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.