Question Period Note: MOBILIZING INDUSTRY TO FIGHT COVID-19

How has the Government of Canada mobilized Canadian industry in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic?

• The Government of Canada moved quickly to mobilize companies and industries to supply critically needed personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical devices to Canadians.

• More than 6,500 companies across Canada answered the Prime Minister’s call to action, re-tooling and scaling up their operations to help in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

• While the fight against COVID-19 is not over, Canada is now largely self sufficient in meeting the needs of Canada’s health care system.

SUPPLEMENTARY MESSAGES

PCO Speech From the Throne and Budget 2021 Messages:

• The government will continue its commitment to build domestic capacity, while securing supply chains to keep Canadians safe and create jobs.

• The government’s top priority remains protecting Canadians’ health and safety, particularly during this third, aggressive wave of the virus and its variants.

• The government will continue to have people’s backs just like Canadians have each other’s backs.

On March 20, 2020, the Prime Minister issued a call to Canadian businesses and announced the creation of a plan to mobilize and support Canada’s domestic manufacturing capacity to supply vital made-in-Canada protective gear and other medical equipment and devices needed to respond to the outbreak of COVID-19. Since then, over 6,500 businesses and individuals have responded to the call. ISED continues to respond to all offers of support received through the call to action, to assess how each can support the needs of Canadians and front line health workers. In addition, Canada’s Innovation Superclusters have tapped into their networks of more than 2,400 member companies to help develop and manufacture face shields, masks, and testing kits.

The government has also deployed industry and innovation programming, such as the NRC’s Industrial Research Program, the Strategic Innovation Fund, Superclusters, and Innovative Solutions Canada to support companies in rapidly scaling up their production capacity in Canada. For example the Next Generation Manufacturing Supercluster (NGen) funded 20 projects valued at over $54 million to support the production of critically needed technologies, equipment, and medical devices, including ventilators and test kits.

Under Canada’s procurement agreements with Canadian industrial suppliers of medical equipment, securing further PPE for our healthcare workers, there are a number of notable success stories:

• As of August 2020, Medicom officially opened its new manufacturing facility in Montreal, and has begun the production and delivery of domestically-produced surgical masks.
• In April 2021, General Motors delivered their 10 millionth mask to the Government of Canada, going on to donate still more to local organizations across Canada..
• The new 3M factory in Brockville, Ontario began the production and delivery of N95 respirators as of April 2021.

At the beginning of the pandemic, Canada produced essentially none of its own PPE. To date, approximately 40 percent of the total value of COVID-related contracts awarded through the pandemic were awarded to Canadian sources.

Building on the success of the Made-in-Canada initiative, the government continues to turn to Canadian industry in supplying the personal protective equipment needed by front line workers.

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