going up, so that made him ineligible to apply for the emergency wage subsidy to support his employees. He was also excluded from the CECRA loan. Every step of the way, Dave has been excluded.
This is just another example of the government's procurement process. We need a federal procurement strategy that puts Canadians first. We hear the President in the U.S., Joe Biden, talking about an American strategy to source out local companies and keep jobs local. We are not doing that here in Canada.
The government has abandoned Dave and Wayward Distillery. If he goes out of business because he and his employees put Canadians first, it will be an absolute stain on Canada. These are heroes. I am urging the government to fix it, to fix the eligibility for its programs and to procure from Dave and the Wayward Distillery. They deserve much better. Canadians need to know that we are supporting those heroes who helped us at the beginning of this pandemic and who continue to be there for us.