Madam Speaker, the member for York—Simcoe is asking why they are important to the federal government. Let me give two examples.
The first is from the regulatory side, which the member mentioned. Health Canada has approved dozens of rapid tests. These are not only antigen tests, but molecular tests. It has approved all sorts of other tests over the past months and years. Canadians expect Health Canada to do its job, which is to protect the health and safety of Canadians, by approving as many rapid tests as it can, but also by making sure that these tests are efficient and safe.
The second reason I can give to demonstrate the importance of rapid tests is as I mentioned. Before December, 2021, on average, provinces and territories were requesting about seven million rapid tests per month. We moved from seven million to 35 million in December, 2021, and then to 140 million rapid tests in January, multiplying by 20 the number of rapid tests available to provinces and territories, despite the fact that every other country on earth was fighting for these rapid tests.
We are doing the right thing, and we are doing it in exceedingly challenging global supply chain circumstances.