Senator Seidman: So you said that, yes, it does cohere, in fact, with the amendment that was made to Bill C-8, if I understand you correctly.

Now that we are quoting testimony from the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, or SOCI, on Wednesday evening, I too was unable to be present because of a conflict of meetings. However, I did listen carefully to the recordings of the committee meeting.

Testimony at SOCI from the chief financial officer and the deputy minister was quite clear. They said that they procure the tests and what they call “cash manage” from other resources within the department. They are able to pay for the tests by cash managing within the department. I presume that means moving monies around until they receive the cash to pay.

In fact, during the discussion on Wednesday night, Senator Patterson paraphrased what he had heard from the chief financial officer. Senator Patterson said:

. . . Bill C-10 allows you to retroactively collect for monies spent up to $2.5 billion after January 1, 2021. . . . Do I understand that right?

And Ms. Francis, the chief financial officer, said “Yes.”

Senator Gold: Thank you. I did attend the committee meeting, though I don’t have the transcript in front of me.

The officials were very clear that the tests that had been procured to date were funded out of existing statutory authorities that the law allows to be used and then be reimbursed. Those statutory authorities have run out. There is simply no legal capacity for the government to enter into contracts — today or tomorrow, if and when this is passed — with the suppliers demanding advance payments. Unless and until Bill C-10 is passed, or some future statutory authority is granted — supplementary estimates at the end of March perhaps; Bill C-8 whenever we might get it — the government is without capacity to find funds elsewhere to prepay or to move forward.

That’s the urgency. The government has no legal authority, for the moment, outside the authority that Bill C-10 would grant, to continue to seek those hundreds of millions of tests that Canadians are demanding, and that provinces and territories are demanding.

Hon. Percy E. Downe: Senator Gold, I have to tell you I don’t take particular comfort in your reassurance of transparency. We heard this morning another senator complaining about not getting answers. We have had questions on the Order Paper for weeks, months and, in some cases, a year, that have not been answered since you have been the government leader. I don’t know if the problem is in your office or the problem is that you can’t get answers from ministers, but this is very different than the situation when Senator Harder was the government leader in the Senate.

He made an effort to get these answers, and he made a public commitment similar to the rules of the House of Commons. The rules of the House of Commons are that members of Parliament can get an answer to written questions, as required by the rules, within 45 sitting days. Senator Harder attempted to and had some success in meeting that same standard in the Senate. That has now completely disappeared.

Where is the trust and the confidence when you say that you can advise us and give us answers when that has not been the case since you have been the government leader in the Senate?

Senator Gold: I am going to answer much of your question very briefly, Senator Downe, and with restraint. There is no problem in my office nor in my efforts to represent the Senate and to seek answers wherever appropriate. But that’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about, today, a bill to provide assistance to the provinces and the territories, including your own and the residents that you represent, so that the Government of Canada can fulfill its role in partnership with provinces and territories to assist individual Canadians, who have a constitutional right over their own bodies, to make intelligent and informed decisions.

The minister, not Marc Gold, in the other place and in committee, made an undertaking publicly to report in a transparent way, in addition to the reporting that has already taken place.

I ask this Senate to have confidence and trust in its institutions, in the federal institutions and in those who serve in it, to be honourable people and to honour their words.

Senator Downe: Well, actually, it did, Your Honour. Senator Gold urged us not to vote for the amendment because of the commitment of transparency. That’s the issue I want to confirm. He also just said that the Minister of Health indicated a verbal commitment to transparency. So, given the record of the government on transparency, particularly in the Senate, why would we not get that confirmation in writing through the amendment proposed by Senator Seidman?

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question, and at the risk of repeating myself — I seem to be in the habit of doing that over the last few weeks — the reason the government is urging senators to pass this bill without amendment is so that there will be no further delay in the ability of the federal government to procure those tests which provinces, territories, Canadians, the Red Cross and the chambers of commerce are asking them to procure.

It is only the ability of the federal government and its spending power that enables Canadians to have those tools, even though this is not an area of its jurisdiction. It is the practical real-life situation facing Canadians that we in the Senate are being asked to address, under circumstances where the reporting measures which this amendment seeks to incorporate in this act — with the corresponding impacts as I have described — are not necessary. This is not only because of the publicly stated commitments of the minister both in our committees and in the other place but because those reporting provisions that exist in a bill yet to be passed would apply to these as statutory expenditures.

Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. The government shares your concern as I think many Canadians do. I’m not sure if the image of the belt and suspenders is appropriate. There are belt, suspenders and one other girding instrument.

It is precisely because the demand for tests ramped up so dramatically. It is not that long ago when we worried that tests were being delivered to provinces and they were sitting on them. As the minister pointed out in his testimony, the exponential increase in demand is only expected to increase, for reasons that you outlined very well. That’s why the government introduced Bill C-10 but also wanted to cover its bases — because one can never tell when a bill will pass or if it will pass — with the supplementary estimates and Bill C-8.

My former law professor Laurence Tribe once said, if you live by the crystal ball, you had better be prepared to eat glass. I have a strong stomach, but I’m not going to take that risk. I don’t know. That’s the point. We don’t know what the delays will actually mean. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, there is worldwide competition for a finite supply — I hope it’s growing but, still, finite in any given moment — from a finite number of suppliers.

Unless and until the Government of Canada is legally able to start negotiating contracts, much less concluding contracts, much less paying in advance of delivery, we just don’t know. But when you do a risk-reward — and dare I say a utilitarian — calculation, which is part of our political obligations as members of a Parliament, the risk to Canadians’ health far outweighs the risks to transparency, given, as I have already said, the commitments and legal provisions in other bills that will come before us. I hope that answers your question.

Senator Kutcher: I will speak to the preamble as someone who has just had COVID-19. It was brought to the family courtesy of one of our grandchildren who was asymptomatic. He picked it up at school courtesy of another student, and it went through the whole family. I was as sick as a dog for about a week.

The rapid tests were absolutely essential. My son-in-law took a rapid test and was asymptomatic — he tested positive. He didn’t go to his workplace and infect all his employees. My daughter didn’t go to school, didn’t go to the classroom, didn’t go to her job site and didn’t infect everybody else. I happily stayed at home in bed.

As I understand this amendment, your argument is that the amendment will not significantly and substantially improve reporting commitments made in public by the minister and that it has the potential to delay the procurement of needed rapid tests which will then make it difficult for Canadians to manage their own COVID risk. Is that your argument?

Senator Gold: Senator, I very much hope that you can see your family in the U.K. No, that would be fear-mongering and that is not what I do in this place. I don’t know what the delay would mean. I suspect the delay will be felt less severely by those of us in this chamber. We have access to rapid tests by virtue of our privileged position.

Yes, because we are who we are. We don’t live in remote areas. We have access to pharmacies. Most of us have access including rapid test procedures made available to us here in the Senate. That’s all I was referring to. But not all Canadians are necessarily in the same position that we’re in, and not all Canadians will necessarily have the ability, without these tests, to take the measures to protect themselves.

I don’t know, and that’s the point. We don’t know the extent of the impact of delay. We know there will be an impact because demand from provinces is growing. The federal government is trying to play its responsible part in meeting the stated needs of the provinces and territories.

I remind senators that it is the provinces and territories that have responsibility over health. They are the ones that understand what the needs are. They understand the needs in remote areas, rural areas and Indigenous communities. The Canadian government is there to help them. That is what I am asking us to do today.

The Hon. the Speaker informed the Senate that the following communication had been received:

RIDEAU HALL

March 4, 2022

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the Schedule to this letter on the 4^th day of March, 2022, at 12:20 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Ian McCowan

Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor

The Honourable

The Speaker of the Senate

Ottawa

Bill Assented to Friday, March 4, 2022:

An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19 (Bill C-10, Chapter 2, 2022)

(At 12:47 p.m., pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on November 25, 2021, the Senate adjourned until Tuesday, March 22, 2022, at 2 p.m.)