House of Commons Hansard #91 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was vaccines.

Topics

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

The hon. member has one minute and 30 seconds remaining.

I have a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the relevance of the speech. Today, we are discussing a motion that relates to the opposition motion regarding a vaccine deadline for the vaccines being brought in. I do not understand the relevance. Perhaps the member could spend the last minute and a half of his speech talking about the motion.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

3:55 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

I appreciate the point of order. I want to remind members that there is a bit of flexibility in the discussion on issues that are before the House. I am sure in the one minute and 30 seconds the hon. member has left, he will be able to bring it back to the opposition day motion.

I will allow him to finish off his speech. The hon. member for Carleton.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, there is no doubt the deficit the Bank of Canada is funding through its printing presses is in part due to the government's failure to deliver vaccines and let our economies reopen. That is obvious.

What is even more obvious about by the question is this: I talked about this working-class man, who is literally building this place around Parliament Hill, who said he wants to have a house, but his wages may not allow him to afford it because of the inflationary policies of the government. What does the member say? He yawns and says it is not relevant and that we do not need to hear stories like that around here.

This is the House of Commons, the House of the common people. We speak for people like Matthew. Not only is it relevant, but what people have to say to us is of supreme relevance. I would encourage him and other government members to walk out on the streets of this country to find out how people are struggling with the higher prices the money printing policies of the government are causing.

If they did so, they might understand the relevance and take a different course, one that rewards hard work, protects the soundness of our money and ensures people get ahead through their merits, not through their inheritance and aristocracy.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Bloc

Kristina Michaud Bloc Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I always really enjoy his speeches.

I am just trying to ascertain how feasible the Conservative motion is. It says that only 2.7% of Canadians have been vaccinated to date. I know that there were delays in vaccine procurement, and I believe him when he says that it was entirely the Liberal Party's fault.

However, does my colleague believe that we can really vaccinate 93% of Canadians by the end of May?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.

Around 3% of the population has received the two doses required to protect us from the coronavirus. Canada is behind 30 other countries. We want to know why Canada was not as successful as the other countries in getting its population vaccinated. Not too long ago, Canada was one of the most advanced countries in the world and it has not been able to keep up.

That is why we moved this motion today. We want to speed up the vaccine rollout so that Canadians can have their freedoms back without risking their health.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, to what the member spoke of, I wish we could have talked about this topic of inflation and the folks throughout our country who are really struggling right now. I think that would have been a great opposition day motion. The reality is that the motion that was brought forward is one that says, “That...the House call on the government to ensure that every Canadian adult has access to a vaccine by the May long weekend.”

Can the member inform this House of the strategy, if this motion were to pass, the opposition has to give over to the government in order to make this happen, given that the folks who are running the vaccine rollout have said that it exceeds our capacity by more than two times?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, it exceeds the rate it which the federal government is providing the vaccines. In fact, provincial health agencies and bodies are only able to operate at half capacity now because they just do not have enough vaccines. If we do not have vaccines, we cannot administer them. We cannot administer something we do not have, and we only have about half the vaccines in Canada that the provinces are capable of administering. If the federal government were to double the rate of acquiring those vaccines, then the provinces could double the rate of their delivery into the arms of Canadians.

We have a supply problem here. That is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government. The Liberals tried to blame everyone on planet earth except themselves. It is time they took a look in the mirror. Their failure has left us with this deadly third wave. That is the legacy of the Prime Minister's mismanagement, and south of the border and around the world people are opening safely and returning to life as normal, while we continue to be in lockdown and lose lives.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Madam Speaker, I share this member's concern that we do not have enough vaccines, and that we are only vaccinating at about half capacity. He also spoke of the soundness of money, but I want to question the soundness of the proposed policy he is speaking to. This motion means that we would have to vaccinate at the rate of six million per week for the next three weeks. We are only getting two million doses per week.

Can he tell us where he would get the other four million vaccine doses per week that would be necessary to make this motion feasible?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, we are simply talking about a rate of vaccination supply that has been common in other countries around the world. The United States rolled out, on a per capita basis, vaccines at the same rate we propose here in Canada. The United Kingdom and Israel are way ahead, even of what we proposed in this motion.

Other countries were able to acquire these vaccines, either through their own domestic production or around the world, so there is no reason Canada cannot. What is it about Canada that should prevent us from having the same success in supplying our people with vaccines that our friends around the world have been able to do?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:05 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River.

It is a pleasure to follow my friend in the debate on the motion. I find it somewhat surprising, as the member for Kingston and the Islands has pointed out, the issue of some relevancy to it. The member wants to be focused on the deficit and concerns related to the deficit and therein lies a significant difference between the Government of Canada and the official opposition.

We have argued from day one that we were going to have the pandemic as the number one issue and that we would have the backs of Canadians in every way humanly possible throughout this process. There are members of the Conservative Party who are wishy-washy. Some days they are sympathetic to the pandemic, other days they are concerned about the deficit. Some say we spend too much, others are saying we are not spending enough in certain areas.

The motion brought forward by the Conservative Party today is lacking any sort of inspiration. We could have done so much better in terms of an opposition day. If they wanted to talk about the vaccination, we could have focused the debate more on what we could be doing to encourage people to get their vaccination. That is a huge issue. All levels of government are looking at that, even school divisions are looking at that. Different stakeholders are all concerned about how we can ensure that we get the maximum number of people to take the shot. We need that as a nation. It is in our collective best interests to bring that up. I would have enjoyed having that debate. During that debate, members still could have pointed out other aspects. As we have seen, members talked about a wide variety of issues already today. However, that would have been far more productive.

Another idea we could have talked about might have been the whole issue of our environment because the Conservatives are flip-flopping all over the place on that issue. Do they believe in real climate change? It depends on who we ask. Sometimes the leader of the Conservative Party says yes and the party membership says no. Many Conservative MPs for years and years have been saying no to a price on pollution. The current leader seems to have adopted what the Liberal Party and the rest of the world have been saying, that yes, a price on pollution is a good thing.

There are all sorts of things we could have been debating. On the issue of the motion itself, the Conservatives are completely out of touch with reality. I always enjoy speeches by the member for Calgary Nose Hill. The Conservatives would have had 40 million or 50 million vaccines in September of last year. Domestic production would have been ramped up and going in July of last year.

It does not work that way. The reality is that there has been a process of consultation, working with stakeholders, ensuring Canada as a nation was doing as much as possible in order to minimize the negative impacts of the coronavirus. We have been doing that and working with stakeholders and Canadians from coast to coast to coast from the beginning.

We have seen some very encouraging things in the last number of months. I remember toward the end of last year when we finally started to have hope that the vaccines were going to be coming out. Contrary to what Conservatives might like to tell people, it was only at the end of last year that they were starting to be approved. Canada was one of the first countries in the world to start receiving vaccines.

It has not been perfect. Companies like Pfizer wanted to ramp up services in January and February in order to have larger numbers, which not only benefited Canada but countries around the world. That did cause some disruption and concern, but late last year we set a target of six million doses by the end of March, the first quarter of the year. We more than exceeded that.

Not that long ago I did Facebook Live and talked about how Canada as a country will now have somewhere between 45 million and 50 million doses of vaccine. Our population is 37.5 million and we are going to have 45 million to 50 million doses of vaccine before the end of June. We are a federation, meaning we have to work with provinces, and that is what we have done. Our primary responsibility was to ensure the vaccines were safe and to get them to communities, and that is what the federal government has done.

The Conservatives twist the numbers. They will say that fewer than 2% of Canadians have had the double dose. They should listen to what health care experts are saying. Why would they use 2%? The number they should be using is the number of people who have been vaccinated. It is not a political decision in terms of when people should get the second dose, at least not at the national level. We are consistently following the advice of health experts. Science matters with this government. Obviously the Conservatives do not give a damn about science, health experts or what they are saying because their comments do not reflect it. I say shame on the Conservative Party of Canada. The misleading information that comes from the Conservative Party can be found in speeches that its leader gave today in the House on the issue, and even the health critic.

The facts are there and speak for themselves. Is Canada number one of all of the countries? No. We have had some limitations that other countries have not had, i.e., domestic production. That is no fault of this government over the last four years. On that issue, we have invested tens of millions of dollars to ramp up so we do not find ourselves in this situation in the future, especially if booster shots are required and things of that nature. We are investing to ensure that we will have domestic capability in the future. It is not this government's fault that many years ago domestic manufacturing started to disappear. We have been very successful in acquiring vaccine doses.

Conservatives talk about percentages and like to play with statistics to put fear in Canadians, but we know what the facts really are. Close to 15 million Canadians have already received a vaccine, not in terms of doses in arms but Canada as a country. We will have almost 50 million doses before the end of June. Almost 13 million have been administered by provinces and territories, and that is an important point. Conservatives do not seem to want to recognize that we are in a federation, that the federal government needs to work with provinces and territories. The provinces have a lot of the controls for which we are being criticized and—

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

NDP

The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes

Unfortunately the hon. member's time is up. I am sure he will have additional comments to contribute during questions and comments.

The hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Madam Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the member and getting a chance to speak with him, especially with the experience he has had at the provincial level. I do remember back in the 1990s when the federal Liberal government slashed health care funding to the provinces. There were some problems that had taken place in the past, but to think it did not have the mark of a Liberal on it is something we should be thinking about.

Ever since the pandemic started, it has cost 1,800 Canadian lives per month and at least $500 million per day. We are so far behind the rest of the developed world that it looks like we will not be achieving mass vaccination until six months after everyone in Europe and the U.S.

When we look at what has been spent, that is where we are number one. I am just wondering if the parliamentary secretary could look at the relationship of where we actually are and how much money has been spent?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, the member kind of proves my point. I really wish I had the time to talk about that.

Suffice to say, the member uses numbers to try to portray it as if we are doing a bad job. In reality, I would return two numbers to the member. One, out of the G20 countries, we are number three, in terms of per capita first doses. Two, another statistic for the member is 45 million-plus doses before the end of June, and our population is 37.5 million.

I believe that Canada is doing reasonably well compared to other countries in the world. We are working with provinces and others to ensure that we maximize the benefits for all Canadians.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Bloc

Luc Desilets Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague for his passionate speech. Listening to him, I almost thought we were in the middle of an election period.

Canada is not doing that poorly, and I think almost all of us agree on that. Nevertheless, it could have done much better. This is not just about the number of vaccine doses coming into the country, even though that was a problem.

Does my colleague agree that Canada could have stepped up a little earlier and that it was three or four months behind everyone else?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, I genuinely believe that the Government of Canada, with its portfolio, has put us in a position where we are doing exceptionally well, particularly in comparison to our G20 counterparts.

There was some difficulty at the very beginning, but that is not something the Conservatives, the Bloc, the New Democrats or the Liberals could have prevented. There was a retooling that had taken place when there were some issues with production. The Government of Canada cannot be blamed for that.

We made a commitment to get six million vaccines in the first quarter, and we exceeded that commitment. I think it was eight million or 8.5 million, something of that nature. We have been there, and we have the portfolio to ensure that every Canadian is going to be able to get a safe vaccine for free before the end of the summer.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North would have us believe that as a federation, the federal government's only job is to ensure that the vaccines hit the shores. Yet we have, within the Emergency Act and the Public Health Act, the ability for the federal government to take national leadership on rollout.

Will he finally do everything within his power to ensure that as soon as the vaccines make it to Canada, the Liberals are playing the federal role to ensure that these are rolled out across the country, even if it means declaring the Emergency Act?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, whether it is the Canadian Forces, the Canadian Red Cross or the provincial restart program, working with school divisions on getting our kids back to schools, or working with municipalities or the most recent budget, members will find that the Prime Minister and the government have consistently taken a team Canada approach, because we believe it is in the best interests of all Canadians to try to depoliticize and focus on ensuring that we come up with the answers and the solutions to the issues.

I do believe we are on the right track, and sunnier and warmer days are ahead of us.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Mr. Speaker, the number one issue for all Canadians is control over the COVID pandemic. A large part of this comes down to getting vaccines out as soon as we can.

This is not the first time that vaccines have been involved in changing the world. A lot of people forget that polio recently was occurring in epidemics. I, in almost 35 years of practising medicine, have never seen an acute case of polio. I have, however, seen cases of tetanus and measles. I have seen quite a few children die of that in developing countries. In Canada, however, we practically have no cases, again, because the vaccines.

Early on in this pandemic, vaccines, rightfully, were seen as the cure to this. There is reason for caution because of the various variants, but so far things are looking really well. It seems that pretty much all the vaccines with respect to all the variants work to some extent, and particularly they work in preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death. Vaccines really are what is going to get us out of this and get us back on the road to being normal again.

How are we doing in terms of vaccinating our population? I think we are doing really well. I know the opposition is going to look at me and say that because I am a Liberal, I am going to say the Liberals are doing really well. If people have watched the health committee over the last year, they know I have not shied away from asking my government hard questions about managing the pandemic.

Having said that, does any Canadian really watch health committee? My mother does not even watch health committee. However, if people were to watch it, I think they would realize I am someone who is prone to speaking my mind and somebody who is not going to say something I do not believe in. Our federal government has done very well in procuring vaccines and the provinces, for the most part, have done really well in getting those vaccines into arms of people.

Right now, about 31% of eligible Canadians have had at least their first dose of the vaccine. We are third among the G7 in getting the vaccines out. In May, we are apparently getting over 10 million vaccines. Health Canada is anticipating that by June 30, we will have 36.5 million doses of vaccine. NACI thinks that 75% of eligible Canadians can get at least their first dose of the vaccine by mid-June.

We would like to do it faster and so would everyone else in the world, but obviously there is a limited supply and tremendous demand all across the world. Unfortunately we just cannot buy COVID vaccines in Canadian Tire. We, as the government, are whipping the vaccine horse as hard as we can. I have never whipped a horse, but I think the meaning of that saying is that if we keep whipping a horse, eventually we cannot get it to do anymore work. Similarly, with the vaccines, we are whipping this as hard as we can.

We would like to give all Canadians their first dose of the vaccine by the Victoria Day weekend, but I do not think it is possible. It will take a bit longer, but I do not think that much longer. We thought this was going to be a marathon. A year ago, a lot of people were predicting it was going to take two or three years to get a vaccine; it has taken a lot less. As it happens, this has turned out to be more like a 1,500-metre race than a marathon.

Let me talk about the spacing between the two doses of the vaccine as mentioned in the motion. This is not the government's policy. This is a recommendation of NACI, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization. It is an external advisory body that advises PHAC, but it is ultimately up to the provinces to decide whether they accept that advice.

It is important to note that with respect to this advice, although it recommends up to a four-month interval between the first and second dose, it also states, “ as soon as all eligible groups have been offered their first dose of vaccine, second doses should be offered. The interval between first and second dose should not be extended any longer than needed to offer first doses of vaccine to all eligible individuals.” Why a longer interval? Because if there is a longer interval, we can basically vaccinate twice as many people.

What is the evidence that this is a safe strategy?

Let us look at the efficacy first from the original trials, and these are the original trials with Moderna and Pfizer, which calculated vaccine efficacy starting two weeks after the first dose. For the first two weeks, no vaccine is going to work as it takes a while to get the immune response. An efficacy of about 92% was found. With AstraZeneca, it was about a 76% efficacy between the 22nd and 90th day after administration.

What does the real world data show? It is a bit complicated because different jurisdictions have taken different approaches with the intervals between the first and the second dose. For example, Israel and the United States have basically gone according to the manufacturer's recommendation. B.C. was delaying the second dose to about five or six weeks.

The best evidence really comes from Quebec and the United Kingdom. In both those jurisdictions, pretty well from the beginning, they decided to have about a three-month interval between the first and the second dose. In addition, when we look at the data about effectiveness, there is a difference between different jurisdictions in terms of the intervals but also different groups looked at different end points in the data. We can look at total mortality rate, rates of hospitalizations, incidence of symptomatic disease, asymptomatic disease and incidence of positive tests.

With respect to incidence of symptomatic disease, asymptomatic disease and positive results, the effectiveness after one dose of the vaccine shows as somewhere in the 60% to 80% range. The more important number I think we will all agree is not how often one gets asymptomatic disease, it is the incidence of where people get more severely sick and end up hospitalized or die from it. The numbers with respect to that, after one dose, is actually pretty good. In fact, it is also pretty good with respect to the elderly, because it is known the elderly cannot mount the same kind of immune response as quickly as younger people.

The NACI site shows some of the actual evidence on the effectiveness of one dose in preventing COVID. One study from Bristol in the United Kingdom showed an effectiveness of 71% to 79% in preventing hospitalization for frail, elderly patients who had one dose of Pfizer. With AstraZeneca, it was about 80%. A study of health care workers from Scotland showed a vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization of 84% with one dose.

The largest and best study of real world data was from Public Health England, which showed that one dose of the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines were approximately 80% effective in preventing hospitalization in those over the age of 80.

How long does immunity last after the first dose? Data from AstraZeneca clinical trials show immunity does not wane for at least 90 days. Data on the RNA vaccines from the U.K. and Quebec show that immunity does not wane for about two months.

Also, the experience with other vaccines requiring two doses like the hepatitis A vaccine or the HPV vaccine is that immunity can last up to six months. Furthermore, scientists know immunity does not just drop off a cliff but slowly decreases.

What about immunity from about nine weeks to 16 weeks after the first shot of the RNA vaccines Pfizer and Moderna? We have to recognize the data is still coming in. We only started mass vaccination of people basically in January. NACI recognizes the numbers are still coming in, continues to monitor the data and evidence and is prepared to change its recommendations if the evidence suggests we ought to.

Increasing the interval between the two doses is certainly the right policy. This is what helped the United Kingdom's number of cases, at least in part, to drop precipitously, so I think we are on the right course. I know this cannot happen fast enough. Patience is the golden virtue. However, I know it is hard to be patient with all the things that are happening around COVID. Really, this is a 1,500 metre race. We are at about 1,400 metres. The end is in sight. We have to keep going and following public health advice. It will soon be over.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Madam Speaker, I appreciated having the opportunity to listen to the member. I have been on the industry committee so we have had a lot of discussions about when the vaccines would arrive, the efficacy of them and the difference as far as the time frame from 21 or 28 days up to the four months.

The member mentioned quite a bit about what took place in the United Kingdom, that being the other country where we have seen the off-label use. That debate rages on there as well.

I wonder if the member could discuss some of the other countries and why they have chosen to stay with the 21 and 28 days.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Madam Speaker, I cannot say that I know what all countries have done, but this has been the course of the United Kingdom and Quebec. To use an English expression, the proof is in the pudding. Does it work? We can look at the United Kingdom's numbers and they have dropped precipitously. Occasionally, in medicine and in life, we have to take a chance. Yes, there is a chance, but in medicine it is all about balancing risks and benefits. There is practically no medical intervention that does not have a risk.

Yes, there is a risk in expanding the interval, but, as I cited, the evidence is that it seems to be safe. NACI is continuing to monitor it. Certainly there is a benefit and that is evident in the English numbers.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:30 p.m.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He seems to be bragging about how the Liberal government did an extraordinary job of managing the vaccination program, but does he not think that Canada had a lot of catching up to do to get to where it is now?

From March to June 2020, it was complete radio silence, and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization did not hold any meetings. Perhaps that had an impact on how long it will take before Canada is able to produce its own vaccines and take care of its people.

The federal government is lagging behind when it comes to health transfers, which could also have an impact on the post-crisis period and our ability to take care of people who will be hurt by the pandemic.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Madam Speaker, I am not sure of the question with respect to the delay. Canada has done comparatively pretty well. Again, I point back to the fact that we are number three among the G7 countries in the rapidity with which we have gotten the vaccines out. The United Kingdom is a bit ahead of us and so is the United States, but they have manufacturing capacity that we do not have in our country. We have to look at the size of those countries, their industrial capacity and what ability they had to make the vaccines. In the G7, those are the only countries that are ahead of us.

We are a month behind. I believe that time is of the essence and it would be better had we been a month further ahead. However, literally we are probably not even a month behind the United Kingdom and the United States. I am not bragging, but our country has done pretty well.

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, it is very rare that we have the opportunity to have subject matter experts and have the good doctor present. His seminar was good. In his opening remarks, he talked about the experience he had with polio. I think about what the world would look like if the polio vaccine had patents on it.

Knowing that India is surpassing 350,000 new cases of COVID a day and knowing that Dr. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine, waived patents, does the hon. member, the good doctor, not agree that now is the time for Canada to finally support a waiver on patents internationally to allow this vaccine to be produced?

Opposition Motion—Access to COVID-19 VaccinesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

4:35 p.m.

Liberal

Marcus Powlowski Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Madam Speaker, I think the world globally has to re-examine how in the future we will respond to a pandemic. I would certainly agree with the member opposite that the free market may not be the optimal solution in terms of a global response.