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Thousands of Bell employees — primarily technicians, and those working at the company’s various call centres across the country are compelled to show up to work in person, because of the nature of their jobs that cannot be done from home. For that reason, Bell has had to leverage its global logistics reach to procure gloves, coveralls and masks in bulk.

“You often don’t think about telecom workers at the front lines, but they are, and our workers have to be equipped properly,” said Bibic.

Bibic added that his company decided to “lock the masks down for Canada” in advance of contacting federal and provincial governments about their individual needs for PPE.

“We scooped them up first because we thought by the time we coordinated with governments and everyone got organized they would have been gone,” he said.

On Wednesday, Health Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters that the federal government’s stockpile of PPE was likely not sufficient to prevent provincial healthcare systems from becoming overwhelmed.

Donations from other companies

Anita Anand, the minister of public service and procurement said the government had placed an order for 300 million surgical masks and approximately 145 million N95 respirators to prepare hospitals for a potential surge of coronavirus cases — so far about 17 million surgical masks have been delivered to Canada, according to Anand.

An additional two million N95 masks are expected to be delivered to provinces and territories before next week.

Other Canadian companies like Canopy Growth Corp., the world’s largest cannabis producer have also contributed to the PPE shortage, donating 25,000 N95 masks and 40,000 surgical masks to Ontario this week.

Earlier this month, Chinese telecommunications company Huawei reportedly shipped more than a million masks, 30,000 goggles and 50,000 pairs of gloves to Canada, though the company has not officially confirmed the donation.