44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to speak in the House a number of times and often referred to the fact that in the last couple of years during the pandemic, we saw the creation of a multitude of programs and supports. To say they were absolutely perfect would be misleading on my part, so I will not mislead.
Yes, we brought forward a suite of programs, and there has been the need at times to modify them. They were modified because we understood, after listening to Canadians, that we needed to make some adjustments. The Minister of Seniors just referred to one during question period in wanting to co-operate and provide additional funds for issues such as mental health and long-term care facilities. The list goes on in terms of the types of supports and investments we have made in health care over the last couple of years.
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Mr. Speaker, coming into today's debate, I was under the impression that Conservatives thought that rapid tests were effective tools, but I could not help but take note of the comment that was made by the member for Cumberland—Colchester today. He represents the Conservatives on the health committee and is a doctor as well. He said, “we need to have a look at the science”. That is a direct quote.
I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary can comment as to whether or not that sounds like somebody who believes that rapid tests are going to be useful in this pandemic.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to be kind. After all, the member for Cumberland—Colchester is a medical doctor, and we love our health care professionals for the fabulous work they have done throughout the pandemic.
That said, members on the government side or any Canadian cannot blame the Conservatives for giving different positions on the same issue at times. They have not been consistent. The quote that my colleague and friend just referred to highlights one inconsistency on a very important issue.
Science and health care experts are what we have been following and listening to since the beginning. The same cannot be said about the Conservative opposition party. Today some were questioning it. As the member pointed out, one was not only a medical doctor but also someone who sits on the health committee representing the Conservative Party. I do not get that.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to read from the manufacturer's booklet for the intended use of rapid tests. It says this test is “an in vitro diagnostic rapid test for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen...in human nasal swab specimens from individuals who meet COVID-19 clinical and/or epidemiological criteria.” In other words, regarding my colleague who earlier said today that we do have to look at the science, the manufacturer says this is accurate with people who have symptoms.
With the omicron variant, things have changed. For sure Conservatives believe in rapid tests as an important tool, but why do Liberals not want the motion to go to committee so we can get the most up-to-date science and spend Canadian tax dollars efficiently and effectively to help us all get out of this pandemic?
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know the package and I am not a doctor myself. At the end of the day, I am following the best advice that is provided to me. I would tell the Conservative caucus to feel comfortable in knowing that a vast majority of people recognize the science and the health care experts. Rapid tests are a good thing and we need to have them in our tool belt.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, which he tells me is the number one riding in all of Canada. I happen to think Barrie—Innisfil is.
Let me begin by noting how profoundly disappointed I am with the results of what I thought was a reasonable request on the part of the opposition, through our opposition day motion, to ask for a plan from the government, by February 28, for coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and limiting or cancelling all of the restrictions and mandates. We are seeing a cascading effect across the country in the provinces, with premiers coming out and telling their people that by a certain date, this is going to happen. This is causing any cynic to be concerned that perhaps the Liberal government does not want to end the federal restrictions and mandates, does not want to unite Canadians and does not want to provide hope to Canadians. After two years of lives and livelihoods being lost and businesses being decimated, somehow they cannot support this, and it only speaks to the fact that the Prime Minister and Liberal Party want this to continue, for whatever reason. I am profoundly disappointed that we are at this point in this country.
I rise today to speak to the Liberals' latest attempt to run roughshod over Parliament. Today the House is considering government Motion No. 8, which sets out draconian terms by which the House would dispose of Bill C-10. The bill is laudable in that it would give the Minister of Health the ability to purchase 2.5 billion dollars' worth of COVID-19 tests, the majority of which would be rapid tests. It would also grant the minister the power to start distributing those tests on April 1 of this year.
Throughout the pandemic, the Conservative Party has consistently and persistently called for greater access to rapid tests for all Canadians. In fact, in April 2020, I was approached by a rapid test distributor and he told me that he was being bogged down at Health Canada and that the approvals process for these rapid tests was not moving as quickly as it should, despite the fact that they were approved by the U.S. FDA on an emergency-use basis and also by CE bodies in the European Union. Arguably, these blue-chip regulators are the best regulatory agencies in the world. That is not to discredit Health Canada, but it was a problem in April 2020 that I was highlighting, and I know that my colleagues were as well.
In the election, we promised to break down the bureaucratic delays that were preventing the approval of rapid tests in Canada, and at that time, tests approved for use in the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union were not approved in Canada. Why was this so, when these blue-chip regulators were already approving them? We promised to make at-home test kits readily available to all Canadians, to deploy rapid tests to the border and other points of entry and to provide provincial governments with enough tests to keep schools open. Our support for the widespread use of rapid tests has been unwavering, and our support stands today.
Despite the fact the Liberals did drag their feet in getting these essential tools into the hands of Canadians, they can count on our support for this legislation. We are not trying to stop the legislation. We are just trying to get some oversight, because we believe this bill could be strengthened and we would like to propose three common-sense amendments.
For starters, if the minister has the ability to deploy the tests sooner, we would support an amendment that would allow him to do so. That is reasonable.
Second, we would propose an amendment to require the contracts for these tests to be tabled in the House. That is another reasonable request. Let us remember why we are asking for this. These are the same Liberals who found time, at the height of a pandemic, to hand $900 million in a contract to their friends at WE charity and another $237-million sole-sourced contract to former Liberal member of Parliament Frank Baylis. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect there would be some oversight and scrutiny on these contracts. The government, and indeed these Liberals, should not enjoy the blind trust of the House. They have proven in the past that this trust needs to be questioned. As such, we should require the highest level of transparency, especially when it comes to urgent spending related to COVID-19.
Third, the Conservatives would propose an amendment that would require the minister to report on the deployment of these tests to ensure they are being used as part of a plan to ease COVID restrictions. In short, we want to ensure that this investment of taxpayer money is used to help Canadians get back to their normal lives.
I would love nothing more than to debate the merits of these amendments, but the Liberals and their coalition partners in the NDP are teaming up to ram this bill through the House. Government Motion No. 8 provides for a shortened debate at second reading and a single vote that would be applied to the remaining stages of the legislative process. If the Liberals get their way, there will be no further debate, no ministerial accountability at committee, no testimony from stakeholders and no opportunity for the opposition parties to make amendments.
The government House leader is offering the House a binary choice, and under this motion, we can either take the bill as it is or leave Canadians with fewer available COVID tests. The government House leader is trying to deny the House a third option: to support a strengthened bill by incorporating amendments from the opposition. Instead, without as much as one word of debate on the bill, the House leader has moved to pre-emptively shut down debate. This motion is a flagrant abuse of power, and the Liberals are being aided and abetted by a hapless coalition partner.
That said, I recognize the need to pass this legislation quickly through the House, and on Friday, I sent a letter to all House leaders proposing a plan to dispose of Bill C-10 by Wednesday of this week. The proposal would have provided for a debate at second reading today, an abbreviated committee study tomorrow and final passage on Wednesday. It also included an order for the Minister of Health to appear at committee and for the amendments to be proposed during the usual clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. My proposal would allow the opposition to apply appropriate scrutiny and to propose improvements to the legislation without sacrificing the government's overall timetable to turn the bill into law.
The House should also be made aware that the Senate agreed to a government motion to adjourn the other place for the entirety of this week. As a result, whether the bill passes in the House today or Wednesday, it will not be considered in the other place until next week. Any due diligence that we apply to this legislation in the House this week will do nothing to delay it from receiving royal assent.
I will now take a couple of moments to address our colleagues in the NDP.
I am calling on them to remember that they are the party of Jack Layton and Tommy Douglas. Back in the day, theirs was a party that stood for workers, for low-income Canadians and for the democratic rights of members of the House of Commons. It is not so anymore. The NDP have abandoned their first principles. Perhaps it is because they have a leader who is more interested in his own social media than he is in social policies and how they impact Canadians.
For example, the NDP openly fights against jobs for unionized pipefitters and steelworkers every time they oppose new environmentally safe pipelines. They applaud the Prime Minister every time he talks about phasing out the jobs of hard-working Canadians in the oil and gas sector. In recent days, they have refused to defend the minority rights of workers who lost their jobs to discriminatory government mandates. They support the Liberal carbon tax that disproportionately hurts the poorest in our society. They support hikes in payroll taxes that make it harder for low-wage earners to make ends meet. The list goes on.
Inside the House of Commons, they have allowed themselves to be the moderate wing of the Liberal Party, and they should be ashamed for that. The Liberals can count on the loyal support of the NDP whenever they move to ram their agenda through the House. Since 2019, when the Liberals were reduced to a minority government, the NDP has supported the shutting down of debate on 14 different occasions. It is high time that the NDP distances itself from the tired Liberal government that is demonstrably anti-working class and increasingly anti-democratic. Perhaps its members can start by standing against this undemocratic motion in the House today. In June 2019, the NDP House leader argued against the Liberal majority government when it moved to curtail debate. Back then, he said the Liberals “promised to work with the opposition parties and all members. Instead, they are imposing gag orders”.
At a time when tensions are rising in this country, let us take the opportunity to demonstrate to Canadians that their elected officials can collaborate in the national interest. We can and should stand together to get the best results for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, the first Conservative speaker today talked about the science of rapid tests, and in his comments he implied that we need to have a study on the effectiveness of rapid tests. Given that the member who just spoke is the opposition House leader, I am wondering if he can expand on what the Conservative Party truly believes with respect to the effectiveness of rapid tests. Does the Conservative Party believe that they are, as science and health care experts say, the type of tool we must have? If so, would he indicate that there is no need to call into question the effectiveness of this particular tool?
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member was listening to what I said. I have been advocating for rapid tests since April 2020, a month after the COVID pandemic started storming around the world. I actually sent letters to the Minister of Health asking for the approval of certain types of rapid tests that had been approved by other blue-chip regulatory bodies, like the U.S. FDA and CE bodies in the European Union.
There is no question that rapid tests work; otherwise, they would not have been approved by Health Canada. However, that is not the issue here. The issue here is that we are debating a bill that the Liberals have dropped the hammer on, and it is a multi-billion dollar piece of legislation that at least requires some sense of scrutiny by MPs.
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Mr. Speaker, it always gives me great pleasure to listen to Conservatives talk about their support for workers. I mean, after all, this is a party that voted against pharmacare, voted against dental care and voted against establishing a wealth tax to level the playing field. Members of its caucus have been gleefully standing with the occupiers in Ottawa, who are harming small businesses and preventing workers from going to work. We have the receipts.
I have heard the member for Durham talk so much about how this country needs to get up on rapid tests, and we now have a bill that is going to authorize the federal government to provide the necessary resources to the provinces. I am just looking for some consistency from the member for Barrie—Innisfil. Could he explain why the Conservatives seem to be flipping and then flopping on this particular issue?
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Mr. Speaker, we support the bill. I do not think I can be any clearer than that. However, we are saying that we cannot bring the hammer down. Our job as members of Parliament is to provide oversight and scrutiny on the money that is being spent by the government to make sure it is effective and make sure it is being spent in the best manner it can be. All we are asking for, and the only compromise I propose, is that we have one day to scrutinize this.
We were not going to hold up the bill. The Senate is not sitting until next week, so if the bill gets approved tonight, it just sits there for five days. What damage can be done by providing a little oversight or some scrutiny on a multi-billion dollar bill? It does not make any sense. We support the piece of legislation, but we also support accountability.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things we see over and over again from the Liberals is that their measurement of success is how much money they have spent. They do not go back to the raw details about what actually happened. Here, again, we see a big dollar number. They are promising to spend a huge amount on rapid tests. It seems to me that this is a bit late and after the fact given that we have been calling for rapid tests for almost two years. Now, in the dying days of the pandemic, rolling out rapid testing does not seem like a good use of funds. I wonder if the hon. member has any comments on that.
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Mr. Speaker, the one thing we have found with these Liberals is that they are always a day late but they are never, ever any dollars short. They have never found a problem that they cannot throw money at. However, it does speak to the issue of scrutiny. If the member recalls, we had four hours to deal with a $57-billion bill at one time during the pandemic. Again, as I have talked about several times in the House, this speaks to a pattern of overreach, a pattern of control by the government, instead of letting us do our jobs, especially at a point when the Senate is not sitting. To let us do our job is not an unreasonable request.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin debating this motion, I will briefly comment on the opposition motion we just voted on.
In my riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon and across this country, Canadians are losing hope. They do not know what to do anymore. They have been triple-vaxxed, they have followed all the rules and they are just looking for some transparency from the federal government so they can get their lives back. Canadians urgently need a plan to get us out of this pandemic—
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- Feb/14/22 4:11:29 p.m.
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There is a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
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Mr. Speaker, the member indicated at the outset of his speech that he was going to start by talking about a matter that has already been voted on. We really do have to talk to this. Given the time constraints that have been highlighted by the Conservatives, I think it would be appropriate to stay on topic. He did say—
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- Feb/14/22 4:11:54 p.m.
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Actually, when he did start out, and I am going to continue on, he said that for a few moments he would mention this and then move to the rest of his speech. I think I heard him correctly, or I will stand corrected.
The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon has the floor.
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Mr. Speaker, it would be irresponsible of me not to look at what happened in the House earlier today with this motion for closure the Liberals put forward. For two years, Canadians have been living with COVID-19 restrictions. There have been two years of lockdowns, of not being able to visit loved ones and of not being able to travel. There have been two years of isolation that has inflamed a mental health crisis and hurt Canada's vulnerable populations.
When it comes to lockdowns and mandates, we are seeing the evidence and public health advice for change. Last week, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Teresa Tam, said that all existing public health measures needed to be re-evaluated so we could get back to some normalcy. Just last week, we saw two Liberal MPs challenge their government for being so political about how it was treating the pandemic, and the response the government was taking to dealing with COVID-19 across our country.
Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Israel, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Spain and Denmark are all moving to end restrictions and mandates. Many provinces in Canada are doing the same thing. Today, we come to the House and the government does not want to debate Bill C-10: It wants to debate stopping debate on Bill C-10. That is very problematic.
It was on December 14, if I recall correctly, that the government tabled Bill C-8. One of the key provisions of Bill C-8 was $1.72 billion for COVID-19 tests. We just debated that bill last week and the week prior. Canadians were looking for a plan in that bill. Liberals stood up time and again and said that they had a plan and were moving forward. For us to be here today, talking about Bill C-10 in the same context, which would see another $2.5 billion for rapid tests, I wonder what the House leader for the Liberals is doing.
Why do we have two bills that were tabled within four parliamentary sitting days of each other on the urgency of rapid tests when, in my province, the public health officer is telling us that, for the majority of the population, they are not needed anymore?
Dr. Bonnie Henry said that, in most cases, if someone is triple vaccinated, as I am, they can skip getting a test. If someone has COVID, they need to stay home and self-isolate. We are treating it like the regular flu. She is only recommending testing now for people who are currently hospitalized, pregnant, at risk of severe diseases or who live or work in a setting with others who are at an elevated risk of a severe illness.
Already, British Columbia is saying that we do not need to go to the Ag-Rec Centre in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon anymore and take a morning off work with one's two-year-old to get a swab up their nose. No. We just need to isolate them at home and move forward with our lives.
Now we are here in the House of Commons, having a debate about not having a debate on rapid tests. My big question is, where was the government a year ago? Where was it when parents had to take time off work? It costs parents an average of $250 for a week of day care, and then they had to take more time off work because of that. I know for a fact that if we had had rapid tests, parents would not have lost so much money. That is shameful.
Canadians were asking for rapid tests so long ago. Other countries, such as the U.K., the Netherlands and other European Union countries with similar GDPs to Canada's per capita, were able to navigate the virus in a much more efficient way because their governments were more responsive. All we get from the Liberal government is Bill C-8 on December 14, and then Bill C-10 on January 31, saying that we need to pay for rapid tests now.
I cannot help but be cynical knowing that the Prime Minister called an election that was really divisive for all of us. Liberals called an election because of the urgency to deal with COVID-19 and various approaches to doing so.
Here we are, so many months later, debating a bill not to have a debate on something that should have been done two years ago, or at least a year and a half ago. My constituents are upset. They are upset that they have to continue living with these lockdowns, but they are also upset with the incompetence of the government to move strategically on rapid tests, which is something that everyone agreed on, much earlier. That is shameful. It has impacted so many families and so many businesses.
Last week, I met with one of the largest sound companies in North America. It is based in my riding. It was ranked the number one sound company in North America in 2013, and the number one in Canada for many years. It is the only outfit in the province of B.C. that is capable of equipping BC Place stadium for major concerts. Company representatives came to my office, and were pleading with me for some type of path back to normalcy: some type of path to get their business going again. What they said to me was that they had taken advantage of the high-risk loans and they had taken advantage of the business loans. They were thankful for them, but they had come to a point where the Government of Canada was driving independent, private-sector small businesses into oblivion.
Yesterday, I received an email from Mr. Howes at Traveland RV. I went to school with his kids. The company is a major employer in Langley, throughout the Fraser Valley. The tourism sector does not know what to do this year, again. The supply chains are so impacted that the tourism industry does not know how to plan yet another year. It does not know where its revenue is going to come from. The tourism sector is asking for a plan. It is asking for some way out of this.
All we got from the government on December 14 and January 31 were two bills, both related to rapid tests. Frankly, they could have been the same bill. I do not know why they were done differently. Maybe someone could answer that in debate. All the tourism industry is looking for is a plan to get people back to work. All it wants to do is hire more people again. All it wants to see is a plan to end the mandates and to get people their lives back. It is not too much to ask.
Everyone has been vaccinated. We have a super high vaccination rate in Canada, but everyone has also gotten COVID. A lot of people who are triple vaxxed are getting COVID, and that is why some of our public health officials have changed their tune recently.
Omicron has evolved, and the government needs to evolve in the way it is approaching this new endemic stage of the disease.
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Mr. Speaker, I am starting to sense two different camps forming on the Conservative side of the House. There is one camp that thinks the rapid tests are completely useless. As the member said, in his home province they do not want them or need them. We heard the member for Cumberland—Colchester basically question the science of rapid tests, but then the leader of the Conservatives in the House, who spoke just before the last member, said that he believed rapid tests were absolutely necessary and that he actually plans to support this bill.
I am curious. Could the member who just finished speaking comment on whether he is going to support this bill, as his House leader is? If he is, why would he, given that he just finished questioning the fact that they were even needed?
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the member for Kingston and the Islands is misrepresenting what I said.
For much of the pandemic, when someone got COVID or thought they had it, they had to take time off work to get a PCR test. Frankly, we should have had rapid tests then, when that was the requirement of the Province of British Columbia. We are past that, but now the government is coming forward to say it will give people all these rapid tests. I wanted tests so that my wife did not have to take time off work. My neighbours wanted rapid tests so that they could go to work. That was the same in every community across the country.
Do not dismiss the public health officer of B.C., Dr. Bonnie Henry, who is changing her approach to dealing with the pandemic. Rapid tests still have a role to play, but not for the majority of the population, who are likely vaccinated and can likely self-isolate if they have symptoms of COVID-19.
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Mr. Speaker, it is odd, sometimes, to try to make sense of various Conservative positions in the House.
I do think that rapid tests are very likely to continue to have an important role to play in the pandemic. I think it is prudent to try to have a number of rapid tests on hand across the country, lest there be another wave that requires us to again undertake certain kinds of public health restrictions we have had up until now.
I do not think we can declare an end to the pandemic by fiat. If we could, I am sure someone would have done so a long time ago.
It is reasonable to be prepared, and I think that supporting this bill is part and parcel of that spirit of preparedness that I have heard members on all sides of the House call for at various times.
I think the hon. member's concern about financial oversight is warranted. He mentioned Bill C-8, which also has money for rapid tests. In my work as a parliamentarian, what I have discovered and what the government has—
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