Mr. Speaker, I would also like to wish my lovely wife Sheryl Palm a happy Valentine's Day, since I do not want to be left out in this. She is my sweetheart.
We have known from the beginning of the pandemic that testing and tracing are critical components of dealing with it, and I think that is still true today. We know that the authorization for $2.5 billion would purchase about 400 million tests because that is the information I got when I asked the minister's staff at a briefing.
Dr. David Juncker, department chair of biomedical engineering at McGill University, estimates that with the omicron variant, Canada could require 600 million to 700 million tests a month and then two tests per person every week once the wave subsides.
Does the minister think that 400 million tests are going to be anywhere near enough? If not, how many tests do Canadians need for the rest of 2022 to deal with this virus?