Madam Speaker, it is a real honour to join this very important debate tonight. As we were heading into the Christmas period, I think many were optimistic. There was a light. We could see the vaccine development that we were so pleased about. What has happened since then has been a real concern.
In the riding I represent, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, we have come off relatively lightly in terms of actual cases. Certainly people were struggling with some of the restrictions, but we have seen a real escalation in our communities. One of the first nation communities now has 25% of the population struggling with COVID infections. An elder died just recently, and the children are locked down in their homes with no Internet to even do their schooling. Our local hospital also has recently announced that it has an outbreak.
We all know that vaccinations have made the greatest contribution to global health of any human intervention, arguably with the exception of clean water and sanitation. Many have noted today that we thought the vaccination for COVID might have taken longer, and we are so glad that modern science was able to move forward in such an effective way so quickly. This vaccine is critical for the health of Canadians, morbidity and mortality, and it is absolutely critical for our economy in terms of getting back up and getting going.
Canadians are very forgiving. They have forgiven the government for a lot of mistakes. They recognize that it was a very unique and unusual circumstance, but the mistakes are starting to add up. I have to start with pre-pandemic. They got rid of our surveillance system, which was world-class. Liberals never even told anyone it was shuttered down, so we did not have that surveillance system. They also got rid of warehouse space that housed our PPE and threw it into the dumpster.
In January, we were worried about what was happening, and the Liberals continually insisted the risk was low. They did not take into account some of the reactions of other countries. Even when our military intelligence reports were saying so, we left our borders open. I find it stunning, even to this day, that people could come in internationally and hop on a domestic flight with nothing in terms of any reasonable kind of surveillance.
There was no rapid testing. Finally, there is a little pilot project in Calgary. We were told we did not need to bother with masks, and now we are told that masks are important. There has been some pretty compelling evidence that the rapid testing is an effective tool. It is not perfect, but it is an effective tool.
Now we have the vaccines, and it would be important at this point to compare what is happening in Canada with a few other countries. The Biden administration in the U.S. has 5.2% of the population vaccinated. We are at 1.1%. President Biden has committed to doing a million a day for 100 days, and people are saying that this is feasible for him to do. While he is ramping up to a million a day, we are ramping down to almost zero for the next who knows how long, with a very uncertain future ahead.
In May, the U.K. decided to contribute £93 million to build a super vaccine facility. It is going to be open in the summer of 2021, a year ahead of schedule. They put significant dollars into it. They will open the facility, and it will have the capacity, which will probably not be needed this time, but it will have the capacity to produce all the vaccinations needed for the whole population in six months. I ask members to compare that to $4.5 million that Canada has put into a few projects here and there.
Certainly, if anyone was listening today to some of the experts in vaccines, some of the CEOs of companies in Canada, in spite of what the Prime Minister said, they said that Canada does have the capacity and the ability. With support we could have been ramping up and perhaps producing our own vaccines here in Canada.
Israel has 25% of its population vaccinated. They started their work, apparently, way back in March with their prime minister phoning regularly Pfizer and making sure that they were at the top of the line. They put a huge priority on this many months ago, both recognizing the importance of vaccines for their population and making sure that they were going to move ahead.
What about Canada? We know that in May the Prime Minister probably talked about his deal with China. He signed a deal and, of course, we all know the challenges in our relationship with China over the last number of years, so certainly at the time I think many people were a little leery. As has been reported, it turns out that four days later China backed out of the deal and refused to ship the necessary items to Canada. The government, for all of its talk about transparency, did not reveal that to Canadians for a long time.
Then, late last summer the government finally got around to signing a few contracts. If members recall, at the time there was the WE scandal and Liberals prorogued Parliament and delivered a Speech from the Throne, and members have to wonder how distracted the government was from doing what it needed to do. Dealing with the WE scandal was consuming all of its energy and oxygen and the government was unable to do the job it needed to do for Canadians, because it was too busy taking care of its own self interests, moving money toward an organization that really was deeply in bed with it and busy trying to thwart the health committee from getting the information the committee needed.
Here we are in Canada, and, as our leader said, everyone wants the government to be successful. Hopefully this debate tonight will make the government sit up and look inside and say that it could have done better, that it needs need to do better for Canadians and needs to be more transparent to Canadians. We can look at contracts from Australia. We can look at contracts from many countries, and we can know what is happening in those countries. In Canada the government that promised that sunlight was the best disinfectant and that it was going to be open and transparent by default is probably the most closed government we have ever encountered.
We have a crisis. The Liberals talk about doses per capita. Doses per capita do not matter if those doses are not going to come for six months or a year. What matters is when we get these doses, when they are delivered and how they are going to make sure that Canadians can move forward. I say this because members can only imagine that if they were sitting in Canim Lake and their six-year-old or 10-year-old cannot go to school, they would have some problems.
We are being critical of the government tonight, because it deserves some criticism on this. The Liberals have not been transparent with Canadians. They need to look in their hearts and figure out how they can do a better job for all of us. Our economy depends on it. Our seniors depend on it. Our health depends on it.
