44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/14/22 4:35:34 p.m.
- Watch
Before I move on, I just want to thank the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge for reminding us that it is Valentine's Day. I know our discussions in here get pretty heated sometimes, but let us make sure we wish a happy Valentine's Day to all the folks who allow us to do the crazy jobs that we do here in the House of Commons.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
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On that note, Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish my wonderful spouse a happy Valentine's Day, and I would like to wish the member across the way a terrific Valentine's Day as well. He is a member whom I respect greatly.
Because we will not have a chance at committee, I want to ask a question that I might ask at committee if given the opportunity. This COVID endemic or pandemic could last for some time. Could the member let me know, if he knows off the top of his head or send the documents, when the rapid tests the government is going to purchase will expire?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South. He replaced a very good friend of mine, so I liked the prior member a bit more but I know he is doing the best job he can to represent his constituents. I congratulate him.
I will say this. Obviously, I do not know the expiry dates of the rapid test kits. My understanding is that they are quite lengthy. What is important is that, once they are received by the provinces, much like in the province of Ontario, they are distributed very quickly to the population and, most importantly, to vulnerable populations.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying hello to my constituents in Trois-Rivières, and everyone else for that matter. Over the weekend, many people told me that they were not too happy that the government was shutting down debate in these circumstances. I guess that when a government does not believe in its own bill, it invokes closure.
In any case, I would like to ask my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge a question on vaccination efforts around the world. Canada does not exist in a vacuum, and, if we want to fight COVID-19, we will have to look beyond our borders.
What does my colleague intend to do to secure the logistical support needed for getting vaccine doses to developing countries and ensuring that those doses get there and are properly administered?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
If I understood the question from my hon. colleague correctly, the first and most important thing we need to do to help developing countries is to get them the vaccines to make sure their populations are vaccinated, because we know we can only fully emerge from this global pandemic globally, with all countries working together. Canada continues to do that and we will continue to go along that path.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to give a shout-out to my husband on Valentine's Day as well.
I wonder if the hon. member would agree with me that there is a danger in all the rhetoric about freedom that we forget the people who are actually the real victims of COVID. As of last Friday, there were 87 people in the hospital in my community and 14 in intensive care. We were averaging two deaths per day and over 200 new cases. We have 22 outbreaks in long-term care homes. We are still delaying over 500 surgeries a week for things like hip replacements.
I know there is a lot of frustration about how long the pandemic has gone on, but would he agree with me that we have to keep in mind that some people are suffering the real impacts of COVID?
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Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague. He is absolutely correct. If we look at what the pandemic has caused and how we have tried to protect our health care system from the waves that have overwhelmed it, we know that most of those waves have been caused by unvaccinated individuals. Therefore, when we think about freedom, we need to think about both our collective and individual responsibilities, and we have a collective responsibility to get vaccinated and do the right thing to ensure the protection of our families.
Here in the province of Ontario, much like in British Columbia, literally tens of thousands of surgeries have been cancelled in order to ensure we protect our health care system from becoming overwhelmed. Those frontline workers who, for the last two years, we have asked so much from, I want to thank them for everything they have done.
Just to add very quickly, over the holidays my parents visited me from Vancouver. I had to take my father to the hospital twice. Thankfully, everything turned out all right, but just being there in the emergency room watching the frontline workers attend to people and do what they do every single day was proof that they are the real heroes of this pandemic.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute privilege to be here today to speak to Bill C-10, which is legislation that is being introduced to increase the number of rapid tests being sent to the provinces and territories by the Government of Canada. I cannot see this being a controversial piece of legislation. It is straightforward and it is needed, given we are still in the midst of COVID-19. Therefore, I will support it, but I would be remiss to not use this opportunity to explain my view on the broader front of what we are witnessing across the country vis-à-vis COVID-19.
I have spoken at length in this House on my perspective surrounding the protocols associated with COVID-19. I will let Hansard reflect my interventions to date, but let me say this: We collectively simply cannot wish away the pandemic. We all want to be able to move on. People are tired. There has been a significant impact on our lives for the past two years and I will readily admit to a differing degree on the basis of one's profession and circumstance.
When we look at the history of the outbreak of the Spanish flu, today known as influenza, the same debates we are having now on vaccine mandates, around health protocols and the pathway forward were taking place then. In fact, it took approximately three years for that pandemic to make its way through Canada at that given time. Let us be clear: The puck is moving on how jurisdictions around the world are evaluating their respective health measures.
Here in Canada, Dr. Tam has signalled that we, too, will be evaluating our existing protocol at the federal level, and other provincial and territorial governments that are largely responsible for the measures which have been cited in this House are also evaluating next steps. We should celebrate that. It is because Canadians have embraced vaccination and by and large followed the recommendations of public health that has allowed us to be in the position we are in to be able to move forward.
It is important to caution all of us as policy-makers that the decisions surrounding public health should not be made alone on public sentiment, but rather on science, on data and what is a reasonable balance between collective and individual freedoms. I trust and expect that governments at all levels will act accordingly and not on the instinct of what their supporters or partisan base may desire.
I want to go broader and discuss what we are seeing across the country, what I worry about for our democracy and our civil discourse in this country.
First, what we are seeing right here in Ottawa is not a protest. It has gone beyond that. It is a coordinated occupation. We would be naive to assume that what we are seeing in this country is simply and solely tied to COVID-19 and health protocols. The actions being undertaken are to cause direct disruption to Canadians. As is being reported, the organizers behind these actions are well funded, including from foreign sources. The last statistic I saw was that nearly 50% of the funds were from the United States.
The membership includes former law enforcement officers and ex-military members. The actions, particularly this last week, have gone beyond burdening the residents of Ottawa, which has been terrible, but it has also included a deliberate targeting of the Ottawa International Airport. These individuals have openly stated their goal is to overthrow the government. They have espoused ludicrous ideas of meeting with the Governor General and forming a “coalition” to establish a new government. This may seem crazy to some, but that is the stated goal of the individuals behind the protest here in Ottawa.
Elsewhere in the country, there are coordinated efforts to block critical public infrastructure. In Coutts, Alberta, in Emerson, Manitoba, in Sarnia, and the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, which represents 25% of our trade relationship with the United States vis-à-vis vehicle traffic that crosses our border every day with our important partner. This, by all accounts, is an effort to destabilize our country and causing economic harm.
I have the privilege of sitting on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. We heard today from a number of witnesses, the impact that this is happening on our supply chains. There were industry leaders from the pork industry, for example, who said there have been hundreds of trucks that have been impacted and have not been able to travel back and forth. The economic harm is clear. The auto industry has been impacted. This is having adverse impacts on everyday Canadians.
This is a relationship with our most important trading partner and it is impacting our food security. I submit to the House that these actions being undertaken in a coordinated fashion with the open goal of overthrowing the government is akin to an insurrection and we as parliamentarians should see it as such.
Yes, as I have done before, I will not suggest everyone in the country who is protesting has this intent. I think that is very clear, but I truly believe that the principal organizers who are behind particularly what we are seeing in Ottawa have that intent that I have just laid out before us.
Last week, I was pleased to hear the leader of the official opposition call for protesters to go home. Unfortunately, this was the same member who a week ago actively encouraged these individuals to stay and make it “the Prime Minister's problem”. I truly hope that members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition understand the gravity of what the country is facing and do not fan the flames.
While I appreciate that policing is inherently within the jurisdiction of municipalities and the provincial governments, the actions we are seeing and where this is headed is of truly a national security risk and needs to be dealt with as such. We need to continue to coordinate with all levels of government and I ask our government to match our actions and our posture to the level of the threat that exists. Indeed as I stand here delivering my remarks, it is common knowledge that the government intends to introduce the Emergencies Act moving forward.
It is important that we also recognize the decline of civil discourse in the country. Over the past two weeks, we have seen how journalists have been harassed, intimidated and threatened simply for trying to do their jobs. Mr. Speaker, we have had members in the House who have been targeted, you being one of them, along with the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, the member for Cape Breton—Canso, elected officials across Nova Scotia with packages, with hateful information and indeed chemical irritants. This is completely unacceptable. This is disgusting. We as members of the House have a responsibility to call it for what it is.
I want to talk about the use of “mainstream media”. It is an Americanized term and I have started to notice a number of members in the House start to use it. It concerns me and here is why. It is giving the suggestion that media outlets in this country are propagating false information.
I will readily admit that certain news agencies will have ideological bents. I read the National Post, for example. It has a more centre right conservative view on issues. The Globe and Mail may be in the centre, and CBC could be seen to be centre left, but when we as members start to use the term “mainstream media”, and I hear some of my colleagues across laughing, it starts to denigrate the integrity of media in our country. It leads, frankly, to tribalism, because if we cannot agree on a common element of fact in the House, and yes, we should debate different ideologies, different processes, but if we do not have some basic common element of truth, we see what is happening in the United States, the divide in the country. I ask all members of the House to be mindful of our civil discourse, of our behaviour and the words that can denigrate media outlets from reporting.
I lay these concerns before colleagues in good faith. I do not believe myself to be alarmist, but to be reflective of what we are seeing. I am confident that Canadians, our democracy and our institutions are resilient to what we are experiencing. I ask my colleagues to please be mindful of our role to maintain a healthy democracy, to maintain civil discourse and to ward off those who may want to undermine our beautiful country.
Given that I have about 20 or 30 seconds left, it being Valentine's Day, let me say happy Valentine's Day to all Canadians. To my sweetheart and my fiancée, Kimberly, and to our loyal Bernese mountain dog, Sullivan, I say happy Valentine's Day.
I look forward to taking questions from my colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish the member a happy Valentine's Day, but I am hoping he would join me and indeed join his caucus member, Joel Lightbound, in calling for a more—
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- Feb/14/22 4:51:33 p.m.
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I would remind members to refer to members by their ridings.
The hon. member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would like to join his colleague, the hon. member for Louis-Hébert. I too believe we can have a better level of discourse, one that has compassion and collaboration at its heart, not anger and division. Would he stand today and criticize the leader of his party, the Prime Minister, show some strength of character and tell the Prime Minister that we need better, we need a prime minister who does not divide but unites Canadians, as do other people?
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Mr. Speaker, I believe if we check Hansard, we will see that I have called on all parliamentarians, whether they be in this House, whether they be the Prime Minister, the leader of the official opposition or elected officials at provincial and municipal levels. It is incumbent on all of us to have a tone and discourse that is respectful and where we can agree to disagree.
I would agree with the member opposite that it is extremely important that we all have that collective responsibility, regardless of the title or role that we hold in this House.
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Mr. Speaker, I thought we were talking about rapid testing. My colleague may have slightly deviated from the main topic, so I will allow myself to do so as well.
My Conservative colleague just spoke about the member for Louis-Hébert, who joined the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois in calling on the government to present a clear plan, as the provinces have done, so that we can get an idea of what is coming.
The member for Louis-Hébert also asked his government to start negotiating health transfer payments with Quebec and the provinces, which is something that we would have liked to have seen in Bill C‑10. Sure, quickly giving the provinces more money so they can deliver rapid tests is a good thing, but we should also start negotiations around supporting our health care systems.
I would like to know my colleague's opinion on this. Is it not high time that the Prime Minister started to listen to his caucus members a little more closely?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for her question. My microphone was not working because of technical difficulties before my speech.
With respect to health transfers, the government made promises during the election campaign. It promised to increase funding and enhance health care systems across the country, especially in Quebec. The government's plan is to provide that help to the provinces.
With respect to speeches in the House and other ways MPs communicate with the public, I think all Canadians are now tired of COVID‑19, but the government has to develop a plan for the days to come. I am confident this government will produce that plan in due course, but not in response to the opposition motion.
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Mr. Speaker, as we move forward with making sure that people have the rapid tests they need to continue to address the realities of COVID, we know that in Canada we are still not seeing the investment that we need to support local businesses in being able to provide PPE and other necessary requirements for us to deal with these kinds of health concerns. That is unfortunate.
I wonder if the member could explain why the government is not taking that dedication and especially making sure that we are never in a place again like we were at the beginning of the pandemic when we could not even find the things that we desperately because they simply were not created in our country.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague raises the importance of making sure that we have supplies and rapid tests in the days ahead because, although, yes, we are on the other side of omicron, the reality is that this pandemic could perhaps stay with us in the days ahead. There is not going to be a moment in time where we simply throw down the gauntlet and say we are done with the pandemic. Notwithstanding, I would argue that some members of this House want that to be the case, but that is not how it is going to work.
Our government, since day one, has been there to invest with the provinces and territories in supporting this PPE. As I mentioned earlier in the House to the member's NDP colleague, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry has been working closely with a whole bunch of private sector players to make sure that we have vaccine capacity and PPE in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, I know that members will be disappointed to hear this, but I will be sharing my time with one of my colleagues.
We are at a critical time in this nation's history. We hear a lot of, frankly, intentional efforts by other parties to misstate the Conservative Party of Canada's position, but I think it is important to put some clear things on the record about what we are proposing in terms of the response to this pandemic.
Number one, Conservatives oppose the federal mandates. That is why we put forward a motion calling on the government to put forward a plan to end federal mandates. Now, why do we oppose these mandates? It is because they do not make sense, because they are not rooted in science, because they do not help us fight COVID-19, and because they infringe on the rights and liberties of Canadians.
Let us talk about the truckers' mandate. These are people who work alone inside of their trucks. They have to abide by all provincial regulations when it comes to masking and accessing restaurants. Whatever the rules are in the province or state they are in, they have to abide by those rules just like everyone else. An exemption for truckers crossing the border was in place through the entire pandemic up until January, and then the government brought in this additional punitive measure, targeting these frontline workers who had served our country so ably throughout the pandemic and for a long time before. We oppose the truckers' mandate.
We have consistently called for vaccine mandates when it comes to air travel, train travel or the public service, and we have talked about legitimate exceptions for people so that they can have some level of autonomy and choice. That means getting a rapid test before getting on a plane is a reasonable alternative when it makes sense to have that in place. Many public servants throughout the pandemic have worked from home, so a vaccine mandate for firing people, removing people from their jobs, simply because they are making a personal health choice when they are already working from home just does not make sense. Conservatives have been clear on a position that I think is rooted in science and evidence in opposing these federal mandates.
The other thing that we as Conservatives oppose are the efforts by this government, in particular this Prime Minister, to demonize friends and neighbours who may have made different choices about their personal health. As other members have said, every person has their own story. Every person certainly has the responsibility to take the measures they can to protect those around them, but people have to make those decisions individually, and we do not believe in being the kind of country where people are compelled against their will or on pain of job loss to take a vaccination that they still have questions about.
I hear Liberal members now talking about the tone, about bringing down the temperature and about inflammatory comments. The Prime Minister of Canada asked the question, “Do we tolerate these people?” Those were the Prime Minister's words. He talked about not tolerating people. He will call all kinds of names and put in place any kind of policy measure to squeeze those who are making different kinds of personal health choices. It is not helpful, frankly, in persuading people about any issue, to try to demonize and “otherize” those who are making a different choice about themselves. Therefore, we oppose the federal mandates and we oppose the clear efforts by this government, as called out by members of its caucus, to polarize the conversation and demonize those who have made a different choice.
We have also said, and I have said consistently, that we support the right to protest and we support the message of those who are coming to protest on the issue of the federal mandates. Thousands of Canadians who have been forced out of their jobs, have lost businesses, are in a dire position because their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their families are threatened, whose mental health is threatened and are experiencing things they have not experienced before have chosen to come and protest. Many have not ever come to protest before. We support the right of people to protest. We support people's message when it comes to saying that these mandates are fundamentally flawed, they are not based on science and they infringe on individual liberty.
At the same time, we have also been consistently clear in opposing the blockading of critical infrastructure as part of a protest. The great thing about the Conservative Party of Canada is that we have been entirely consistent in opposing blockading critical infrastructure in every case. We have called for additional legislative tools consistently for years when it comes to issues around blockading critical infrastructure, and it does not matter what the cause is. If the cause is federal mandates, if the cause is Idle No More, if the cause is opposing a pipeline, if the cause is trying to create a multi-heritage month—a cause near and dear to my heart—or whatever the cause is, people should not be blockading critical infrastructure. Conservatives have always said this—
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Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.
There are two parts to this bill, and it is a very small bill. One part speaks to spending money to purchase rapid tests and the other paragraph speaks to distributing those tests to provinces and territories. This member has not spoken to this bill at all during the five minutes that he has already spoken.
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- Feb/14/22 5:01:51 p.m.
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To the member, I have given a lot of leeway to a lot of members in the House to speak their minds and of course to get to the motion that is before us.
I will caution the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to adjust towards the bill.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands is eager to interrupt me, of course, because I am pointing out clearly the misinformation that has come specifically from speeches by members of the government during this debate. It is ironic that he would rise on a point of order to try to interrupt me when I am explicitly responding to things that members of the government have said. I know he is eager to come on my podcast, but this is not the way to do it.
Let me resume the point I was making, which is that Conservatives have been clear and consistent on the issue of blocking critical infrastructure.
Interestingly, immediately prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had a situation in which critical infrastructure throughout the country was being blockaded, and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations met with the protesters and talked to them. He said it was important not to ramp up and escalate the situation, which is a tone completely different from what we are seeing right now. In contrast to that tone, we have said consistently that we support the message of those who are calling for an end to mandates and we recognize that many of the thousands of people who have come out across the country to protest have done so entirely peacefully. It is sad to see that those who have participated in blockading critical infrastructure are really, frankly, allowing the Prime Minister a distraction. The Prime Minister would much rather be talking about blockades than talking about his own policy failures when it comes to mandates.
Let us recognize that the blockades need to end. Let us also recognize that the failed mandate policies are really aggravating Canadians, and justly so. People are losing their jobs.
The other thing Conservatives support is science-based measures that respond to COVID-19 and take into consideration all of the costs and benefits associated with those policy measures.
Theoretically, we could say that we have to stop the spread of the virus, so everyone should just stay in their homes. However, there are many other costs to that approach, costs to people's livelihoods and costs to people's mental health. We have to balance these considerations against the risks associated with the virus. We have to recognize the variety of tools that are available and we have to recognize when the circumstances have changed.
We are dealing with a bill that is about the government spending additional money on testing. That is ironic, because at the very beginning of this pandemic, I and other members of the Conservative opposition were saying that we need to be focused on testing, that we need to get rapid tests out and available. We need to look to successful models such as South Korea, where there is widely available testing, phone booth-based testing and other measures. We need to look at countries in East Asia that have minimized the use of lockdowns and instead have focused on the use of testing and tracing tools to isolate where the virus is in order to stop it from spreading, rather than this policy of imposing generalized lockdowns because we do not have the testing or tracing capacity to know where the virus is.
Those are tools that were deployed successfully prior to the invention of the vaccination. Now the government is saying they have discovered that they should be investing all this new money into testing, and they are two years behind, just as they are two years behind in this issue of blockading critical infrastructure.
They should have been with us two years ago when we were talking about how people should not blockade critical infrastructure. They should have been with us two years ago when we were talking about the importance of investing in testing. The government has missed the boat on all of these issues and now wants to be patted on its back for being late to the game.
Conservatives recognize the value of testing. We also recognize that the vast majority of Canadians are vaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated are probably not going to get vaccinated. We should have tests available for people. We should give people the freedom to deploy various measures that they see as appropriate to protect themselves, but we should also have a plan in place to get back to normal. Recognizing all of the efforts that have been made and recognizing that provinces and other countries are winding down their restrictions, Canada should have a plan to do the same.
That is why we oppose federal mandates and oppose the efforts by the Prime Minister to demonize people who have made different choices. We support the right to protest. We oppose blockading and we want to see a realistic science-based approach that follows the things we are hearing from Dr. Tam and from provinces and other jurisdictions. They are saying that now is the time to be winding down the kinds of mandates and restrictions we have seen.
Now is the time to allow Canadians hope, to support our businesses, to support individuals and to give people the freedom to move forward without the constraints that we have seen for the last two years. It has been too long, and the government has been way too late. It is time for the government to have a plan to give people the hope they deserve.
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