Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise tonight to speak to this important bill. I am particularly pleased to split my time with the brilliant member for Elmwood—Transcona.
This legislation is extraordinarily straightforward and simple. It would authorize the Minister of Health to do two things: first, to make payments of up to $2.5 billion out of the consolidated revenue fund for any expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2022, in relation to COVID-19 tests, and second, to transfer to any province or territory or to any body or person in Canada any COVID-19 tests or instruments used in relation to those tests acquired on or after April 1, 2021.
New Democrats strongly believe that we must expand access to COVID-19 testing for Canadians and do so as quickly as possible. Therefore, we of course will be supporting this legislation.
COVID-19 has underscored the crucial role of testing and surveillance in controlling infectious disease outbreaks and guiding sound public health decisions. In fact, listening to the debate over mandates and whether we should or should not have them, I think one thing we can all agree on is that testing will be a critical component of our ability to relax and ultimately relinquish those mandates because we will be able to get quick and accurate information about the outbreak of disease, as is demonstrated in every country in the world that is using these tests.
However, it is also true that Canada has suffered from severe limitations on testing capacity through wave after wave of this pandemic as a result of the federal government's repeated failure to stockpile sufficient supplies or accelerate domestic production capacity. With the emergence of the highly transmissible omicron variant, an exponential surge of COVID-19 cases has once again overwhelmed Canada's testing capacity while the federal government now scrambles to secure supplies in a highly competitive global marketplace. As a result, COVID-19 testing has become inaccessible for many Canadians from coast to coast to coast; reported case numbers underestimate the true number of infections, making it difficult to plan public health measures; and contact tracing efforts have been largely abandoned. Canadians may remember the tracing app that the federal government unleashed to great fanfare; it is now nowhere to be found and abandoned.
In response to shortages throughout the omicron surge, many provinces have had to restrict access to PCR testing to individuals who are at higher risk of severe illness and those in settings where the virus may spread more quickly. PCR testing, of course, is more precise than rapid antigen testing, and positive results from rapid test kits are not even reported in official COVID-19 case counts, again underestimating the prevalence of COVID in our country. However, rapid antigen tests are considered an important screening tool. Research shows that they are instrumental in preventing asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 because they provide quick and generally reliable results. Unfortunately, rapid tests have also been very difficult for Canadians to access, particularly during the recent holiday season.
To stop and summarize here, we have a bill with two sections: one for $2.5 billion to get rapid tests and the other to transfer them to the provinces and territories. What do my colleagues in the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois say? They say we need to slow this down. They say they need to study this.
There is nothing to study. We are in an emergency. We are in a pandemic. Testing and tracing are especially important for asymptomatic Canadians and are key tools in returning to normal, so when the Conservatives say they want to reduce mandates but are slowing down the delivery of rapid tests, one of the tools to help us reduce and get rid of the mandates, it is inconceivable.
Second, there is a shortage of all tests in this country, both PCR and rapid tests. Canadians know this. In every province and territory, Canadians cannot get access to the rapid tests or the PCR tests that they need. Provinces and health care systems are rationing access to tests. What is the Conservative and Bloc response? Wait, slow it down; we need to study this. Again, there is nothing to study.
We have an emergency, we have a shortage and we have a pandemic. We need to act and, again, the Conservative and Bloc members now oppose fast-tracking the delivery of these tests to Canadians.
I want to talk for a moment about accountability, because that has been raised by the Conservatives. I agree that $2.5 billion is a significant amount of money. What did the NDP do? We identified that feature to the government, and we did what every responsible opposition party should have done. We did not hold up delivering rapid tests to Canadians; instead, we negotiated accountability measures with the government. I give the government credit, and I want to thank the Liberals for this. They agreed that they will report to Parliament, every six months, the number of tests delivered, where they were delivered and when, providing accountability not only to Parliament but to Canadians. That is responsible behaviour in a minority Parliament. That is effective opposition.
We know that the $2.5 billion will provide about 400 million tests. That sounds like a lot of tests, but it is not. Dr. David Juncker at McGill University estimates that we need 600 million to 700 million rapid tests per month, and then after omicron subsides, we would need two tests per person every week. We are already hearing that there is another variant on the way, omicron B.1, so we know that testing is going to be a requirement in this country for months if not years ahead. We also know that Canadians need them now.
I want to chat for a moment about what I have to describe as disarray in the Conservative Party and a total contradiction. Its members say it is the party of law and order, but they are now supporting anarchy and lawbreakers in the streets. They said for a year and half that rapid tests were what we needed. They identified rapid tests as critical to Canada's COVID strategy repeatedly, in every week and every month, right up until February of this year, and they were correct to do so. They were right. However, today, when this simple bill to get rapid tests quickly to Canadians comes before us, what do they want to do? They want to delay. They do not want rapid tests to go out tonight. Instead, they take up valuable time in the House so that we have to debate that we need rapid tests for Canadians, even though for years this is exactly what they have been calling for. They want to study it, but study what?
Today, I was shocked to hear a member of the health committee, a physician, question the value of testing and the science of testing. There is no science or reputable scientist in this country that supports this view. No one has raised the issue of the validity, the necessity or the utility of telling Canadians what their COVID status is or giving them the means to have a quick test. Ironically, that fits with Conservative MPs when they were resisting mandatory vaccination to come in the House. They told us to give them tests so they could show us they were negative to come into the House. They wanted rapid tests for themselves, but stand here in the House today and tell Canadians they cannot have rapid tests and they do not need them right away because we need to study this. That is rank hypocrisy of the highest order, and it is bad public health policy.
I want to end by talking a bit about equality, something that has not been mentioned in the House.
Federal measures to increase the supply of rapid testing kits are expected to particularly benefit people who are most at risk for contracting COVID-19 with severe outcomes. This includes people over the age of 60, people with chronic medical conditions, members of racialized communities and low-income Canadians, particularly those who work in frontline positions, like the clerks working in our stores, who come to work every single day to work with the public. The Conservatives and the Bloc tell us to hold up getting tests to those people, when they are putting their health on the line for us. Those working frontline jobs stand to benefit from reduced transmission, and they get that because of increased rapid testing, among other things.
Women are also overrepresented among the beneficiaries of this investment. We know that women comprise 53% of those aged 60 and over and 66% of those aged 90 to 95. Racialized women also stand to benefit, as they are more likely to be in essential frontline industries. In 2016, they accounted for 17% of those in health care and social assistance, compared with only 10% of overall employment.
I look forward to answering questions from my colleagues.
