44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I will adjust my language to simply point out the inconsistency of the Prime Minister's message prior to the election campaign. As my colleague from the Liberal Party in Quebec very effectively highlighted in the press gallery this past week, there was a real change in the Prime Minister's rhetoric in the days leading up to the election, which he had promised he would not call. I certainly know what that is, and I know Canadians watching do as well.
We want to see rapid tests in the hands of Canadians. We want to see the tools used. I never thought, prior to getting involved in politics, that I would invite local weekly newspapers to come to cover me getting my COVID-19 vaccination because I believed that was in the best interest of the country. However, to hear that the Liberals would somehow change their narrative to demonize the fact that we acknowledge there is not universal agreement on something, it speaks to how utterly ignorant and discriminatory, quite frankly, their rhetoric has become.
We have mandates being changed around the country, and the usage of things like rapid tests, which we are talking about here today, is a tool to help us move forward to learn to live with COVID, yet we have the Liberals who, instead of backing up and carefully considering a path forward, double down on failures and division. Now there is the invocation of the Emergencies Act. My constituents remind me often, because I am not old enough to remember the elder Trudeau when he was prime minister, and I know I am not allowed to say the name of the current, but I was referring to the previous, there are scars that this country has not healed from, from the elder Trudeau. I find it incredibly troubling that the Prime Minister is taking Canada down a path where I fear what the consequences will be.
Whether the Liberals are playing politics with the fact that we Conservatives in the official opposition want to do our job or playing politics with the fact that even though we may disagree on aspects of the pandemic response, we cannot find much agreement, instead of charting a path forward that would put the interest of Canadians first, the Liberals, again in this bill and everything they do, are dividing Canadians for their narrow political game, and that has to stop. For the sake of our country, that has to stop.
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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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