Trudeau Responds to Allegation That COVID Test Kit Supplier With Billions in Contracts Edited Submitted Results

The prime minister says there are ‘obviously lots of lessons’ his government will need to learn to prepare for the next pandemic.

The contents of a COVID-19 antigen rapid test kit are pictured in Calgary, Alta., on Jan. 4, 2022. The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh

Following a report alleging that an importer of rapid COVID-19 tests with billions in government contracts gave regulators incomplete data about the product’s accuracy in detecting the disease, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government will need to learn lessons to prepare for the next pandemic.

“During the pandemic, we were doing everything we could in unprecedented ways to get as many different ways of keeping Canadians safe as we possibly could, whether it was on rapid tests, whether it was on procurement of PPE, whether it was on contracts for vaccines,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters on Dec. 21.

“There’s no doubt that obviously lots of lessons to learn about things that worked really well, about things that we probably won’t be doing again in the next pandemic when it comes.”

On Dec. 21, Global News reported that the company BTNX, a small rapid COVID-19 test kit supplier, allegedly deleted dozens of samples from a study it submitted to Health Canada. The report alleges that company’s deletions made its test appear more reliable and sensitive than it was in actuality.

BTNX said it did not give inaccurate information to Health Canada, claiming in a response to Global News that it had “at all times operated with integrity and transparency, and have manufactured and distributed our COVID-19 rapid tests in accordance with Health Canada and international standards.”

Health Canada did not provide The Epoch Times with a response before press time.

Prior to COVID-19, BTNX’s revenue was based on harm reduction, such as selling kits used by people to test illicit drugs for deadly substances such as fentanyl. But the company received an estimated $2 billion through 15 federal contracts in 2021 and 2022, and provided 404 million COVID tests to the Public Health Agency of Canada, Global News says.

The tests were used across the country as a screening tool before Canadians returned to work, sent their children to school, and visited relatives in long-term care facilities, in addition to being relied on by government to determine whether to lift or intensify public health restrictions.

According to Global News, BTNX sourced its tests from a manufacturer in China called Assure Tech. When analyzing Assure Tech’s original evaluation and BTNX’s edited study, Global News said it found that BTNX had edited some details but kept the remaining data identical.