44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/14/22 5:46:46 p.m.
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I will ask him what he thinks of it. I am not going to tell the member what I think of it.
Again, I want to remind the member to address the questions through the Chair.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. I have certainly always enjoyed our discussions.
I just spoke for 15 minutes on this bill. The first question I got was not even about the bill, but about what another member of Parliament said, who is completely entitled to his opinion. It differs from mine, but it is what it is.
The point is that this bill today is about rapid tests, and whether or not we should expend the money in order to buy rapid tests so we can use them throughout the country. Just as with every speech before this, it is regrettable that the first question to come from the Conservatives to me is again about an issue that has nothing to do with the bill.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to make my colleague happy and speak about the bill.
I am going to tell him that we want these rapid tests and that we support this bill.
Madam Speaker, a member's mic is on.
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- Feb/14/22 5:48:18 p.m.
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I would like to remind members to turn off their mics when they are not speaking.
The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé may continue.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying that I was going to make the member happy by talking about the bill and the rapid tests, which we urgently want.
I am also going to remind him that this is a federal initiative in health care and that the big problem during the pandemic was a lack of resources invested in our health care systems. In fact, that is why many of the restrictions had to be put in place.
I would like to know what he thinks. Does my colleague also feel uncomfortable with his government's position, which is to stubbornly refuse to make health transfers to the provinces and Quebec? Those transfers are truly needed. The Liberals should stop bragging about spending $8 out of $10 of the assistance provided. There was nothing extraordinary about that. Your government has the money, but you do not have the responsibilities.
Will the member undertake to work from the inside to change this once and for all and to transfer the necessary resources to Quebec?
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- Feb/14/22 5:49:22 p.m.
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I also want to remind the member for Berthier—Maskinongé to address the Chair and not the government directly.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Madam Speaker, at least it is predictable that a bill dealing with spending money on something health-related will generate a question from the Bloc about health transfers. At least that is more predictable than what I am hearing from my colleagues in the Conservative Party.
I will say, in an attempt to answer his question, that this government has been focused on a holistic approach from the beginning. The hon. member mentioned $8 out of $10 coming from the federal government. The federal government has looked at itself as the leader, in terms of working with our partners. We have never, throughout this entire process, said that we were just going to hand over money to the provinces and let them fight COVID on their own.
We are going to do this together, and we are going to do it in a way that allows us the purchasing power we can get by working together, and that allows us the opportunity to properly make sure that every Canadian can be treated equally.
Can members imagine if we had all of the different provinces and territories fighting for rapid tests and fighting for vaccines? No. The approach has always been that we work together.
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Madam Speaker, I always find that my hon. colleague is one of the most eloquent in the House, in his delivery style.
Of course, he highlighted what we have heard today in the debate, which is some of the inconsistency from the opposition party in terms of their views. I am wondering if he might be able to opine on that. Furthermore, what I have noticed in the House is that there seems to be a desire to think we can simply have a cut-off date and time, and say the pandemic is over.
My impression of this is that it is going to be a gradual reduction over time. I know that it is not completely within the contents of this bill, but the rapid tests are certainly going to be needed to keep people safe in the months and days ahead, as we start to wind down the measures.
Can the member opposite opine on that?
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent point. Nothing would please me more than not having to wear these masks any more. I am sick and tired of it. I hate it. I hate having to walk around all the time wearing them. I hate having to remember to take my mask out of my car when I go into a store. I want this pandemic to be over just as much as everybody else does.
However, the reality of the situation is that instead of tapping into the frustration that Canadians have, which is what the Conservatives are trying to do, we are trying to use better judgment, in terms of listening to the experts and listening to people like Dr. Kieran Moore in Ontario. He says that we have to keep wearing the masks at least until the end of March.
I wish that Doug Ford would have come out a couple of days ago and said that we did not have to wear masks anymore, as they have done in other provinces. However, at least Doug Ford is listening to a revered medical expert who knows what he is talking about. I am willing to accept the fact that I have to keep doing this because, at the end of the day, as much as it frustrates me to wear a mask, how hard is it, really?
We might not like it. It might be an inconvenience. It might be a slight irritant, but to do our part, all we have to do is wear a mask and observe some other health measures. That is pretty simple, at the end of the day.
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Madam Speaker, we have a long and inexplicable wait in getting access to rapid tests in this country. I am as sympathetic as anyone to the fact that there could be bureaucratic delays, but I do not understand why this bill is only coming to us now.
Does the hon. member have any light to cast on this?
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Madam Speaker, to address the first point, I really hope that if we have learned one thing as a country through this, it is that we need to have the capacity in our own country to make the equipment during a pandemic. If we have learned one thing, it had better be that.
To her question or her comment about the bureaucracy and how long it has taken, what I can say about this bill and about all pieces of legislation that come through here is that it is constantly a fight to get a bill through the House. We are literally, right now, debating a motion about how to deal with this piece of legislation. There are only so many calendar days for the House to sit. There are pieces of legislation that are equally as important that have come down, and more that will be coming.
I am quite frustrated from time to time about how long things seem to be taking, but that is all the more reason to move quickly with a piece of legislation that contains two paragraphs. It is pretty easy to figure out if someone is for or against it.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to indulge my hon. colleague from the other side to keep this on point. Probably the most baffling thing to me is why we even have a programming motion on this particular bill. We raised the issue of rapid testing and having rapid tests nearly two years ago, in April of 2020.
Today we are bringing this up, and there suddenly seems to be a mad panic for rapid tests. We have been calling for rapid tests for nearly two years. Something has not significantly changed, in my mind, that suddenly today, of all days, rapid tests should be the thing we talk about in this place.
There are a host of other things going on in this place that we perhaps should be talking about, but here we are talking about a programming motion on a bill to approve rapid tests.
Could the member please explain to me what the issue is with the rapid tests that makes this so important today?
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Madam Speaker, if we stop talking about it and we sit down, as I am going to do in a few seconds, the debate can collapse, we can vote on it and we can move on to the next item. I do not think that is going to happen, because Conservatives have been getting up and talking about everything but this motion.
My response to my colleague across the way is this. Why do Conservative members not actually talk about the piece of legislation that is before us right now? If they do not want to talk about it, they should let it collapse so we can vote on it and move on.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate, although I would have preferred to speak about other matters that are impacting Canadians, such as the runaway inflation that is affecting all Canadian families.
However, as a result of this government's complacency, today we have to discuss a motion seeking to muzzle MPs on a matter that concerns us all.
Let us look at the elements one by one, starting with rapid tests, since that is what we are debating. The government wants to purchase rapid tests, which it will distribute to the provinces, and they in turn will distribute them to Canadians. On this side of the House, we have been asking the government to obtain an adequate supply of rapid tests for almost two years.
If I could make a joke, I recollect very well my colleague for Kingston and the Islands, who quotes a lot of members on this side, talking about rapid tests a few weeks ago. It is sad to me that he has not quoted me, because I have talked about rapid tests for the last 18 months. I would have welcomed a quote from 18 months ago talking about rapid tests, because everybody on this side supports rapid tests. We were the first to ask the government to procure rapid tests.
We must have these rapid tests because they are one of the tools that give Canadians a little more freedom and hope for a return to a more normal life, living with the effects of COVID-19 every day.
Dr. Tam recently said that it may be time to start re-evaluating the health guidelines imposed on us, 75% to 80% of which fall within provincial rather than federal jurisdiction. I will come back to that later.
Rapid tests, along with vaccines, mask wearing, regular handwashing and physical distancing when in contact with someone for more than 15 minutes, are some of the measures that will help us get through the pandemic. For months now, almost two years, in fact, we on this side of the House have been in favour of the government purchasing rapid tests for Canadians.
We are talking here about buying 450 million rapid tests at a cost of $2.5 billion, which is a tad more than the parliamentary paper budget. This government has been in power since 2015, for six and a half years, and it promised to run just three small deficits before balancing the budget in 2019. It ultimately scrapped that plan for sound management of public funds.
We will not sign a blank cheque for this government to buy tests. We will not stand by as though all is well and we trust the government to spend $2.5 billion. We have a duty as parliamentarians to be thorough. We have a duty to ensure that the money that Canadian taxpayers send to the federal government is spent appropriately and correctly for the common good.
Over the past six and a half years that this government has been in power, it has proven itself to have no regard for controlling spending. We are in favour of buying rapid tests and supplying them to the provinces so that they can get to Canadians. We do, however, have a job to do.
That is why, although we agree with buying rapid tests and getting them to Canadians, we have some serious concerns that need to be considered. We cannot abide a gag order on a $2.5‑billion purchase. I remind members that the proposed measures apply to purchases dating back to January 1, yet the government is claiming that these measures need to be adopted urgently.
Let us also remember that this is our third week since the House came back. Why wait until week three to invoke closure when they could have done it some other time? As the House leader of the official opposition said, he spoke with his counterparts from the governing party and the other opposition parties in hopes of finding a way to debate this bill properly in the House, send it to committee to give experts their say, and then come back to the House and wrap it up by Friday, all by the book.
If Bill C‑10 is debated today, if the closure motion is adopted and we go through the usual steps, we will end up voting on the bill at third reading around 2 a.m., which will demonstrate the urgency of the situation. However, nothing will actually happen at two in the morning because, for this bill to become law, it has to be debated and passed in the Senate. Now, the Senate is not going to be sitting at 3 a.m. on Tuesday, nor is it sitting on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. It is not sitting until next Monday.
That being the case, why the big rush? They say we have to pass this bill immediately, today, in the middle of the night because it is urgent and necessary, but nothing will actually change for another six days because the Senate will not be able to go ahead right away. That is proof, should anyone need proof, of the government's incompetence. It is once again turning a situation that could have been handled by the book with a proper debate into a crisis.
Speaking of going by the book, I forgot to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Peterborough—Kawartha, which I am sure will be fascinating.
In short, yes to rapid tests, and no to closure.
Unfortunately, the government has a history of being perpetually late, as we are currently seeing with the procurement of rapid tests. Almost two years ago, in March 2020, when COVID-19 hit the entire world, with everyone aghast, wondering what was going to happen, and the entire planet in turmoil, our globalist Prime Minister was debating whether to close the borders and wondering how dangerous the virus was. It took the government 10 days to do what it should have done long before, which was to close the borders. It is not that we do not like foreign countries—we actually love them. All immigrants are welcome; I am living proof, being the son of immigrants.
However, in a global health emergency, it is important to make the right decisions. Do I need to remind the House that the mayor of Montreal took it upon herself to send her own city’s police officers to Dorval’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport to do the job that the RCMP could not because this government did not want them to do it? That was totally irresponsible.
In addition to the delays at the border, there were also delays in vaccine procurement. Let us not forget the time when the government put all its eggs in the CanSino basket. Unfortunately, CanSino announced in July 2020 that it would not do business with Canada. It was too bad, because we ended up being four months late securing contracts with the Pfizers and Modernas of the world.
Just before Christmas, the Prime Minister put on a big dog-and-pony show when he wanted to suggest that everything was A-okay, even though the government had only a few tens of thousands of vaccine doses. Once again, in typical Liberal fashion, where everything is done for optics rather than substance, another problem arose. There was a 10-day gap in January and February 2021, when there were no vaccines available in Canada.
We have seen one delay after another, the most recent one involving rapid tests. We are disappointed, but should we be surprised that the government has unfortunately decided to put its own partisan political interests ahead of public health interests?
Let us not fool ourselves. I like political debate and good old partisan bickering, but not on matters of public health. The Prime Minister's primary, sacred duty is to unite Canadians on an issue as dangerous, perilous and fragile as this one. He did not do that.
Motivated by partisan politics, this Prime Minister decided to call an election on the public service mandate, which he did against the advice of the top public servant, who was responsible for hiring. It is not for nothing that we saw the member for Louis-Hébert, who was elected for saying certain things, now saying exactly the opposite, namely that he is sad to see his government engaging in polarization, demonization and partisan political attacks on an issue that should in fact unite us all.
That is why we want to say yes to accessing to rapid tests, but no to closure, which prevents us from holding a full debate on this issue.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech this afternoon. I especially want to thank him for having the courage to tweet about the blockade and about how important it is for all parliamentarians to work together to end it.
I am not the government House leader, but I would like to ask my colleague a question about the urgency of this motion.
The Prime Minister has announced emergency measures, and these measures need to be debated in the House this week.
Perhaps the government wants to pass this measure now in order to make room for debate on emergency measures at the next sitting.
Does my colleague support the government's decision to bring in the emergency measures?
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Madam Speaker, let me pay my respects to my hon. colleague for the quality of his French. Because his question was in perfect French, I will answer in French.
First of all, I want to point out that any conversations held amongst the leaders about the timing of the debates are private conversations.
However, since my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, the House leader of the official opposition, talked about the conversations that took place, I would say that we could have very easily had a proper debate on Bill C-10 in the House. That is what is so disappointing. We could have done our job here in the House and at committee. We could have asked questions of expert witnesses and gotten to the bottom of things. We are talking about $2.5 billion after all.
Unfortunately, the government has decided to shut all this down, with the support and co-operation of the NDP.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. It is our duty to be fiscally responsible in everything we do.
It was only by asking questions in my capacity as an MP that I found out the $1.7 billion for rapid tests in Bill C‑8 covered the period from December to February and that the $2.5 billion in Bill C‑10 is for February on.
In committee, I hope to amend Bill C‑8 to include accountability on the part of the government, and that could also apply to the money in Bill C‑10.
I would like the Conservatives' support at the Standing Committee on Finance so we can have adequate accountability for this money.
In the meantime, we do have a commitment from the federal government to fix the problem plaguing seniors who collect the guaranteed income supplement. This will enable seniors to get a payment much sooner than they would have otherwise. I think that is very important. It will save lives.
We are here to negotiate, so can we get the Conservatives' support for an amendment to Bill C‑8 that would ensure adequate accountability for this money?
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Madam Speaker, I want to pay my respects to my colleague from Manitoba, who asked a clear question in perfect French.
I will answer the question in French.
That is exactly the type of debate we should be having in the parliamentary committees. The NDP member from Manitoba raised the issue of Bill C‑8 and that is exactly it, because in committee we can propose amendments, make changes, gauge responses and understand why one decision was made over another.
We can question not only the minister, but also the experts who come to guide us in our study. That is why Canadians elected us four months ago and we have a job to do. We have to hold the government to account, and that can be done through rigorous and serious parliamentary work in the House of Commons and in parliamentary committee. Unfortunately, the government is denying us that with a closure motion on Bill C‑10 today.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying to everyone, my family, friends and constituents, happy Valentine's Day.
Today I am standing in the House of Commons to discuss and defend the position of my party in regard to Bill C-10. For people watching who may or may not know what Bill C-10 is, I am going to read it. It is an act allowing the Minister of Health to make payments totalling $2.5 billion for rapid tests to the provinces. I am just going to read the two paragraphs.
Under the heading “Payments out of C.R.F. ”, it states:
The Minister of Health may make payments, the total of which may not exceed $2.5 billion, out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for any expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2022 in relation to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests.
Under the heading “Transfers”, it states:
The Minister of Health may transfer to any province or territory, or to any body or person in Canada, any coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tests or instruments used in relation to those tests acquired by Her Majesty in right of Canada on or after April 1, 2021.
I am not an economist, but I do know that spending money we do not have for tests that we needed two years ago is not an investment; it is a waste. How can the government ask taxpayers to spend $2.5 billion with only two paragraphs to back it up? When my tween daughter was 12 years old and wanted her first iPhone, we asked her to write a three-page essay on why she wanted it and needed it and what she would be contributing as a result of it. We asked for three pages. This bill is two paragraphs long and the government wants to expedite this motion without any debate to spend $2.5 billion.
We are almost at a trillion dollars in debt. People with good jobs cannot afford houses. We have a homeless crisis. I paid $1.58 at the pump for gas. This is not a small amount of money. We cannot just expedite this. To reiterate, we are not spending the government's money. We are spending the taxpayers' money, so we need to make sure we are having an adequate debate to spend such an astronomical amount of money that should have been invested two years ago. We are not in the same space we were in two years ago.
The chief public health officer, Dr. Tam, has stated that we need a more sustainable way to deal with the pandemic. How is spending money on tests that we needed two years ago sustainable? I think we can agree as a House that the response to COVID-19 is fluid. I think there is an agreed motion here in the House that we are doing the best we can to keep Canadians safe. Where we differ is in the execution.
In order to take control of something that is ever changing, one must be tactful and thoughtful in their approach. There are outdated travel advisories, punitive restrictions and quarantines, federal vaccine mandates and now 2.5 billion taxpayer dollars being spent on tests that might be obsolete by the time they arrive.
If COVID-19 reminded our country of anything, it is that we have a very stressed and delicate health care system. Our front-line workers, health care workers, are exhausted. They are burnt out. I witnessed first-hand the extreme negligence of patient care in the hospital.
My mother was rushed to the hospital in July 2021 only to wait hours in a hall to be seen. She was not offered any pain medication. She was not offered any water. No one even came to see her. Why are we talking about spending money on tests when we need to be talking about solving the problem? She waited in the hall as nurses and staff tended to patients who had overdosed. Just last week we talked about the opioid crisis in this country. Where is the money for that?
Do members know how excruciating it is to know that their family member needs their help? They could give it to them. I could get my mom a glass of water and fluff her pillow, but I was not allowed in because of the restrictions, so I had to harass the charge nurse by calling repeatedly and asking for help.
I have had so many health care workers reach out to me in their own state of mental health crisis. They go to bed at night and cannot sleep, because they know they do not have the resources to take care of their patients. When are we going to have an honest dialogue about where the money needs to go and where we need to invest it? The reality of this whole situation of these traumatic lockdowns and these traumatic restrictions is that we did not have a health care system capable of managing COVID patients.
Why are we not having that discussion? Why are we not investing $2.5 billion in that? If our hospitals could manage these patients, we would not be here. We need to recruit more health care workers. We need to offer recovery centres to help those struggling with addiction and mental health. We need to offload the hospitals from the opioid crisis.
The Liberals want to expedite this bill, meaning it would not go to committee. Why is that? My constituents and Canadians deserve to know who would be profiting from these tests. Where would the money be going? We need to hear from more experts before expediting such a gross amount of taxpayers' money.
I recently spoke with a small business owner. She told me a story of one of her employees who decided to do a test on her break, because she had been around somebody who thought they had COVID. She did the test and it came back positive. She was asymptomatic and she had to be sent home for five days. That small business owner is already struggling to recover and now she has to make up for that.
Was that testing necessary? We need more experts in to talk about this. We need to have honest discussions about when to test and why to test. Absolutely we need to have testing, but we need to have a lot more discussion before we decide to spend $2.5 billion on testing that may or may not be effective in helping this crisis.
I spoke with a constituent who had to stay home with his toddler, because someone at the day care centre tested positive. He does not get paid when he stays at home. Who is going to make up that money?
We need so much more research. We need to invest in research to prevent COVID and any other virus that is going to happen again. There is so much opportunity for prevention. We are always reacting and never looking at prevention or a long-term vision for solutions. There are amazing people doing amazing research. Why are we not investing in that? Why are we not learning from that?
My question rests. Where is the scientific evidence to support the need for rapid testing for fully vaccinated Canadians? Would this funding not be better spent on our health care system and our mental health care system? Why is this not being prioritized? It took two months for the government to come back to Parliament. Everything it has done has been late. Timing is everything when we are trying to solve a problem. Timing matters, and the government is offering the wrong solution at the wrong time.
Let us look bigger. Let us help people. Where is the research on the long-term mental health, social and economic impacts of these lockdowns? How do we know that? We do not. Where is the research on masking kids and speech development? Why are we not investing in that? It is time for the Liberal government to be transparent and honest with Canadians.
We are a democracy. Let us act like it.
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Madam Speaker, members will forgive me if I thought I was sitting in Queen's Park, because a lot of the elements that my hon. colleague talked about are within the provincial domain. Tying it back to this legislation, this is something that provincial and territorial governments are calling for. This is going to be a crucial measure. Unlike some members of this House who think there will just be a time when COVID will stop being a thing, we will gradually be winding back measures, but active testing is going to be a part of that. Provincial and territorial governments are calling for that.
It does not seem like the member supports the expenditure the government is proposing to help provinces and territories. She mentioned her mother in long-term care. Does she support the $1-billion measure the government put in the last budget to support better outcomes in long-term care, or was she against that as well?
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