44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/14/22 2:06:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, teachers are more than just educators; they hold the key to our future success. They instill central values and passion in our youth. Without them, we could not cultivate the next generations of scientists, engineers, artists and leaders.
I want to highlight an incredible teacher in my riding of York Centre, Ms. Cindy Law, who recently received the Prime Minister's award for Teaching Excellence in STEM. I had the pleasure of congratulating Ms. Law and learning about her unique teaching methods and passion for the success of her students.
As a mother to a high-schooler, I know how important it is to have a teacher who inspires our students to excel and grow. Ms. Law motivates her students to think critically, collaboratively and explore the natural world in an engaging way.
Both she and her students have won several awards and achievements, which can be attributed to her success with her students. To achieve this during the ongoing pandemic is truly remarkable and a testament to her incredible work as a teacher.
On behalf of our York Centre community, students and families, I thank and congratulate Ms. Law.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak about Bill C-10, an act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19, and how the federal government is working to ensure that Canada continues to have a sufficient supply of COVID‑19 rapid tests.
I would like to thank my colleague, the member for London North Centre, for his previous comments. I have heard colleagues throughout the House speak tonight about many other issues. However, I would like to focus my comments this evening on the bill itself, which is known as Bill C-10.
Unfortunately, COVID continues to have a significant impact on the lives of Canadians and remains an unparalleled threat to the health, social and economic well-being of Canadians. As public health restrictions ease in some jurisdictions, testing and the availability of rapid tests will take on an even higher level of importance in our fight against COVID‑19.
Ensuring that all Canadians have what they need to be safe during this critical time is a responsibility that our government takes very seriously. Since the outset of the pandemic, the Government of Canada has worked closely with provinces and territories, taking a team Canada approach to responding to the pandemic. I would like to begin my remarks today by briefly highlighting some of the key initiatives our government has taken thus far to protect Canadians and to help our country recover.
From the very beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada was committed to working closely with all levels of government to put the health and safety of Canadians first. The safe restart agreement was a significant element of this team Canada approach. It led to the direct transfer of $3 billion to provinces and territories to enhance testing, contact tracing and data management, with additional monies made available by the Government of Canada to procure COVID‑19 PCR tests. Thanks to the funding from the safe restart agreement, health units across Canada have been able to better identify who was infected, where that person was infected and how much the virus was circulating in communities.
As the pandemic has changed, so has the need for testing. Today, rapid tests are a more important tool in the government's arsenal than ever before. Our government has worked tirelessly, as we have throughout the past two years, in collaboration with provinces and territories to expedite the delivery of rapid tests from coast to coast to coast.
Rapid tests are safe. They are effective. They are easy to administer, and they provide quick results. Their availability empowers Canadians to make informed decisions to protect their health and the health of their loved ones and to avoid spreading the virus further. Since the onset of the COVID‑19 pandemic, all levels of government have collaborated with experts to ensure they have the best evidence, and the best science, to make informed decisions on COVID‑19 testing and screening.
In November, 2020, the Minister of Health formally established the COVID-19 testing and screening expert advisory panel. The panel provided science and policy advice to help inform decisions on innovative approaches to COVID‑19 testing and screening, including advice on the best use of tests, strategies for different settings, and emerging technologies, again following the science.
The panel consisted of highly respected professionals with a broad range of expertise in areas such as health policy, infectious diseases and the implementation of public health measures. Over the course of nine months, the expert panel published five reports, including, “Priority strategies to optimize self-testing in Canada”, which was published in August, 2021. This report provided the foundation by which provinces and territories expanded their testing programs.
Combatting COVID‑19 is about collaboration between the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada, complemented by the work of an expert advisory panel. This collaboration includes the release of updated pan-Canadian COVID‑19 testing and screening guidance, and a white paper on testing for COVID‑19 in vaccinated populations. These references underscore the importance of continued testing, especially to protect vulnerable populations, and the need for all jurisdictions to sustain COVID‑19 rapid test stockpiles for surge testing to minimize and respond quickly to outbreaks.
Getting Canadians through this pandemic did not only require collaboration among all levels of government, but also required innovative partnerships with the private sector. That is why the government also established innovative partnerships with the establishment of an industry advisory round table on COVID‑19 testing, screening, tracing and data management with members from large, critical industries.
This collaboration led to the launch of the Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium: a non-profit organization located at the University of Toronto, initially comprising 12 companies with national operations. The consortium aimed to develop a system capable of conducting COVID‑19 screening that could produce results within 15 minutes. Let us think about that: in only 15 minutes, we could have an answer to protect our loved ones.
In April, 2021, through the safe restart agreement, Health Canada funded the consortium to expand its program to support the rollout of rapid screening pilots for asymptomatic employees across Canada. As of January 26, 2022, Creative Destruction Lab Rapid Screening Consortium had already onboarded over 2,000 organizations from coast to coast to coast, including school boards, child care centres, long-term care facilities and an array of businesses such as airlines, couriers, banks, mines and retail settings. It was essentially every part of Canada that it could get to.
Additionally, the Canadian Red Cross has been an important partner, providing surge support to provinces and territories for direct patient care. Complementing the work of the consortium, the government partnered with the Canadian Red Cross to support testing and screening in the non-profit sector. In 2021, approximately 300,000 tests were provided to the Canadian Red Cross for this initiative. Through this innovative partnership, 234 non-profit organizations across the country have launched testing programs, receiving support, guidance and test kits directly from the Red Cross. Over 1.6 million tests have been distributed so far through this initiative.
I would like to talk about our northern, remote and isolated communities program. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the spirit of truth and reconciliation, the northern, remote and isolated communities initiative was established in early 2020 to ensure equitable access to health care for people living in northern, remote and isolated, NRI, communities across Canada. This initiative prioritizes distribution of point-of-care diagnostic testing supplies, including molecular tests, to communities and to the homes of many first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. Led by the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, and in collaboration with Indigenous Services Canada, the program has included training for the installation and use of COVID-19 tests.
To date, the National Microbiology Laboratory has provided more than 230 training sessions for non-health-care professionals to implement point-of-care testing in NRI communities. As of January 16, 2022, over and above the supply provided to provinces and territories, a total of 651 testing instruments and 1,196,039 tests had been deployed to support testing in more than 300 NRI communities.
In conclusion, we have done much as a country to fight this pandemic, and Canadians should feel encouraged by the progress we have made, but it is without question that the months ahead of us will continue to be full of challenges and that we need to do even more to support our country. I ask all of my colleagues to join me and those of us on this side of the floor in supporting the adoption of this bill, so that we can continue to provide critical and timely support to provinces, territories, workplaces and Canadians through this ongoing procurement process and timely distribution of COVID-19 rapid tests that will help keep us all safe.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is a physician, so I think he would appreciate the science that goes with this and understand that all of this work and all of this testing and research and discussions and consortiums and collaboration between the private and public sector and science has been the reason we have gotten this far in the pandemic in protecting Canadians. The tests help protect our loved ones. These tests are an important tool that have shown time and again how we can control the spread of COVID-19.
To remind my colleague, at the beginning of the pandemic, his side of the aisle, and this was before I was a member of the House, screamed for tests, demanded tests and wanted nothing more than for us to get more tests. At the time, the tests were not all that accurate and that is why we did the work with the consortium, with science and with researchers to improve the quality of testing in this country so that as we move forward now through omicron we have the tools and we have the capability of keeping our population safe as we start to move through this phase of the pandemic.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from British Columbia. It is where much of my family lives and I miss them terribly.
I am tired. My kids are tired. Many members of the House are tired, but the truth is that our ICUs are still struggling with the numbers. We are seeing the cases stabilize a little, but the reality is that we have many Canadians who are immunocompromised, who have other vulnerabilities and who need tools to move forward safely.
A constituent in my riding is a kidney transplant recipient. He cannot go outside. He is waiting for more tests so that he can move on with his life. I hope the members of the House understand that the science and the tools that we need to move forward for Canadians include the procurement and distribution of rapid tests equitably, safely and fairly for every Canadian who needs them.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague on his remarks in the House this evening. It has been a very long day.
I want to talk about how we work together in the House. My colleague made a lot of really important points about the importance of science, the importance of data, the importance of a timely response and the importance of equity. I am sure my colleagues across the way would like to hear how important that really is.
In addition to the importance of rapid testing, we know we need more of it to have a sustainable supply to contend with omicron in the future. We have had much debate, and my colleagues across the way keep holding things up, including this legislation. However, they are also holding up the ability for us to collect the timely data we need from the Telus data for good project.
I would like to know if my colleague from the NDP will be supporting us in our efforts to work together to make sure we have all the science and all the data to keep Canadians safe.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order. I really hope that I misheard my colleague in his description of the quarantine hotels. As someone who has been helping put forward a motion on gender-based violence, if it was referred to as a “rape hotel”, I find that profoundly offensive to women not only in the House but in this country. I would ask that the member apologize.
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