William Amos

[Telecommunications, February 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, while the member is entitled to his own over-heated political rhetoric, he is not entitled to his own facts.

The facts are very simple. Since 2015, our government has hooked up over 1.7 million homes, and with the $1.75 billion that has been invested, many more homes are going to get connected. In my particular riding, several million dollars, indeed we are talking of $20.4 million in projects, is connecting many households. We need to do way more.

The member should know, very clearly, that there is not a single member of Parliament, in neither government nor opposition, that has any choice in the matter. Good public servants make these good decisions. We need to continue investing more money to get every Canadian connected.

[Health, February 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, let us get the facts straight.

We knew from the start that we had to rely on the best scientists to determine which vaccines could be used in Canada and what investments we needed to make to have a biomanufacturing industry in Canada.

That is why we established the COVID-19 vaccine task force and therapeutics task force, which are made up of of scientific experts and industry leaders, to guide our decision-making. They made vital recommendations about the international vaccines we should select, resulting in advance purchase agreements with several companies and investments—

[Health, February 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, at the beginning of the pandemic we announced some significant investments in the most promising Canadian candidates. Dr. Kobinger said that Medicago was the first vaccine candidate he would look at. We agree, which is why we invested up to $173 million to help Medicago move forward with its vaccine candidate and to restore a large-scale biomanufacturing facility in Quebec City. We invested $1 million in Dr. Kobinger's research, through an independent, peer-reviewed process. We are very pleased that the Government of Quebec has announced it also plans to support this research.

[Telecommunications, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, our government is taking every single measure in the policy tool box to ensure that all sorts of investments and new infrastructure around telecommunications can be integrated across Canada. Spectrum auction is just one of these sets of policies.

We are working toward a new spectrum auction later on this year. There have been delays due to COVID-19, but we are well aware that this is a very important mechanism to ensure that Canadians have the very best telecommunications infrastructure across Canada.

[Telecommunications, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, our government is the one that has invested the most money in high-speed Internet in rural Canada in the history of our country.

Certainly, a lot of work remains to be done and that is why, last November, the Prime Minister announced a $1.75-billion investment to continue the work of connecting Canadians. Rural Canadians deserve to have this coverage. We are working on it with the provinces and we will be making substantial investments in the months to come because it is extremely important work.

[Science, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, from the beginning of this pandemic, the Government of Canada has relied upon the opinions of experts to guide all of our decisions, whether in relation to procuring vaccines, rebuilding our biomanufacturing capacity or manufacturing PPE. At every point of the way, we have been relying upon Canada's experts and making sure that the data upon which our decisions are made is solid.

The Government of Canada shares as much data as possible and we know that this is important because open science is important. Our government is going to continue to work with our experts and rely upon their opinions as we make our decisions.

[Science, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, in order for Canadians to benefit from the digital economy, we are going to need to ensure that Canadians have confidence that their data is safe and that they trust their privacy is being respected. That is exactly why our government is strengthening that trust by ensuring Canada has a world-leading privacy and data protection system and the companies that break the rules face severe consequences.

[Public Safety, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, it is clear that our government recognizes the importance of protecting Canada's telecommunications systems. We are regularly engaging with telecommunications companies, with our allies and the security infrastructure on a variety of topics, just like this. We are not going to publicly discuss advice given by our national security experts, but I can assure the House that we are always going to be taking the steps necessary to protect Canadians.

[Public Safety, February 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, our government is going to continue to ensure that Canadian networks are kept safe and secure. We are never going to comment on specific companies, and everyone knows that an examination of 5G technologies and a review of security and economic considerations is well under way. We are going to carefully weigh these matters with our allies and our partners, including the Biden administration, and we are going to make the best decision for Canadians.

[Health, February 2nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, by no means did our government wait at all. Increasing our country's bio-manufacturing capacity has been part of our recovery plan since the very beginning. It is in our interest, both now and in the future, to have this capability within our borders.

That is why, at the beginning of this crisis, at the beginning of the pandemic, we made immediate investments in bio-manufacturing projects in Quebec City with Medicago, VIDO-InterVac in Saskatchewan, the National Research Council, of course, and with AbCellera.

We have moved quickly to make sure that our bio-manufacturing is much stronger after years of disinvestment. Today's announcement with Novavax is just another bit of good news. Our government is taking a step-by-step approach with advice from our national—