Government Operations committee  Maybe I'll start, and others can jump in. I think Health and PHAC may have a role here. I think the U.S. experience has highlighted that there's a lot of fraud happening in the manufacturing of these types of masks, and you want to make sure that you're getting a legitimate product.

Government Operations committee  As was mentioned earlier, Mr. Chair, the question of who gets banned and who gets licences comes from Health Canada, so I think it's better to ask them.

Government Operations committee  We'll have to get back to you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to guess.

Government Operations committee  What I believe I said was that we expect the supplier to stand behind the product, and this is a product that is in short supply.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we had a number of issues depending on the lot. We had some where the elastics were an issue. Then, as time wore on, filtration became the more common problem. We are still in negotiation and have paused all deliveries from the supplier. That it's an ongoing discussion is all I can say at this stage.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, as I said, we are in ongoing discussions with the company about how this will wrap up.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, I'm going from memory here, but I would say it was early April. Arianne, do you have a better recollection of the date?

Government Operations committee  It was before May 1, for sure. April would be my guess, but I will have to confirm the details.

Government Operations committee  Maybe I'll start, Mr. Chair, and then turn to my PHAC colleagues. What you're seeing right now is collaboration in terms of ordering to meet the current needs. I believe your question is around whether, going forward, we see a different form of collaboration.

Government Operations committee  We're doing that to the extent possible. I'll flip this to Éric or Sally in a moment—I'm drifting into PHAC turf here—but with something as important as KN95, we want to test that in Canada as well. You can have a company test itself, and that's great, but before we put something into the medical system, they want to make sure it meets their needs.

Government Operations committee  I think the value-add that PSPC would bring to that conversation would be around, when you're looking at certain goods, based on what we know now, should this situation occur again, what are the lead times? How long does it take to get here? That can be factored into any planning.

Government Operations committee  I think the question of QA has been evolving since this started. Again, when this started, it was about getting contracts in place quickly. There was a mad scramble to get mass contracts in place. These KN95 masks that arrived were part of the earlier set of contracts. In terms of the QA we're doing now, the ideal is that you basically vet the company in advance, which was already being done.

Government Operations committee  I have a couple of points. We often use a request for interest to gauge industry interest in terms of its ability to respond, so that was sent out. Then we went to the next step, which is a formal request for proposal. That proposal has now closed. We have had responses, which we are now evaluating.

Government Operations committee  It depends on the investment required, Mr. Chair, to actually get something up and running. When you look at hand sanitizer, there were existing plants in Canada that could, effectively, change very quickly, without a lot of expense, to start producing that. When you look at gowns, they require a bit of investment, and so they were looking for some volume.

Government Operations committee  Ah. This was Medicom...I thought we were speaking about.... Sorry. I'm having—