SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 88

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 14, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 88 - Jun/14/22
Mr. Arnold Viersen
  • Jun/14/22 6:11:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have risen in the House many times and asked many questions raising issues around the Liberals' punitive, divisive and discriminatory vaccine mandates. I have spoken to many individuals across the country, particularly one gentleman named Cayle, a young man who drove all the way here from Vancouver Island because he could not fly to protest these vaccine mandates. I know that the parliamentary secretary will want to talk about how the government is now suspending the vaccine mandates as of June 20. While this announcement will bring relief to those who have been stigmatized by the Prime Minister for their personal medical decisions, I want to ask specifically why the Liberals are suspending the mandates. Today's media release quoted the repeated claim that these were always meant to be a temporary measure. I have heard a lot from the Prime Minister and the government about how these measures were always going to be temporary. The government then went on to say that it would only suspend these required vaccination requirements for domestic and outbound travel, federally regulated transportation sectors and federal government employees. Why is the government only suspending them? If the government really believed that travel mandates were just a temporary measure, it should be ending them, not suspending them. In the announcement, the Liberal government was clear that it was not eliminating the mandates but was temporarily removing them while keeping them active. The mandates are not really gone, but just not being enforced for now. In everyday life, when we see or hear about a suspension, it is something that is short. In a hockey game, a player can get a suspension for a game or two but then he goes back to the normal life of playing hockey. With the Liberals' “temporary suspension” of the vaccine mandates, one can believe that will be coming back. Is this suspension a temporary thing? Were the mandates a temporary thing? It seems that there is now a new normal, with vaccine mandates being the norm. I hope that this is not going to be the case, but we have seen how the government has been following political science regarding its COVID policy instead of actual science. To review, over the past year, the government has suspended the rights of millions of Canadians to travel and see their families. Now it is announcing that it is temporarily un-suspending these rights. With this approach, maybe the Liberals should amend the Constitution to the “Charter of temporary rights and freedoms”. Members can consider that if one has been convicted of a sexual crime against children, as long as they have a vaccine, here is a passport and off they go. There are 42,000 convicted sex offenders in this country, and the government has only refused eight passports to people who are considered likely to exploit children in another country. However, the government is spending $30 million to implement—
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Context: House Hansard - 88 - Jun/14/22
Mr. Adam van Koeverden (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health and to the Minister of Sport, Lib.)
  • Jun/14/22 6:14:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, since the beginning of this pandemic, our top priority has been the health and safety of Canadians. We are more than two years into this pandemic, and our priority remains exactly the same. That is why we continue to take actions at the border. Canadians have stepped up to protect themselves and the people around them from COVID-19 by getting vaccinated. Today, nearly 90% of the eligible population has been vaccinated, case counts have decreased and the rates of hospitalizations and deaths are also decreasing across this country. Indeed, we continue to have access to vaccines, boosters, therapeutics and rapid tests. This allows us to be more flexible in our approach at the borders, and it also means that Canada has one of the lowest death rates in the world. That is why we have eased some of the requirements for vaccinated travellers in recent months, including our decision to move COVID-19 testing for all travellers off-site. The Government of Canada will pause mandatory random testing at airports between June 11 and June 30 as we transition to a model whereby testing occurs outside of airports. Additionally, our government announced today that as of June 20, it will suspend vaccination requirements for domestic and outbound travel, federally regulated transportation sectors and federal government employees. While the suspension of vaccine mandates reflects our improved public health situation in Canada, the COVID-19 virus continues to evolve and circulate in Canada and globally. Given this context and because vaccination rates and virus control in other countries vary significantly, current vaccination requirements at the border will remain in effect. This will reduce the potential impact of international travel on our health care system and serve as added protection against any future variant. Other public health measures, such as wearing a mask, continue to apply and will be enforced throughout a traveller's journey on a plane or a train. Our government's decision to suspend the mandatory vaccination requirement for the domestic transportation sector was informed by key indicators that include the evolution of this virus, the epidemiological situation and modelling, the stabilization of infection and hospitalizations across the country, vaccine science and high levels of vaccination in Canada against COVID-19. Our government will continue to evaluate measures and will not hesitate to make adjustments based on the latest public health advice and science to keep Canadians and the transportation system safe and secure. Canadian citizens and Canadian permanent residents returning from international destinations who do not qualify for the fully vaccinated traveller exemption continue to be required to provide a valid pre-entry test result and remain subject to day one and day eight molecular testing, as well as quarantine for 14 days. In addition, all travellers entering Canada are required to input their mandatory information in ArriveCAN within 72 hours before their arrival in Canada. Travellers who arrive without completing their ArriveCAN submission may be subject to day one and day eight molecular testing, as well as to quarantine for 14 days and fines for other enforcement actions, regardless of their vaccination status. Some exemptions remain in place for certain unvaccinated travellers. For example, agricultural temporary foreign workers, resettled refugees, asylum seekers and those with a medical exemption would also be permitted to enter. Our government recognizes that for weeks there have been various issues causing delays at airports, and we continue to work closely with airport authorities, airlines, testing providers and many other partners to manage traveller flow and make sure travellers are processed as efficiently as possible.
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