Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that I was standing in the House only a couple of weeks ago in another emergency debate on the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe I started off my speech that night saying that I had been here in February in an emergency debate on COVID-19. I certainly hoped that I would not have to be here for a third emergency debate on COVID-19. I was hoping that the government would get its act together and start getting vaccines to provinces for them to distribute, to get Canadians vaccinated and get immunity.
However, here I am, less than two weeks later and we are in a third emergency debate on the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been a very difficult two weeks, certainly this past week, when we are seeing once again very mixed messages from the Liberal government in terms of efficacy and immunity when it comes to certain vaccines.
Today's debate is specifically about Alberta. I want to take this opportunity to talk about what could have been. We had opportunities to have made-in-Alberta solutions to address the COVID pandemic. I want to start with the Alberta pilot project at the airports and land borders. Almost a full year ago, Alberta took it upon itself to initiate a pilot program where travellers would be given a rapid test before they started their travels, either on flights at the Calgary International Airport or at the Sweetgrass Coutts Border Crossing, and were given a rapid test again when they returned.
I want to give some numbers for non-exempt travel participants, or non-essential travellers. During the pilot project timeline in Alberta, 50,929 travellers were tested using the Alberta pilot program rapid test. Of those test results, on the first test at the point of entry, 1.37% of travellers tested positive for COVID. On their second test, 0.7% of travellers tested positive.
The total travellers who tested positive was just over 1%. Of the almost 51,000 travellers tested via the Alberta pilot program rapid test, 1% were positive. Let us put that in perspective. That program was extremely successful at identifying the small number of travellers who had COVID. They were forced to do a 14-day quarantine at home while the rest were able to go about their daily lives. Instead of taking that program, which was successful, and moving it to every other international airport in the country, the Liberal response was to shut that program down.
We had a successful program that was identifying positive COVID results of travellers arriving in Calgary and in Alberta through the land crossing, and the Liberals cancelled it. Instead of taking that program and using that template in other international airports across Canada, the Liberals invoked the hotel quarantine program at a cost of $250 million, not to mention the stress and anxiety that it put on travellers coming back into Canada.
I want to be really clear that these were not just snowbirds coming home or people coming back from sunny locales. These were people who were travelling internationally for funerals, medical appointments and cancer treatments. I have had many of these conversations with my own constituents who were in tears trying to figure out how they could get home, and spending hours on hold trying to book a quarantine hotel with little success.
The Liberals took a program that was working, which put minimal stress and anxiety on travellers and certainly did not cost $250 million, and they scrapped it in favour of a disastrous hotel quarantine program. We know it is even worse now. We are seeing outbreaks in hotel quarantine sites. Sexual assaults have happened in these hotel quarantine sites. It has been a complete and utter disaster.
Instead of scrapping that program and going back to the pilot program, which we knew worked, the results were almost exactly the same. This is the most frustrating thing. The hotel quarantine identified about 1% of the travellers. It is not like it was identifying an exorbitantly different number. It did not work. It does not work. Alberta had a made-in-Alberta solution that could have been copied across Canada.
I also want to talk about an opportunity to address the vaccines. I have spoken about this in the House a couple of times. Providence Therapeutics in Calgary started approaching the government a year ago with the same innovation and technology that other mRNA vaccines were using, such as Moderna and Pfizer, and it could have been produced here in Canada. Now we have the CEO of Providence saying that he is sick and tired of banging his head against the wall trying to get support from the Liberal government. He is now looking to go abroad, either to the United States or the European Union.
I asked this in question period the other day. The minister said there was a $100 million program, and Providence got $10 million from it. Let us put that in perspective in comparison to Moderna in the United States. Through Operation Warp Speed, Moderna has been given $2.4 billion by the United States government. In comparison, when we had the possibility with Providence Therapeutics of a made-in-Alberta, but more importantly a made-in-Canada vaccine solution, which could have been developed and manufactured here in Canada and for which we would not have to rely on unreliable global supply chains, the company was given $10 million by the Liberal government. That is 0.4% of what was given to a comparable company in the United States.
To compare that again, the Liberals were willing to spend $250 million on a hotel quarantine program that does not even work, but they could have supported a Canadian innovator, a Canadian company, to manufacture and develop vaccines right here in Canada. Instead, Providence has been invited by other countries to go to the United States or the EU to develop and manufacture that program.
That is not the first time. Solstar Pharma was in a very similar position. It is based out of Laval, Quebec, but has investors in Calgary. It has been funded by Operation Warp Speed in the United States and its product is being developed in San Diego. That is another one that could have been done here in Canada.
Is the Prime Minister so focused on ignoring Alberta that the Liberals would ignore a made-in-Canada solution just because Providence Therapeutics is based there? I would hope that is not the case. Certainly, that is how those of us who are members of Parliament from Alberta feel. We feel that Alberta has done its part when it comes to trying to address or offer solutions to the pandemic, and we are being ignored. I can certainly understand. I hope members would see how frustrating it is, not only for the elected officials representing Alberta ridings but certainly for our constituents.
Probably the biggest frustration that we have as Canadians, and certainly as Albertans as well, is the mixed messages we are getting from the federal government. The other day, my colleague for Calgary Nose Hill asked the health minister about Canadians who were getting certain vaccines and were not sure about their second ones. I want to add a personal perspective to this. My wife has had her first AstraZeneca vaccine dose. Now she has no idea when she is going to get her second, because AstraZeneca vaccines have been delayed. She wants to know how long her immunity is going to last or if she is going to have to take one or two doses of a Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine because she is not going to get her second AstraZeneca dose. The minister did not feel it was worth answering real questions from real Canadians who have real concerns. My wife wants an answer to the question of whether she will have to take the AstraZeneca or have to take two doses of another vaccine.
That is the frustration that Canadians are feeling from these mixed messages and the inability to access vaccines. Fewer than 3% of Canadians have had their second dose of a vaccine. I am getting calls, as I know almost all of my colleagues here are, from frustrated, depressed, stressed business owners, moms, dads and grandparents. We want an end to this. We want Canadian businesses back open. We want Canadians back to work. I want to be able to hug my loved ones, whom I have not seen in more than a year. We need a clear path to how this is going to be resolved, and we need to see that sooner, not later.