Mr. Speaker, I would challenge a number of things in that speech.
For starters, on the issue of Canada being the only country that is extending the time period of taking that second dose, that is false. The U.K. is doing that as well.
The member talked about other things, such as how we were spending like a first world country and getting third world results. That is false. Among the G20, we are putting more needles into arms on a daily basis. We are third among the G20 for getting needles into arms.
My question for the member is about this. We can criticize the vaccine rollout; we can criticize the timeline of getting vaccines to provinces; we can say more should have been done sooner, more should have been done later, although we would never say that, but we can adjust the timeline; we can say whatever we want, but what we cannot say is that the provinces did not know when they would get vaccines. The provinces were told in December when they would get them.
Therefore, in Ontario, when Doug Ford saw on February 11 the modelling of what would happen in the third wave, he knew when to get the doses and actually ended up getting more than he was promised by the end of March. Therefore, the lack of vaccines cannot be blamed on the third wave, because the provinces knew and had a responsibility to target and timeline themselves around that rollout. Unfortunately it appears as though they did not plan properly for it. At least, that is the case in Ontario.
Would the member not at least agree that the timelines and the vaccine distribution were set well in advance and we exceeded what the provinces were told they would get?