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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

May/19/22 4:03:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the member was speaking, in particular earlier on in his comments, at the beginning of his speech, he was focusing on and telling his stories about going through an airport and the various screening and security measures that were there. Then he seemed to suggest that one way to fix the problems that have been associated with the increase in travelling, in particular with some of the rules around COVID, was to drop some of those screening requirements that are there for security purposes. I do not understand where he is going with this. Is he saying to drop the security in favour of trying to move things faster because of the protocols that are there for COVID?

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Mr. Randy Hoback

May/19/22 4:04:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not surprised the member is confused, but what I was actually saying is that there are best practices in other areas of the world that the Liberals could adopt here to have a more efficient screening process. If people have already gone through the NEXUS process and done their pre-screening beforehand, the chance that they are a risk is very small, so why are we worried about the containers, the shoes, the belts, the jackets or the computers? If somebody had thought through that process, yes, they go through the full screening. This is the system that is being used in the U.S. The U.S. went through worse terrorist attacks by airplanes than any other country in the world, so if it is good enough for the U.S., should we not at least consider it?

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

May/19/22 4:05:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I currently serve on the Standing Committee on Health. Two or three weeks ago, the committee heard from public health officials, including Dr. Tam. We asked her whether she thought that Canada was in the endemic phase of the pandemic, and she told us that she did not think so. My colleague says that he wants to follow the science, but I think public health officials have a lot more expertise than he does in that area. I would therefore like to ask him whether he no longer has any trust in public health experts.

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Mr. Randy Hoback

May/19/22 4:05:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Dr. Tam had some suggestions. What I have to square off with those suggestions is how they square with every province moving forward with the removal of restrictions. How does that square off? If her suggestions are what we should be following, then why is every other province not doing that? Provinces manage our health care system, by the way. It is not the federal government; it is the provinces that manage health care. If they are saying that it is good enough for them and that they are willing to move forward and live with the risks that are associated with COVID, then maybe the national adviser needs to get with them, too. That is something the public health people need to settle, but I will say that we should look at what is going on in the provinces. We cannot say the provinces are not following the science, because they are.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

May/19/22 4:06:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about this government's inability to deliver basic services. The immigration department has been a disaster for years. There are incredibly long, intolerable delays. We recently saw that the government is unable to issue employment insurance cheques, making people wait three or four months. Anyone who wants to travel abroad must first have a passport. However, getting one right now takes forever. People are really worried about next year's vacation. Passports have predictable, set expiry dates. How is it that this government is unable to predict that more resources are needed to produce more passports?

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Mr. Randy Hoback

May/19/22 4:07:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, everybody could see this coming. Everybody understood that 10-year passports were going to come up for renewal this year for the first time. We could have anticipated a lot of the problems we are facing now six months ago, and we could have prepared properly for it, but the government does not prepare unless it is in a crisis. It does not act until it is in crisis mode. Let us take the Canada Revenue Agency. This is another example where people cannot get through to talk to somebody in person. We are talking about four- or five-hour wait on telephone lines. Then there is Passport Canada. We are going to have four passport clinics in my riding next week, just to help people out. We know they want to travel, so we are going to do what we can to accommodate them. I wish the government would do the same.

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Ms. Lianne Rood (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC)

May/19/22 4:08:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just as with most problems in this country, Liberals are the cause. Over the past seven years, it feels like they have removed common sense from the dictionary. They will try to deny it, and they will try to shift blame. They have blamed out-of-practice travellers for the delays, backlogs and travel-associated horror stories that we see coming out of Canadian airports right now, even for domestic flights. Certainly, their globally outdated mandates, red-tape-bundled policies and general lack of compassion is not at fault. They are vindictive. They are smug, and their leadership is power hungry. The government is the root of the problem. If I have not been clear enough already, the rest of the world is moving past the pandemic. Even Canada's provinces have learned to live with COVID, but our federal government has not. This is no longer about safety. It definitely is not about common sense. It is about control. Once the Liberals took control, they did not know what to do with their new-found power, and Canadians have suffered long enough for their half-witted initiatives. It is way past time for Canada to return to prepandemic rules and service levels for travel. Lack of staff is not an excuse. They have had plenty of time to plan for reopening, just like they have had years to plan for passport renewals, another thing the Liberals have dropped the ball on hard. I am hearing from many constituents about the delays they are experiencing at the passport office, how people wait for hours in line to get to the door just to be told to go home. They then phone, and the phones ring and ring, but they never get answered. I am also being told that Passport Canada is no longer accepting electronic documents and is telling people to go to their MP's office to print the documents. Where is the common sense in that? It gets worse. It gets a lot worse, and I wonder who or what the government will blame next for the mistakes this time. The provinces have dropped their mask mandates, yet federal buildings still require people to wear a mask regardless. People wait in those long lines at passport offices, sometimes for hours, get to the door and then they find out that they are required to wear a mask in order to get service. When they get inside to find out they need a mask, the federal offices have none to give them and there are none to be found. What is a person supposed to do? People are sharing masks. Multiple people, strangers, are using the same mask because the government refused to have a plan. I am no doctor, but I am pretty sure that wearing a used mask from someone else is far worse than not wearing a mask at all. It seems like the Liberals prefer to have conflicting, arbitrary rules that cause outrage and confuse people. Do people want more proof of Liberal political theatrics? The drama teacher in charge is ready to act stern and frighten Canadians into compliance. Afterward, when the cameras are all turned off, he is happy to rip off his mask, smile, socialize and jet set around the world just as though restrictions no longer exist. There is one set of rules for the people in power, and one set of rules for the rest. The rules are different for people like Julie from my riding. She did the responsible thing. She applied for her family's passports months in advance of their trip, but since then, Service Canada has delayed responding to her inquiries, sent her for new passport photos multiple times and told her that she needs to pay $95 per person just to speed up processing times. The government is using backlogs caused by its own incompetence to extort Canadians who played by the rules. It is simply shameful and unbelievable, and again, there is no common sense. If members thought that passports was a wild ride, it gets far worse. Let us take a look at what the Liberals have been doing to boaters. Southwestern Ontario is bordered by the Great Lakes, and my riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex sits on the beautiful southern shores of Lake Huron. Other parts of my riding are along the St. Clair River and Lake St. Clair. As boating season starts, boaters are wanting to go across the river to Michigan. Before the pandemic, the number of small vessel reporting sites was 400. That number has now been cut to 84. As boating season opens up, boaters will have to travel out of their way to report their vessel. Do members not believe me? Constituents like John have written to me to say that, instead of taking their boat across an 800-metre wide river to get to and from my riding and Michigan, the CBSA wants them to reroute for 76 kilometres round trip just to check in. This is ridiculous. John has calculated that it would cost him over $1,200 per trip just to meet this requirement. He has even calculated that this will create an extra 1,140 kilograms of carbon emissions just for one trip for him. The hypocrisy is that the government is pretending to care about the environment and Canadians but, in practice, it is needlessly adding emissions. I just found out, minutes ago, that the government actually announced that it is going to reopen those reporting sites, but that is only after Conservatives pushed it for common sense and to lift these restrictions from the boaters. Federal restrictions are being made and enforced without common sense. These mandates unfairly punish Canadians, and the government is giving no indication that it will ease off any time soon. It has consistently missed the mark on marine travel, from Walpole Algonac Ferry in my riding, which was shut down due to marine transportation not being included in cross-border travel exemptions earlier this year, to those recreational boaters who are not going to have points of access entry this spring. Canadians are being left behind. Continuing temporary closures for over two years is unnecessary, costly and irresponsible. When I previously asked the minister if they will allow CBSA's regular points of entry to be reopened, he laughed. I will spell that out again: Liberal ministers are laughing at the pain they are causing Canadians. They are taking joy in the prospect of crippled tourism and empty rural small town shops during what would normally be a busy season and the busiest time of the year, which will hurt small businesses in communities such as Mitchell's Bay, Port Lambton, and Wallaceburg. This is not a joke. The behaviour displayed by these ministers was despicable and very telling of how little a priority the concerns of my constituents are to the Liberal government. Did members know that Canada is the only country in the world where non-vaccinated people are not allowed to travel domestically? Let that sink in. That is not okay. Requiring a type of passport for Canadians to travel domestically, creating second-class citizens, needs to end. The government is going out of its way to punish fully vaccinated travellers, no matter if they cross by land, sea or air. I have had personal experience with this when waiting in line for security at airports, watching people struggle with delays and fighting the mandatory use of the barely functioning ArriveCAN app, something that the government insists on using. Remember how I mentioned earlier how it would only take paper documents? Well, now it wants an app, something that is totally digital, which is another decision that spits in the face of common sense-loving Canadians. Liberals refuse to compromise. They will not give people the choice to use paper or electronic documents. That would make too much sense. At the land border crossings, what is happening late in the evening? Well, there is one overworked stall that is still open. Americans do not know about the ArriveCAN app when they are crossing and the requirement to use it. The government has failed to explain to them and to advertise to would-be border crossers of this requirement. This makes for frustration and delays for tourists coming to support our economy and for Canadians returning home. For example, I spoke with a senior couple in my riding who are fed up with how little is being done to help them. They are in their 80s, and they are very cautious. They care about the rules, and they want to try to follow them. They asked their son for help to buy a phone, their very first smart phone, something that they were forced to buy, because they were excited to resume day trips across the border. When they put the ArriveCAN app on, it was not working and they did not know what to do. They told me that they took time and drove down to the store to see if the young clerk could help them. Unfortunately, though, they all tried, and it still did not work. They returned their new phone, they shelved their excitement and returned home wondering why the government would make visiting loved ones for a day so hard for them. I know that Conservatives are asking for the Liberal government to do something that is very difficult for them, which is to finally adopt some common sense and listen to Canadians instead of to themselves. People want their lives back and one way to start giving them this is to return to prepandemic rules and service levels for travel. Everything the government touches is an absolute failure. On behalf of all Canadians disappointed with how their plans are being ruined, I will ask this: If Canadians do not have a smart phone, can they get a smart government, or at least one with common sense?

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

May/19/22 4:17:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was listening to the hon. member across the way, trying to sort through the obviously emotional comments she was making about the frustrations she is feeling about the pandemic, frustrations that, indeed, many Canadians are feeling. I wonder if the member could comment on, post pandemic, what the role of masks might play in preventing other diseases that might be passed from person to person?

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Ms. Lianne Rood

May/19/22 4:18:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we continue to follow the health advice of the provinces. The provinces have medical health officers, and they are in charge of health care in this country. My question to the member opposite and to the government, actually, is this: What information do they have that they are not telling the provinces? Why do they still have mask mandates in federal buildings when the provinces have removed restrictions everywhere across this country? I am sure Canadians would like to see that information to know if they are hiding something from Canadians and from our public health officers in the provinces.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/19/22 4:19:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate a lot of the comments from my colleague. I too share her frustration. I mean my office right now is getting absolutely inundated by calls from people who are waiting for their passports. As well, the time that they are waiting at airports is completely unacceptable. We know that none of this is a surprise. People were planning on travelling as soon as the travel restrictions eased. Can my colleague speak to how important it is for the government not only to hire staff but to ensure that the public service is fully resourced and that employees of the public service are paid good fair wages, especially in a labour market shortage like right now?

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Ms. Lianne Rood

May/19/22 4:19:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was a great question. My office staff as well have been very frustrated since the beginning of this pandemic. My office has turned into a Service Canada office. We are happy to serve the people of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex. In fact, I am going to take the time right now to thank my staff who have worked tirelessly for constituents to help them with any of their needs while the Service Canada offices were closed. I send my thanks to Yvonne, Todd, Kim, David, Anna Marie and Jordan. I appreciate all the work that they have done to help my constituents. In the future, I would hope that the government would hire more people, reopen its offices, drop the mandates, get people back to work in their offices so they can do the jobs that we are paying them to do as taxpayers in Canada and restore the services back to prepandemic levels so we can get on with our lives.

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Ms. Sylvie Bérubé (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, BQ)

May/19/22 4:20:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. However, I find it a bit ridiculous that we are talking about masks and the fact that people are wearing used masks. The government has not come up with a postpandemic plan. I am well aware of that. However, there are still solutions, and there are restrictions that must be kept in place at airports. I would like to know why my colleague does not support our experts when they tell us to be vigilant because there could be another pandemic.

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Ms. Lianne Rood

May/19/22 4:21:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as far as I can see with the provinces, the experts at the provincial level have said that we do not need to have a mask mandate any longer and that it is a personal choice. If the member wants to wear a mask, I am totally fine with that, but I think it needs to go both ways. We need to have respect for each other, continue to follow advice we hear from public health officials who say we do not need to have these mandates any longer. What we really do have a problem with in this place is a real Liberal leadership crisis problem. That is the biggest problem right now. They are not showing leadership on this. They need to do the right thing and drop all the mandates.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

May/19/22 4:22:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge today. I found that last comment about a leadership crisis to be quite amusing coming from Conservatives, given what is going on in their party right now. When the member for Abbotsford tried to speak his truth to power yesterday, he was silenced by the individual who is not even the leader yet. The member for Carleton has not even been anointed formally yet, because that is not going to happen for three months, but he is already pulling the strings, in terms of who is allowed to say what and who is allowed and not allowed to be critical of him. If there is a leadership crisis, I think it is very clear to Canadians where it exists right now. I have been listening to this debate throughout the day, and I have found a number of comments to be quite interesting. The member for Dufferin—Caledon had an exchange I found very interesting. He went on about listening to science and making sure we listen to science, because listening to the science will point us in a certain direction. Then, I asked him where the science was in the Conservatives' motion. They introduced this motion today that asks the government to change a particular policy. Where is the science in that? Do members know what his response to that was? It was that the Conservatives are not the government. Apparently, according to the member for Dufferin—Caledon, people can try to influence policy if they are Conservatives, because they happen to be in opposition. It does not require any science to do it. When people are in the government, they need to be taking the Conservatives' version of science, which they do not even have. It is one of the most ridiculous and ludicrous exchanges I have had in the House today. The member for Regina—Lewvan, who I believe is heckling me right now, was a few moments ago asking why he needs to wear a mask in the House, when he does not need to wear it when he walks outside the House. It is a rule that the House made. BOIE, the Board of Internal Economy, made that rule. He has membership on that board— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/19/22 4:24:45 p.m.
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If members have thoughts, comments or questions, I would ask them to wait until it is time for questions and comments, and not yell them across. In the meantime, I would ask members to keep their thoughts quiet and write them down, if they think they may forget them. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

May/19/22 4:25:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Regina—Lewvan has a member on the BOIE committee. As a matter of fact, that member answered a question today in question period. It was completely unorthodox, but nonetheless it happened anyway. Why was the question not to the member from BOIE, his very own member, about this issue? A rule was made that until this session was complete, masks were required to be worn in the House unless members were standing in the House speaking. If the member for Regina—Lewvan has a problem with that, I suggest he take it up with his leadership on BOIE who helped to make that decision. The member for Prince Albert recently said, about wearing masks, that he forgot his mask and had to go back to his truck and get a mask for the airport. He said it as if we are the only place on earth that requires people to wear a mask in an airport. What about the United States? On April 30, it extended the mask mandate in airports. It just happened. We have to do the same thing in the United States, but the member for Prince Albert would make us believe, as a number of Conservatives have today, that somehow Canada is taking a completely foreign approach when it comes to dealing with this on an international basis, with people coming and going in and out of the country in particular. The member for Winnipeg North listed a number of countries that still have various mandates in place to keep protection for their citizens. I will not repeat those, because they are already on the record. I also found something very interesting that the member for Prince Albert said a few moments ago. When he was asked a question from the Bloc about listening to advice from the experts, he referred to Dr. Tam's recommendations, her professional medical advice, as her “suggestions”. Those are Dr. Tam's “suggestions”. Those were his words. This goes to a key point about how Conservatives treat science. They are ready to wrap themselves in the science, provided that it is science that backs up what they already believe. That is the problem. For the member for Prince Albert to say those were Dr. Tam's “suggestions” basically passes her off as though she makes suggestions just like anybody else can. She is the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the country. She makes recommendations. She provides advice to the Government of Canada so it can inform itself on how to implement policy. There has been criticism after criticism, and I will pre-empt the question by answering it now from members from the opposite side who are saying, “Table it, table it.” Can they tell me one time that Stephen Harper tabled recommendations to cabinet or the Privy Council? Can they tell me one time that Stephen Harper did that? The suggestion is that the government is taking advice from its professionals. The Conservatives want to frame this like it is being hidden from the public. It is very normal to receive advice and then make decisions based on that advice. I am sorry if the Conservatives are not privy to that. Guess what? I am not privy to it either. I am not in cabinet, so I have not seen the advice. I do have faith in those who are providing the advice, and that they will give their professional advice. We hire individuals in this country in many different forms, whether at the federal, provincial or municipal level, to advise policy makers based on their professional advice. It has been no secret from day one that the Conservatives have been willing to trample all over that advice, time after time. If they believe that they will get the slightest political gain out of it, they will walk over anybody. That is what they are trying to do here. That is exactly what they are trying to do here. From my perspective, the best speech today was actually given by the Bloc member for Jonquière. His entire speech was on populism and the manner in which the member for Carleton is using populism for his own personal political gain, full stop. It does not matter what happens in the process. I really encourage those who were not able to listen to the speech by the member for Jonquière earlier today to go back and listen to it. He hit the nail on the head with respect to what is happening in this country right now as it relates to the populist movement and those, like the member for Carleton, who are literally walking over top of the freedoms that they somehow want to make Canadians believe do not exist and that they are the only ones who will be able to provide those freedoms once again to Canadians. It was actually a really good speech. It was extremely germane to the discussion. The reason is because this discussion today, in my opinion, is about why the Conservatives have continually used the same tactics day after day, trying to sow this idea of the government being the enemy and the only individuals in this country who can save Canadians and give them back their freedoms are Conservatives. It is so incredibly dangerous when we allow that kind of politics to dominate the discussion, and when we allow politics like that to shape the manner in which discussions are being had in public that are based on conspiracy theory and people peddling misinformation. That is exactly what is going on here. I have no problem with voting against this motion today because I have faith in those who we have employed to provide advice to the government in order to make the best decisions possible on our behalf. I have no doubt that at times there is conflicting advice. It is the government's job, whatever government that may be, to receive that advice and make the best decision on behalf of people, and I have faith that is exactly what has been happening in Canada.

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Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)

May/19/22 4:32:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to that speech and parts of it made very little sense in this House in terms of what we are talking about today, but I want to ask the member a pointed question. Is he aware that the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada told airports, carriers and airlines that testing would be out of airports in January? Is he aware that it is May, and the government has done nothing about it?

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen

May/19/22 4:32:50 p.m.
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This is the problem, Madam Speaker. The Conservatives want to treat a pandemic as though it is a static problem: as though we can determine really early on what the various stages will be based on different things that are happening. We did not know the omicron virus was going to come along in January, did we? No, we did not. It really did not pop up in Canada until December. Things are changing. A pandemic is a dynamic and fluid situation to deal with. Conservatives clearly do not recognize that. Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/19/22 4:33:21 p.m.
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I know that members are all anxious to ask questions, but I until I recognize them, they should not be heckling or yelling out. The hon. member for Shefford.

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Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

May/19/22 4:33:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Kingston and the Islands that my colleague from Jonquière gives good speeches. I also agree that there is a dangerous tendency towards populism and easy solutions to false problems on the Conservative side. On that we agree. I would like to talk about the tourism and cultural businesses that are so integral to the economy in my riding of Shefford. It is important to be more transparent with this reopening plan since these businesses need more predictability. There are still too many problems. There is still a lack of transparency and efficiency in this reopening plan. Take passports, for example. Right now, in my office, it is terrible. The delays in issuing passports are affecting the travel industry. Again, perhaps this could have been predicted, since we knew that people would go back to travelling now that the world is slowly coming out of lockdown. Given that we do not have a specific plan and that the government has not properly anticipated how things would unfold, what does my colleague think about the importance of this plan and the importance of working on what is not currently working in order to promote tourism?

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