44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
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 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, I first wish to thank the Bloc Québécois members for voting for our motion.
It is too bad we did not have more support from other members in other parties.
The motion was clear in calling on the government to put forward a plan to end all mandates, and of course many Canadians would like to see that plan involve unwinding these mandates as quickly as possible, especially when many of these mandates were not based on science and did not make sense in the first place. There was never a reason to have this trucker mandate in place. They are people who work alone and had an exemption throughout the entirety of the pandemic up until January. These things were never based on science in the first place. The government has no data to justify its decision to say someone has to be vaccinated and that a rapid test is not a legitimate alternative for air travel.
These are the points we have made. I think it is legitimate and right for us to be clear and principled in opposing these mandates while not—
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Madam Speaker, I think this is the first time I have had the opportunity to ask the member for Peterborough—Kawartha a question in this place. I would like to congratulate her on her election.
I understand that it is not in the interests of a person who has been double-vaccinated to make sure they have access to rapid tests. I understand that it is in the interests of protecting my grandchildren, who are not vaccinated yet. I wonder if the member has any comment on that.
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Mr. Speaker, during the pandemic there were many different elections across Canada, and in fact in North America with even the U.S. election. I believe that through our election there was a very clear mandate given to not only the government, but all members of this House, saying that the coronavirus was still there and we needed to continue to invest resources in the issue, which is what we are seeing today, substantial financial resources, that we needed to look at and implement mandates, and to continue to follow and listen to science and health experts. Ultimately, I believe we are on the right course.
What I am most proud of is the greatest tool: the vaccines. It is the positioning of Canadians and the uptake that has allowed us to see Canada do exceptionally well in comparison to other countries around the world. Canadians understood the importance of being double vaccinated.
In regard to the issue of financing of health care, whether it is mental health, long-term care, vaccines or the rapid tests we are debating today, the federal government has been there in a very tangible way with the expenditure of additional billions of dollars during the pandemic over and above historic amounts through equalization payments and direct payments in regard to the health care program.
I think that, as a government, over the last six years we have done exceptionally well in supporting health care. We know that health care is important to each and every Canadian from coast to coast to coast.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not often we get to go twice in a debate like this, so I am appreciative of that.
The hon. member talked about the science of this. The motion we put forward last week called for the government to put forward a plan, give us some benchmarks or give us some timelines, and show us the science of when we will break out of this pandemic and when we will be able to lift the mandates.
Would the hon. member like to tell us, according to her plan, how many people would have to be vaccinated in her ideal world for the mandates to be dropped and for life to return to some semblance of normal?
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