Madam Speaker, I will point out for my friend and colleague opposite that the question he intended to ask was about the timing of the budget, and I am pleased as well to share that the budget will be tabled this Monday.
On the issue of the timing of the budget, I know he registered some complaints about the fact that there was no federal budget last year, and that should come as no surprise. All parties, in fact, agreed to a specific process when Parliament was not sitting due to an unprecedented public health emergency to have certain emergency powers offered to the COVID-19 committee. As part of the deal that we reached unanimously in Parliament, I might add, the government provided bi-weekly reports on spending measures to deal with the pandemic.
Since that time, Parliament has now resumed and he has had access to the estimates and supplementary estimates. He has had access to a fall economic statement, which was 237 pages, outlining the fiscal position in spending plans of the government. He has also had an opportunity, if he wished, to review the reports of the government operations committee. Frankly, most of the information that will be contained on the fiscal track of the government is actually published online, more or less in real time, according to the spending programs.
He has had some complaints about the level of supports offered by this government, which I find curious given that at the outset of this pandemic the Conservative finance critic indicated that the Conservatives would not support big spending programs and referred to them as “big and fat” government programs. Since that time, his leader has repeatedly come out and criticized the Canada emergency response benefit, which is unthinkable given the fact that it helped sustain over nine million Canadians and helped them keep food on the table.
Other measures we put in place were the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which kept more than five million workers on the payroll in Canadian businesses; the Canada emergency business account or the regional relief and recovery fund, which have been enormously successful and have supported approximately one million businesses to help them literally keep the lights on and the doors open.
He is quite right to point out that the public health emergency will continue to dictate the economic outcomes of Canada. However, I will point to the fact, though he is pointing to the vaccine deployment of the United States, which is a major producer of vaccines, that Canada is third right now in the G20 of countries whose citizens have received at least one dose of the vaccine. We continue to see a record number of vaccines land week by week because, at the beginning of this pandemic, we adopted a strategy to secure the largest portfolio among our comparator countries to ensure no matter which vaccines were first to market, Canada would have access to them.
We will continue to adopt measures that will continue to protect the health and well-being of Canadian households as we also put forward measures that will protect our economy by supporting households and businesses directly.
I am looking forward very much to sharing the details of the forthcoming budget on Monday, as it will continue to support Canadian households and businesses. Most important, we will continue to operate world-class health response to this pandemic and will set the course for a recovery that will serve the interests of Canadians tomorrow and into the future.