Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Actually, yes, I was on the committee back then. Quite interestingly enough, the Province of New Brunswick right now is looking at studying a family-friendly type of legislature in New Brunswick. As Mr. Lauzon has indicated, we have an awful lot of young parliamentarians and, as such, they're wanting to look at things differently. It's good.
Before I begin, I wanted to say a special hello to Richard Cannings, the member of the NDP.
Thank you for joining us today, Mr. Cannings. I always have great memories of my first day in Ottawa. I met you and your wife in 2015 in our orientation session, and I think you and I both didn't exactly know what we were getting ourselves into. It's great to see you, and thank you for joining us. It's always great.
I have to also say, Monsieur Lauzon, thank you so much for all of your comments. I have to laugh when you say you're new to PROC and that you really want to make sure you're carrying your weight.
You are carrying your weight, no doubt about it.
You're continuing to work. I have to say you're certainly contributing a lot to the committee, Stéphane, and we appreciate your wisdom and your experience. Thank you so much for all that you do for us.
Before I start, I have to be honest. My comments are somewhat related to what Mr. Lauzon said earlier.
We are talking about the whole question of the relevance of prorogation. We are continuing this study that began several meetings ago. I think we can say that the opposition members have already made up their minds.
The last time I was in the House of Commons was on March 11, when Bill C-7 was introduced. That evening, I took the time to listen to all the debates in the House. Time and time again, members of the opposition, particularly the Conservatives, established links between prorogation and the WE Charity speech. I know they want to hear further witnesses at the committee, and I also think they want to reopen this debate.
I find it unfortunate that we are still debating this issue today. After all the attempts by the opposition members to make WE Charity the subject of this study, I was hoping that they would have finally moved on, but we are still here today. It's really unfortunate, because we want to work on issues and studies that matter to parliamentarians and to Canadians, but we need to continue to pursue this issue.
Like my colleague Mr. Lauzon, this past weekend, I had the opportunity to phone my constituents on what is called an action weekend. At no time did people talk to me about prorogation or the study of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. That said, what really came out of those conversations was vaccination. I could see that people were very hopeful. There was a light at the end of the tunnel as, finally, vaccination and delivery rates were gradually increasing.
Again, speaking about the many calls that I, my staff and volunteers have done over the past week, hearing about the issue of vaccination was really what was key and paramount to the people I spoke to. Prorogation certainly was not top of mind for people. I would again say that prorogation is not something that most Canadians think of day in and day out.
When it came to the issue of vaccination, when speaking to my constituents, again, they had hoped.... We know the big lift, as Minister Anand likes to say, is starting to occur now.
For me, I'm really excited when we're able to say to people that our original objective of having six million vaccines by the end of March is now not the case. We are actually going to have over 9.5 million vaccines in Canada by the end of next week. That's really exciting. I know that when constituents spoke to me this weekend, that's really what they were talking to me about.
They had questions about Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and J and J. There are many opinions about that. However, what they also wanted us to focus on was making sure that Canadians had the right information about vaccines. They wanted to be reassured.
Health Canada regulators are doing a phenomenal job. When we hear that these folks are working around the clock to do the approval of vaccines, they really are. I know a lot of these people personally, and I can tell you that I see the black marks under their eyes, because they are literally working seven days a week to get the work done.
They deserve our congratulations. They are doing it because they want to keep Canadians safe. They also want to make sure that the work that needs to gets done, that we are not taking shortcuts and that vaccines are being approved in Canada.
What Canadians want is for us to protect their health and safety and their families'. They recognize that we need to get vaccines in arms as quickly as possible if we want to get a handle on COVID-19.
I also think what people are concerned about as well right now.... Again, I find it quite disturbing and really unfortunate that we're here debating this matter. Canadians are also really concerned about the third wave that's probably upon us right now. I shouldn't say “probably”; it is upon us.
Coming from New Brunswick, our numbers are a lot lower per capita, and I'm very pleased about that, but I'm concerned about all provinces and territories. Today alone—I was just looking at the numbers this morning—in the province of Ontario, we have 372 people right now who are in the ICU. That is the highest number since the peak of the second wave. The third wave is upon us in some areas, and it's really important to make sure that we continue to have all hands on deck to do the work that needs to be done.
Not only do we have to have vaccines in arms, but we have to continue to practise the public health guidelines. Last year, none of us knew what that was. We didn't talk about public health guidelines as much as we do now. However, we know that we have to do that. We have to have a multipronged approach to effectively gain control of this situation. I'm proud, as Canadians, that we continue to do that.
Again, in Ontario they were saying that over the past 24 hours, they've had 33 new admissions in ICU. We know that these numbers are creeping up again, so we have to work together and we have to make sure we have all hands on deck.
What Canadians want us to focus on is the issue of vaccines. They are really proud of the work that Minister Anand has been doing on this file. She's been doing a lot of heavy lifting. The job has not been easy and she continues to push those targets, because again, we want to make sure that the numbers of vaccines coming in are coming in as quickly as possible.
If I look at the province of New Brunswick, our small little province here on the east coast, population 750,000 total, and the number of vaccines coming in, that's what the people in my riding are really concerned about and really excited about. I quickly went through some of the lists of the numbers we're seeing in the province of New Brunswick. Last week, the week of March 15, we saw 9,300 vaccines come into our province. However, this next week—how exciting—we're receiving almost 25,000 vaccines.
That number continues on that trajectory, and that is without the additional 1.5 million AstraZeneca vaccines we are receiving from the U.S. We can see that the work we are doing is going to continue to ramp up and ramp up. From there, the speed that we can get vaccines into the arms of Canadians is absolutely key.
I also have to give a shout-out to Major-General Fortin, who has been doing a phenomenal job with respect to the issue of vaccine delivery across the country. We certainly recognize that is not a small feat. It's the biggest challenge, I am sure, that he's had in his career, probably, when it comes to logistics, but he's doing a great job and working collaboratively with provinces and territories to make sure that provinces get the supplies they need.
The other thing, as well, that I want to comment on was mentioned to me this week. Many Canadians aren't aware that the federal government is not only procuring the vaccines that are needed, but also all of the equipment that is needed to make sure those vaccines get into the arms of Canadians.
When we look at all of the PPE, the needles, the swabs and all the rest of it, a lot of work has been done in that area to make sure that we not only have the vaccines but the tools. If we don't have the tools that are needed to administer the vaccines, we're not going to be ahead.
Again, Minister Anand has done a phenomenal job in that area, in making sure that people have access to the tools.
I have to also comment that not all countries were as well prepared to have those additional tools that were needed. Some countries, because they didn't have the tools, weren't able to administer the vaccine. Therefore, we can see that Minister Anand has taken a global approach to making sure that all that was needed was—