Madam Speaker, I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Central Nova.
I would like to begin by thanking all the residents of Orléans for the support, strength and community spirit they have shown in the past year.
I know that the pandemic has been difficult. Our lives have been affected at many levels. We have been unable to get together, it is difficult to work, and our friends and family are too far away, not to mention that some of us have tragically lost a loved one.
Normalcy still seems difficult and too far off, but I want people to know that we are there for them.
I stand here today conflicted. On the one hand, I am pleased to have the opportunity to set the record straight and reassure my constituents, and indeed all Canadians, that not only is there a robust vaccination procurement plan in place, but it has proven itself effective time and again, from initial negotiation to first deliveries to ongoing relationship building to accelerating doses to, just recently, an announced future deal to continue protecting Canadians. On the other hand, I am disappointed that this oddly partisan attempt at distracting and muddying the waters is the debate the opposition Conservative Party has chosen to engage in.
As a mother, I can tell members that I remember being disappointed when I knew my daughter was testing me, as all children do, when she presented facts to suit her stories, rather than just being honest when she was wrong. I feel much the same way today.
In order to help Canadians better understand the situation and to make sure that the opposition is on board, I think it is important to remind the hon. member and her colleagues of certain key facts. These facts are far too often ignored because they do not reflect in any way the nonsensical idea put forward in this motion.
Here is the first fact: When the Conservatives said that Canada would need a decade to get the vaccine, they were wrong. Here is a second fact: When the Conservatives said that Canada was at the end of a vaccination queue of 2.5 billion people, they were wrong.
Facts matter. It is our duty as members of Parliament to come together, to unite and to contribute to the collective effort needed to put this pandemic behind us.
I do not believe that anyone here is deliberately trying to make the situation worse, and I think that saying so today is dangerous and extreme. Too many of us were unable to say goodbye to family, neighbours, friends and colleagues. In my pre-politics career and every day since then, I have seen countless ways of fulfilling our duty toward our communities and Canadians in general. This motion does not fulfill that duty.
As we have said time and again, fighting this pandemic is, was and will remain our top priority until every Canadian who wants a vaccine has one. This is why the member's flawed timeline is so concerning, as she proposes a motion that does not appear to support the facts.
As part of our vaccine procurement plan, the plan opposition members have so frequently questioned even existing, we have not only delivered doses on time but have in fact exceeded timelines and expectations through constructive relationship-building with our vaccine suppliers. We are aggressively negotiating to continue accelerating doses. These are steps the member's proposal seems to miss.
The fact is that we have accelerated 3.5 million doses into Q1, an increase of more than 58%, and are accelerating 20 million doses by the end of Q2, an increase of 68%.
The fact is that beginning in December, and as of today, over 15 million doses have been delivered to Canada, over 30% of Canadians have received at least one dose and by the end of June, Canada will have received a minimum of 48 million doses total.
It is for these reasons that I challenge the member's choice of date. It is not based on science. I suspect it is not based on knowledge of the global supply chain. Nor would it be founded in knowledge of the scientists and production realities. It may be attention-grabbing, because it is not based on reality or facts and is designed to fail. That kind of partisan ploy is not going to help us meet the challenges of overcoming the pandemic together any faster.
The constituents of the member from Calgary, and indeed all Canadians, deserve better.
More than ever, it is time for us in team Canada to put our nose to the grindstone and focus on the enormous responsibility of ensuring that all Canadians who want to be vaccinated get their shots as soon as possible; to make sure that, in the future, we have protective measures in place against variants of concern; and to consider the recovery not only of Canada’s economy, but also of all the communities that make up each of our ridings.
We owe it to the people who voted for us to present a clear plan that works, not a plan doomed to failure from the start, designed to advance a political agenda.
I would like to help my colleagues make sure they understand the scientific basis of our plan, the facts that led to our decisions and the realities of this unprecedented situation.
By proposing a plan that has little hope of succeeding, the hon. member is undermining the extraordinary work that has been done to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic. As soon as the first new coronavirus genome sequence was identified in January of last year, scientists in universities and the industry went to work. Governments around the world joined forces to collaborate on an unprecedented scale to develop safe and effective vaccines.
As of today, more than 12 million doses of vaccine have been administered to Canadians across the country. This number will continue to rise rapidly thanks to our approach involving a diverse portfolio of vaccines from seven suppliers, allowing us to provide Canadians with different options and millions of doses of effective vaccines.
Our plan was based on science. Our work was guided by our COVID-19 vaccine task force, made up of experts and industry leaders, which provided scientific and technical advice to make sure that our plan was as robust and flexible as possible to meet the challenges we are facing.
As of today, we have received over 15 million doses to, and more are coming in each week. We are continuing to ask our public servants to go above and beyond for Canadians.
I am very happy to be in the House to debate this, because, simply put, we are more than on track. We will continue the work of getting ahead of the virus. Vaccines are arriving and we are seeing our way through to the other side of the pandemic.
Canadians are co-operating and making sure they follow the public health guidelines in order to slow the spread of the virus during this critical period.
The hon. member across the aisle and her colleagues in the Conservative caucus have chosen to play partisan games, but our government is focusing on fighting the virus and protecting Canadians' safety and welfare.