Questions about the stockpile’s state of readiness for the COVID-19 pandemic have been mounting for more than a month. On April 1, Health Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters that the government “likely did not have enough” equipment and that public-health preparedness had been underfunded for decades.
The stockpile’s budget is not available in public documents and PHAC officials, speaking at a House of Commons committee on Wednesday, couldn’t answer NDP MP Don Davies’s question about it.