Therefore, honourable senators, in amendment, I move:

That Bill C-10 be not now read a third time, but that it be amended on page 1 by adding the following after line 13:

“3 (1) No later than 10 sitting days after the conclusion of every three-month period that begins on the day on which this Act receives royal assent, the Minister of Health must cause to be tabled in each House of Parliament a report in relation to the preceding three‑month period that specifies

(a) the details of payments made under section 1, including the recipient of each payment;

(b) the details of transfers made under section 2, including the recipient of each transfer;

(c) in relation to payments and transfers under this Act,

(i) the number of tests purchased and the sources of those tests, and

(ii) the number of tests distributed, broken down by province and territory; and

(d) an evaluation of the effectiveness of the payments and transfers made under this Act on Canada’s response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

(2) Despite subsection (1), the Minister of Health is not required to table a report under that subsection in relation to a three-month period during which no payments or transfers were made under this Act.

(3) The first report prepared under subsection (1) must also include the information in paragraph 3(1)(a) and subparagraphs 3(1)(c)(i) and (ii) in relation to payments made under section 1 in the period between January 1, 2022, and the day on which this Act receives royal assent.”.

Thank you, colleagues.

On debate on the amendment, Senator Gold.

Thank you, Senator Seidman, not only for your speech but for your thoughtful and helpful intervention in this chamber over the course of the pandemic, especially with regard to the issue of tests and the things that Canadians need in order to protect themselves and their families, whether it was vaccines in an earlier phase or rapid tests, which has been a subject that you have brought to our attention and educated us on happily and thankfully over a long period of time. But here we are.

It is the position of the government that this amendment is not only not necessary but actually would cause harm. I want to take a few moments, respectfully and sincerely, to explain why.

As our colleague Senator Seidman pointed out, and as those of us who were at the committee on Wednesday would know, the minister made a clear public commitment. He stated in the House on February 14, and again before our committee on Wednesday, that the government is committed to reporting to Parliament every three months with information on how the funding in Bill C-10 will be spent, including the number of tests purchased and where they will have been distributed.

As I said in my speech, it is also the position of the government that the provisions that were included as part of Bill C-8 — to which Senator Seidman referred in her remarks — dealing with reporting requirements will also apply to funds paid for rapid tests under Bill C-10 because these are statutory expenditures. Therefore, respectfully I submit that an amendment of this kind is simply not necessary.

Furthermore, might I submit, colleagues, that the amendment as drafted would be problematic. The Crown cannot divulge payments made to specific suppliers, as the number of tests is already made public and competitors would then be able to determine the price of tests, which is commercially confidential information.

Let me now turn, if I may, to the consequences of not passing this bill today without amendment.

There is an urgent need, as I said in my speech, for this bill to pass so that there is a guarantee of supply for this month and into April and the spring. Not passing the bill before the two-week March break in our parliamentary calendar, as a result of an amendment, would significantly delay its implementation when funds are urgently needed to secure rapid tests in a highly competitive global market, including a competitive market from a procurement standpoint.

The consequence, colleagues, is that educational institutions, small- and medium-sized businesses, pharmacies and other suppliers will not get the rapid tests they need. If I may quote again from the comments of Mr. Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister at Health Canada:

For Bill C-10, the urgency is our ability to be able to contract and secure through advance payment contracts heading out into the end of March, April and into May. Global competition remains stiff, and our ability to secure those supplies requires that lead time. Hence, the passage of Bill C-10 on an urgent basis will allow us to be able to secure those contracts in the coming weeks in advance of the passage of supplementary estimates so hence during March and enable the advance payment which suppliers are looking for to allow for the provision of those tests and to have those tests be delivered in the next fiscal year, into April and May, as I noted.

The minister has confirmed, including at committee, the commitment to report to Parliament, as I’ve said before, and to uphold this commitment. He acknowledged that, “. . . transparency is key in not only informing senators and members of Parliament but also informing Canadians.” If there is a delay in passing Bill C-10, the government may experience difficulty in meeting the increasing COVID-19 rapid testing needs of Canadians as well as those of the provinces and territories.

Health is a provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has a role to play — and has played throughout this pandemic — in providing the necessary funds to provinces and territories to meet needs that their budgets simply could not otherwise meet. They need the resources so that their residents and citizens have access to the rapid tests and so that individuals can take control over their own lives. These tests empower individuals to make decisions about their own health and those whom they care about.

It is an appropriate role for the Senate — which exists to represent regional and territorial interests and the interests of all Canadians, especially vulnerable Canadians — to at least be mindful of the impact of delay in that regard, and especially and importantly because, as I said, the measures introduced by this amendment are simply not necessary. They are redundant in terms of what is already in place in Bill C-8 and has already been committed to, solemnly and publicly, by the minister.

Let me add that in addition to the reporting requirement every three months, the government does, in fact, proactively disclose a number of information sources, reviewed on a continual basis, on COVID-19 medical devices as can be found on Health Canada’s website.

Colleagues, you in this chamber, through me, can hold the government to account to the reporting commitments. As I said in my speech, parliamentarians will be appropriately informed as to how these funds have been utilized.

For these reasons, and to ensure the government has the tools readily available to assist provinces and territories and Canadians to meet the rapid test demands this month and heading into the spring, I would respectfully and humbly urge colleagues to reject this amendment. Thank you very much.

I actually have a question for you Senator Gold, maybe a couple of questions, if you will take them.

Of course.

It is my impression and understanding that the amendment I have proposed coheres completely with an amendment that was made to Bill C-8 when the government committed $1.72 billion for tests in December. Would you agree?

Senator, thank you for the question. As I said, the amendment you are proposing is redundant and not necessary and would impede the passage of Bill C-10. Bill C-10 is necessary, notwithstanding the funding also contemplated in Bill C-8 and the supplementary estimates, because of the actual situation in the global market, namely, the demand of suppliers facing tremendous competition for advance payments as well as the inability of the government — unless Bill C-10 is passed and until it gets the authority through Bill C-8 or supplementary estimates — to have the statutory authority to enter into these contracts.

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.”

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.

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?

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, I know we have broad leeway when asking questions, and I will continue to adhere to that, but I’m sure your supplementary will have some nexus to the debate on the amendment.

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?

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, I look at the calendar and I am very concerned, and I will tell you why. I’m very concerned because we are heading into March break, and that means young people, and families young and old, will be moving at high speed in every direction at the same time as most provinces are removing restrictions. My fear, my concern, is that if we don’t have these rapid tests in the next three weeks, maximum, when the March break mobility is over, I am very concerned — as a mom, as a citizen, as a grandmother — about the ability for our citizens to ascertain whether they have contracted COVID, so they can mobilize themselves to circumvent the proliferation. I am very concerned with regard to that.

With regard to this amendment, I am concerned because I feel it is unnecessary. The delay may cause a lot of health anxiety in our system. So, please, can you answer me? If we agree to this amendment, how will that delay getting these tests to our citizens? What is that delay going to cost us in health?

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 Gold, will you take another question?

Yes, of course.

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?

That’s a good question. I think we would all acknowledge that at the very beginning of the pandemic, with so little known then as compared to what we know now, that it would have been hard to predict in all respects what was needed. The government understands, and we expect and look forward to obtaining the lessons learned as we emerge.

What is clear, senator, is over the last number of months the government has been able to predict, and has responded responsibly to the escalating and exponentially increasing demand. That is why the government spent billions of dollars already. That is why the government exhausted its existing spending authorities, to make sure Canadians had access to as many tests as we could provide in January and February. The problem is the demand is still there and is likely to increase, and there are no spending authorities left to respond. There won’t be any until either Bill C-10 is passed or we arrive at a point where the supplementary estimates are passed which, as we all know, is many weeks from now. I hope that answers your question.

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.

I think that is a concern. It is important, as all senators would appreciate, that there are certain aspects of the procurement process, especially in a competitive environment, that need to remain quiet.

Again, I want to return to my main point. Yes, it’s March break, but it’s also Easter. It’s also Passover and other holidays. Families will be getting together very soon, we hope, and that’s what we want for all of us. Then not that long thereafter we’ll be gathering again to celebrate important holidays, religious, cultural and the like. I want us, as a country, to have the tools necessary to protect ourselves so we can make responsible decisions about whether we can get together and celebrate, one hopes, in a more fulsome way than we have been able to date. That’s the reason for this bill. That’s the reason why I urge you to reject this amendment and pass the bill without further delay.

Senator Ringuette and Senator McCallum asked the question I was going to ask, but I’ll put it in a slightly different way, Senator Gold, if I could.

Have we tracked the percentage of people who are demanding rapid tests over the last three or four months and if that demand has gone up or down? Is there is any way to know how it varies?

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.

Will the honourable senator take another question, please?

Yes, of course.

In discussions with departmental officials, have they indicated — if this doesn’t go through or if there is any lapse in funding — if we could get at least partial acquisition under way with the option to purchase remaining units in the new fiscal year? Has that kind of discussion taken place in the event this does not pass?

Thank you for the question. It is an important question, and the answer is that they were very clear in committee: There is no way for them to find any statutory authority to compensate or to allow them to proceed in the absence of Bill C-10. The short answer to your question is no. The statutory authority has run out. That is why Bill C-10 is needed now.

Yes, of course.

That is not only the nub of my argument, but you have expressed it far more economically and elegantly than I could have.

Senator Gold, may I ask you one question?

Of course.

In picking up on the questions by Senator Ringuette and Senator Cordy, many of us will soon, we hope, be seeing our families for the first time in well over two years. I for one now have plans, I hope, to see all my family, children and grandchildren in the U.K. for Easter and this will be the first time in almost two and a half years.

Government policy says that, obviously, I will need rapid tests. I agree with Bill C-10 and will vote against the amendment. But are you saying that if Bill C-10 does not pass unamended today, I may not be able to access those rapid tests and thus won’t be able to see my family after all of these two years plus?

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.

Senator Gold, would you take another question?

Yes, of course.

Thank you so much. I’m trying to understand a bit better about the procedures and the timing of this bill and of this amendment, and I want to check. Am I correct that there were no amendments proposed to this bill in the other place and that over two weeks ago it was unanimously accepted in the other place?

That is correct. It arrived here and we respected the notice periods. We also respected the request that it not be sent to committee and second reading not be concluded until the last week. So here we are.

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?

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.

Could you ask, Senator Gold, to pass along the request that when the minister is providing the after-action report on where they came from, that there be a description of how much came through intermediaries versus how many were acquired directly from the manufacturer.

It would be my pleasure to pass that on.

Are senators ready for the question?

If you are opposed to the motion, please say “no.”

I hear a “no.” All those senators seated in the chamber who are in favour of the motion will please say “yea.”

All those senators seated in the chamber who are opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion the nays have it. I see two senators rising.

Do we have agreement on a bell?

The vote will take place at 11:50.

Call in the senators.