SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 111

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 17, 2022 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 111 - Oct/17/22
Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)
  • Oct/17/22 6:11:51 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, in May I asked the Minister of Health what scientific advice he had received in regard to travel mandates. Today I ask the same question. On September 26, the ministers of health, public safety and transport announced the lifting of the pandemic precautions effective October 1 by allowing the special orders under the Quarantine Act to expire. This effectively meant that foreign nationals no longer needed to be vaccinated to enter the country, incoming travellers would not be subject to random mandatory COVID–19 tests, unvaccinated Canadians would no longer have to isolate, travellers would no longer have to report or monitor for COVID–19 symptoms, the wearing of face masks on planes and trains was no longer mandatory as well, and submitting public health information through the ArriveCAN app would effectively become optional. While Conservatives have been appealing to the government for a long time to lift the mandates, and we are happy to see them gone, my questions remain as follows: What was scientific about October 1? What evidence was this decision based on? Why was Canada so slow to lift the mandates compared to other countries? The second issue I would like to raise tonight relates to the ArriveCAN app. Like a lot of Canadians this summer, I used the ArriveCAN app. I went to visit some family in the Netherlands. When I came back home I was on a flight through Iceland, and I had to use the ArriveCAN app. I did it properly to get on the plane, and I did it for my spouse as well. When we arrived in Toronto the app had broken down. I went to the CBSA officer, who said that was a normal thing to happen and that it had been happening quite a bit. It was not an easy process, but we went through and it all got worked out. However, that goes to say, as some other members in the House of Commons have raised today, we wonder why the ArriveCAN app was so poorly designed and why it cost so much money. Right now, Canadians are recovering from the COVID–19 pandemic and government restrictions. Community groups are starting to refocus and get membership out again. Sports groups are doing the same thing. That is all well and good, but I would be remiss if I did not mention in the chamber that right now Canada needs to look back very closely with respect to what happened during the last three years. My other question to the government today is this: Would it consider a royal commission to determine how much money was spent on COVID–19 programs, how much additional money was spent during the COVID–19 pandemic, what consequences of that spending were, and what the long-term impacts both for our society and our fiscal coffers will be? We are in a period of inflation right now, and we need to be very careful about how we spend money moving forward, but Canadians are equally concerned about how their rights are going to be protected moving forward as well. I think we have a responsibility in the House to ensure that critical work is being undertaken, so I would like to petition the government with my time today to empower every parliamentary committee, if not a royal commission, to look at program spending over the last three years and look at which programs worked, which ones did not, which ones cost the most, which ones had the most take-up and which ones did not have any take-up at all. A lot of things were spent on, and we do not know the consequences and the impacts of that spending. We need to look at how the rights of Canadians under the charter are going to be protected moving forward. There are a lot of unanswered questions. I know there are some cases before the federal courts, but I think here in Parliament we need to look very closely at things such as the ArriveCAN app. I will give one final example. Just three weeks ago, before the October 1 rescindment of the Quarantine Act, a senior citizen constituent who has never had a smart phone was told by a CBSA officer that he needed to get a letter from his MP to go into the United States for the day and come back. That is not what the charter calls for, and we need to stop those things from happening again.
757 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border