Senator McCallum: You partially answered the question I had in your response to Senator Ringuette, but I was wondering if there was anything else you wanted to add. Is there any way that the provincial, federal and territorial governments could have predicted the need for rapid tests in the past, at this late stage and in the future?

Hon. Scott Tannas: Senator Gold, I have a few quick questions. It might have come up at committee. You may know or you may not. Will the government be procuring these tests directly from manufacturers, or will there be intermediaries involved?

Senator Gold: Well, that’s a good question. I think the answer is perhaps some combination. I think the minister or the officials in testimony outlined the different ways and challenges they have. Some are directly from manufacturers and some are from distributors so to speak. I don’t have more details than that, Senator Tannas. All I do know is — and the testimony was very clear — that there is a very competitive marketplace for procuring these. Canada has worked carefully and responsibly to approve large numbers of tests, including rapid tests. Within that basket of approved Health Canada tests, they are seeking to procure them in the best way possible, getting the most secure, safe and the best-priced supply as is possible in this environment.

Senator Gold: That’s a very good question. The only reliable answer I can give has to do with the number of tests procured and distributed. As I mentioned in my speech, in the past the federal government was responding to provinces that would indicate what they felt they needed. Different provinces were faster or slower in using rapid tests.

I think Senator Kutcher mentioned the success Nova Scotia has had. Quebec not so much in the early days, but that has changed dramatically. It has changed dramatically with Omicron because of the extent of its transmissibility and the fact that, in many cases, symptoms were, happily, less severe. When you put that together, it became all the more necessary to find other ways — in addition to molecular testing, which systems became overwhelmed — and rapid testing was that way.

Senator Richards, I’m sorry for being long-winded. The provinces and territories are telling the federal government, “We need more.” The federal government has responded to that with Bill C-10, and that is the best answer I can give you in terms of the growing demand and the ongoing need for as many tests as Canadians need.

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.

Hon. Jane Cordy: I was going to ask — as a mother and grandmother — a similar question as Senator Ringuette, so I’ll just reiterate that and ask another question. I think it’s extremely important that tests be made available as quickly as possible with March and spring breaks coinciding with the reopening of many provinces and territories. We would all like assurances that we will have access to the testing.

My other question has to do with section 3(1)(a), the details of payments made under section 1, including the recipient of each payment. If I recall, way back when, almost two years ago, which is sort of scary, when Canada was trying to find COVID tests and people were asking about the cost and all those kinds of things, you mentioned “commercial confidentiality” in your speech — that those things can’t be given out publicly — whereas this amendment would actually require that.