Madam Speaker, I would even extend that 10 minutes with leave, if they want.
At the end of the day, the science and health care experts in all regions of our country have recognized the value of rapid tests. There was a day when the Conservatives actually did support rapid tests. They talked about how important it was for Ottawa to get rapid tests, and Ottawa acquired, through procurement, tens of millions of rapid tests. In fact, at the end of or mid-December of last year, six, seven or eight weeks ago, there was a surplus of rapid tests in Canada. Millions and millions of rapid tests were not being utilized.
We have often talked about COVID-19 being something we cannot just mandate away. When a new variant of the coronavirus comes, hospitals are once again inundated. Provinces, territories and others recognized that we needed to implement rapid tests in a more effective way, so the demand for rapid tests exploded in the month of December. We provided the storage of rapid tests in good part to meet the immediate demand that occurred in December. Then, through our procurements, in January we brought forward an incredible effort that saw over 140 million additional rapid tests. We can take that in the perspective of Canada's population of thirty-seven and a half million people.
The Government of Canada understands the science behind rapid tests, and I think rapid testing is a good tool. It is not quite equal to the vaccinations, but I would like to emphasize just how important it has been from the beginning of the pandemic that we have seen provinces, territories, indigenous leaders and stakeholders working in a team Canada approach to deal with the pandemic.
We saw that in the distribution of vaccinations. Canada today is leading the world in vaccination and getting its population vaccinated, and that is no accident. That is because we have had effective leadership, whether it is from Ottawa, the provinces and territories, indigenous leaders or others. We are also seeing today, again, an excellent example through rapid testing.
At least the government and two opposition parties recognize not only that rapid testing is important, but that the federal government has a role to play in it. The NDP members want to see the legislation passed because they know, as we know, how critically important it is to get over $2 billion to finalize purchasing and ensure that Canadians have these rapid tests. This is while the Conservatives dither. The official opposition does not really know what to think about rapid tests.
I would encourage people to read some of the comments on the record by the first speaker from the Conservative Party, who I understand sits on the standing health committee representing the Conservative Party.