44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/8/22 2:40:47 p.m.
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Order. If I could have the House's attention, I want to remind everyone that we are in question period and we want to hear the questions and answers.
The hon. member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
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- Feb/8/22 2:41:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, downtown Ottawa has been under siege for the past 12 days, and this mess will not go away on its own.
As we heard again yesterday in his speech, the Prime Minister's plan for getting out of this crisis was to tell the protesters to go and get vaccinated. I have a news flash for him. At this point, they are not likely to go for that.
What is the government actually doing, aside from antagonizing the protesters? What action will the Prime Minister take? What kind of deadline will he give the protesters? When will he finally realize that magical thinking will not clear the streets of Ottawa?
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- Feb/8/22 2:42:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from the beginning, the federal government has been there to support the City of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service by providing 275 RCMP officers. The RCMP remains ready to provide additional assistance to the Ottawa Police Service in the form of additional personnel as requested by Mayor Jim Watson.
I will be speaking with him, along with the entire team on this side of the House, and we will continue to work closely with the city to provide all the necessary resources.
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- Feb/8/22 2:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is day 12 of the occupation of Ottawa, and the federal government is still not stepping up its efforts to resolve the crisis.
Yesterday, the Minister of Public Safety said, “I am proud that our government has done everything it could from the start to enforce the law”. He said that after pointing out that the government has made 275 RCMP officers available to the City of Ottawa. The city is calling for 1,800 officers. That represents 15% of the city's demand.
Is that all the government can do after 12 days of being under siege?
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- Feb/8/22 2:43:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yes, I am very proud of the government during the pandemic and I am very proud of the RCMP's contribution on the ground to provide more officers and help to the Ottawa Police Service, which is doing good work right now. There has been a lot of progress in the past two days.
We now need to put an end to this convoy, and the government and the City of Ottawa will work together to achieve that goal.
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- Feb/8/22 2:44:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not surprising that the siege is dragging on.
On the one hand, we have a Minister of Public Safety who waited 11 days before creating a crisis task force and who refuses to fully deploy the RCMP. On the other hand, we have a Prime Minister who still believes that the occupiers will listen to him, decide that he is right and go home to get vaccinated. That is the Liberal Party's idea of crisis management.
At this point, what is surprising is not that the member for Louis-Hébert is speaking out against his own party, but that he is the only one to do so.
When will the Liberals wake up?
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- Feb/8/22 2:44:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague has not been watching the news.
From the start, we deployed many resources. We added officers to help the police of jurisdiction. We will continue to work closely with the City of Ottawa, the Government of Ontario and everyone to resolve the convoy situation.
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- Feb/8/22 2:45:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I remember clearly in March 2020 making a pandemic plan for my regional hospital. At that time and ever since, the government has been too little, too late or not at the right time.
Canadians need hope for their futures. When is the Liberal government going to show leadership and give Canadians a much-needed plan to learn to live with COVID-19?
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- Feb/8/22 2:45:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising that important question.
We have been working together since March 2020 to fight the biggest health crisis in 100 years in Canada. We have gone through this crisis successfully, certainly with respect to many other countries in the world, and it is because we have worked together and helped each other, the provinces and territories and the federal government. We have invested eight dollars out of every $10 in total economic support, with $63 billion on health and safety investments, in addition to all the other investments we have been making for many years.
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- Feb/8/22 2:46:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, most provincial medical officers of health have begun to speak of living with COVID, and even Health Canada's own Dr. Tam has said that the virus will be endemic. Nova Scotia's Dr. Strang has spoken of initial steps needed to move forward.
When will the government rely on science, not the spin doctors, and the advice of its own experts and remove lockdowns, restrictions and mandates? Give Canadians the date.
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- Feb/8/22 2:46:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a very key signal to be against vaccination is to be in favour of lockdowns. The only way to fight lockdowns is to be in favour of vaccination. That is why I will again invite all opposition members, including the new Conservative leader, to exert new leadership and ask all members of the Conservative Party to be vaccinated. That is the only way to avoid lockdowns.
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- Feb/8/22 2:47:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a senior Liberal has shared his concerns that the government mandates are divisive and harmful to the Canadian people. The Prime Minister and his government need to stop politicizing the pandemic, because it is fracturing our society and dividing Canadians.
Will the Prime Minister listen to the voices within his own party and present Parliament and the rest of Canada with something, anything, to end the mandates, end the restrictions and allow us to start living with COVID?
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- Feb/8/22 2:48:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will say something that my hon. colleague already knows, most likely: The lockdown measures to which she refers are provincial decisions made by the provinces and territories. I believe no one in the House is confused between federal and provincial responsibilities. The federal responsibility has been and will be to support the provinces and territories moving forward.
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- Feb/8/22 2:48:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, somebody needs to tell the minister that it is 2022. The redundant PCR testing for asymptomatic, fully vaccinated travellers does not make any sense. Permanent travel restrictions are not the answer, because the current ones are ineffective. The government's duplicative arrival testing regime is out of step with the world. It takes up to a week for the results. That means forced quarantines and high costs for families.
When will the government join our allies and drop these ineffective travel restrictions?
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- Feb/8/22 2:49:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, working with our allies is exactly what we had to do and what we did. We have obviously worked with the United States, which is our closest ally, very successfully over the last few months. The mandate to which she refers, the border mandate in particular regarding vaccination, is entirely symmetrical and in line with what the United States is doing. We will continue to work with our allies.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Feb/8/22 2:49:38 p.m.
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Order. I want to remind hon. members that some of you do not realize how strong your voices are. Even if they are muffled with face masks, they really echo through. I ask members to respect each other and not shout at each other.
An hon. member: Sorry, Mr. Speaker.
The Speaker: Apology accepted.
The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
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- Feb/8/22 2:50:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the Liberal government's watch, online platforms were used to fund the ongoing occupation in Ottawa. Millions of dollars have been raised for convoy organizers whose stated purpose is to overthrow the government. Canadians are rightly concerned that these platforms have become tools used to help foreign actors undermining our democracy. In response to the lack of federal leadership, I brought a motion to the public safety committee to examine how this could be allowed to happen.
Will the government ensure that foreign funds and anonymous donations are never again used to help those attacking our democracy?
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- Feb/8/22 2:50:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my hon. colleague for the impending work he will do in conjunction with the committee on standing public safety matters.
This is a very important matter. Certainly over the course of the last number of days, we have seen GoFundMe take appropriate actions in asking the right questions about where certain funds were coming from and what they would be used for. Certainly to that extent, the committee will be looking at this issue very closely.
We all need to be seized with the landscape as it exists around foreign interference, and any funds that may be used to undermine public safety.
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- Feb/8/22 2:51:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister talks about being seized with urgency, but it is 12 days that health care workers, small business owners, Ottawa residents and others have been harassed by some members of the convoy. Far-right extremists in the U.S. and elsewhere are trying to bring their radical views to Canada. They are funding extremists. They are empowering racism and anti-Semitism, and they are threatening to overthrow our government.
Why has it taken so long to respond to this ongoing crisis and the foreign-funded interference that is threatening our citizens, our country and our democracy?
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- Feb/8/22 2:52:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to assure my colleague that we have very strong laws to prevent the kind of illegal conduct she has referred to. Any funds that would go toward undermining public safety, national security or indeed our democracy will be taken with the utmost seriousness by our law enforcement as well as our intelligence community.
I look forward to the work that the committee will do. We will receive the report in this chamber, and we will continue to unite around the need to ensure our laws are upheld. Yes, we will have vigorous debates, but always in accordance with the rule of law.
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