44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's feedback. We can always endeavour to make processes better and to ensure there are more voices heard, because what we do not want to do is make it so members do not have the opportunity to be part of those conversations. I hear that feedback wholeheartedly, and I will do whatever I can to encourage government to always do these things better.
I also appreciated her comments in regard to her community and the opportunities there. I think about so many communities across our country that continue to endeavour to grow, to be able to prosper and to be included. Something that was heard today in a question by the official opposition was very disturbing. When some people in this place talk about Canadians, it appears there are many of us not being included.
I think about what is happening in the world today. I think about what Ukraine is taking on to fight for democracy when it comes to international law. I also think about how it will have to rebuild and what this agreement could do to help it rebuild faster and to ensure those factions of its society who sometimes would be left behind could actually be included.
I would like to hear the member's thoughts as to how she believes an agreement like this could better help more members of not only the Ukrainian society but also Canadians, and how we actually do better to see more Canadians and more Ukrainians are able to grow and prosper.
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Mr. Speaker, in March of this year, I actually travelled to Ukraine. I wanted to meet with government officials. I wanted to see what was happening on the ground in Kyiv and Irpin. When I met with government representatives and when I met with parliamentarians from Ukraine, one of the things they wanted was support from Canada to help rebuild their country. They wanted us to be working with them to rebuild.
I spent some time talking to folks working in different areas and different sectors, and I can tell members that, ultimately, the people who suffer the most in any war are women, are children, are marginalized people. The war in Ukraine is no different.
We need to help Ukraine rebuild. We need to be there for our ally. We also need to recognize that after this war is won, the people who are most vulnerable and the people who will need the most support are women, girls and indigenous people.
That needs to be the priority of our trade agreements as well.
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Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech.
She was critical of the FIPA, the investment treaty, that Canada signed with China, but the 1994 FIPA, or investment treaty, with Ukraine and this new modernized free trade agreement with Ukraine both contain similar provisions.
I am wondering if she is going to be encouraging her colleagues in the NDP to strip the Ukraine trade agreement of these provisions or if she is supportive of including those kinds of investment protections in this new free trade agreement with Ukraine.
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Mr. Speaker, 1994 was significantly before my time, so I will focus a little bit more on the more recent 2014 free trade agreement that Harper and the Conservatives signed with China.
I do not think many Canadians know that it was signed and that we gave up so much of our rights and that we, in fact, made it so much harder for workers in our country because of that. There are still clauses within that fair trade agreement that are making it very difficult for us to even have legislation put in place for forced labour. It already handicaps what we can do to protect workers in Canada and to protect workers in China.
I do not know about 1994. I am not going to answer that one because, like I said, I think I was in elementary school at the time.
Certainly, the one in 2014 that I have looked at quite a lot is one that I am disappointed in, and I certainly hope that the Conservatives do not get another opportunity to negotiate another free trade agreement with China.
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- Oct/24/23 5:18:30 p.m.
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In 1994, I was engaged to be married.
The hon. member for La Pointe-de-l'Île.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on two points.
First, as with other free trade agreements, it is the executive branch that acts alone. Elected representatives and opposition members do not have direct access to the chapters or any direct influence on the content of the agreement. What does my colleague think? Would she agree with the idea of coming up with another mechanism?
Second, the chapter on investments still allows for an investor, a multinational, to sue a state directly. Since these are international agreements, they are supposed to be agreements between nations. However, it is as though multinationals are being put on the same footing as nations. Does my colleague not think that this should be changed?
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Mr. Speaker, this is a little more broad than perhaps what he was looking for with his question, but I would say that, in fact, Canada's foreign policy has tilted very heavily toward trade, to the detriment of diplomacy, peacekeeping, security, development, all of these other pieces. I think the problem is that our foreign policy has to be built as a table. We need all of those legs for it to be effective and for it to work. When we prioritize trade over human rights, over security, over peace building, I think that is a real problem.
I do see some flaws with this legislation. Like I said earlier, I have not had time to really go through it, but I certainly see some flaws with this legislation. Our caucus will have to take a look and see if we will be supporting it or not.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate on legislation concerning the free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine, for a variety of reasons. I love my country, I love Ukraine and I am a strong supporter of free trade. This agreement was created under a Conservative government. Later we will have the opportunity to come back to that. As a good Conservative, I support entering into free trade agreements with as many countries as possible, provided they are good countries, of course.
When we talk about Ukraine, we cannot disregard the fact that this country has proven to humanity as a whole that resilience is the defining trait of these people and this nation, or that their strength of character only grew clearer when the Russian ogre outrageously invited itself into that country. Putin's illegal attack on Ukraine made people realize that, unfortunately, in the 21st century, we can still experience the same atrocities as in the First and Second World Wars, what we would call traditional wars. Nevertheless, the strong, proud people of Ukraine have been able to withstand the crass and heinous attacks from Putin's Russia, and they are heading for victory. We are all hoping for that outcome, and above all, we are hoping for an end to the hostilities, because there are no winners in war. There are only losers who lose friends, loved ones, family, and people who suffer under the illegal bombing. When we think of Ukraine, our thoughts are with the people who are currently experiencing the horrors of the war.
As a resident of Quebec City, I was very touched by the young pee-wee hockey players who came to Quebec City despite the war, to play in the cadet league hockey tournament. In front of a very emotional and united crowd of Quebec City residents, they demonstrated that kids can still be kids and still have fun, even if their country is at war. That also reminds me that I invited two young players from the pee-wee tournament, two Ukrainians, to be here in the House when President Zelenskyy addressed Canadians. They also had the privilege of shaking hands with their president, and I was very proud of that moment, which was tremendously emotional for these young people.
Ukraine and Canada have a lot in common. We obviously have the same climate. We also have a very strong agricultural tradition. It is not for nothing that the Ukrainian flag represents the sky and the land, using the same colours we find in Saskatchewan. It is no fluke. There is wheat, of course, but beyond that, there are historical connections that unite us through immigration. Several speakers today reiterated that Canada has the third-largest Ukrainian population after Ukraine and Russia, with 1.3 million Ukrainian Canadians. Some are descendants of the huge community that came to settle here in Canada at the turn of the 20th century and in the 1920s and 1930s. They have enriched Canada with their presence, their culture and especially their extraordinary work effort. It has to be said that we also share a passion for hockey. We are not Nordic countries for nothing. We are not countries that love the snow for nothing. We have this fine tradition, as I was saying earlier, that was beautifully highlighted at the International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament.
I cannot help but think that Canada could be doing even more for Ukraine. If we had made the necessary decisions seven or eight years ago, we could have helped Ukraine tremendously with the economic aspect of its war against Russia, and we could have helped our allies, especially European countries, support Ukraine instead of helping Russia by buying its natural resources. In that regard, I have to point out how painful it is to recall that, eight years ago, there were nearly 15 liquefied natural gas projects and ports to export it. Unfortunately, for eight years, for dogmatic and ideological reasons, the current government has done everything in its power to ensure that these 15 projects would not succeed. Imagine if, instead, we had been led for eight years by a government with a vision for the future, one that wanted the whole world to benefit from the bounty we have here when it comes to natural resources. We know how to develop them in an intelligent and environmentally friendly way, with the ethics that have always characterized Canadians. No, instead of having access to our natural resources, countries now have to knock on Russia's door to get liquefied natural gas.
That is crazy. We could be a source of pride on the international stage, but this government did nothing to properly develop Canada's liquefied natural gas potential for eight years because of ideological reasons. We may be speaking with emotion about Ukraine today, but we cannot turn a blind eye to that reality. The great country of Germany is caught between a rock and a hard place and has no choice but to ask Russia for energy, when we have energy but prefer to keep it under the ground. That is unfortunate. It is not just Canada and Canadians who are losing out, but also the people of Ukraine and Germany, who would have been happy to have access to our natural resources.
Since we are talking about free trade, I would remind the House that free trade is a defining feature of the party that I represent, the Conservative Party. Let us remember that the key steps toward free trade began with the free trade agreement with the United States. In 1988 and 1989, we had a prime minister who had vision and who put everything in place for an agreement with the United States. The free trade agreement was approved by the public in the 1988 election. We are grateful to the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney for his vision. He was likely the greatest prime minister of the 20th century.
Later on, there were the colossal efforts made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to sign free trade agreements with other countries. I want to commend the outstanding contribution of the member for Abbotsford. During the final five years of the Conservative Party's time in government, he was the architect of our country's exceptional development in the area of free trade. He was the one who succeeded in negotiating agreements with Europe, America and the Pacific.
Under the direction of the former minister of international trade, the current member for Abbotsford, we made our mark on nearly five continents. The sun almost never set on this empire of positive economic free trade and wealth creation. We believe in free trade because our country is a large, wonderful place, brimming with natural resources. Above all, we are proud of how smart and hard-working Canada's 40 million citizens are.
Let us keep one thing in mind, though. When a local market has 40 million people in it and a nearby neighbour has almost 350 million, maybe it takes a bit more. That is why our country is, in a sense, condemned to always having free trade agreements so we can open up our market and export Canada's know-how, our natural resources, our energy and our products, which are produced so efficiently thanks to Canadian workers and Canadian ingenuity. That means we need free trade agreements.
Our party, the Conservative Party, was the architect of free trade in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is the party of free trade. As everyone knows, we are always open to the idea of win-win agreements. That is key to a good free trade agreement. As one of my old bosses used to tell me all the time, a good agreement is an honest agreement. The idea is not to make sneaky attempts to put one over on the other party. The whole point is for it to be win-win. That is how outstanding free trade agreements, like the ones the member for Abbotsford negotiated when he was international trade minister, are made.
I see that time has run out. How very sad that I have to stop there.
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- Oct/24/23 5:29:53 p.m.
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The next time this matter is before the House, the member will have five minutes for questions and comments.
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Mr. Speaker, the other day I talked about how reckless the opposition party is. It can be a great risk to talk about many of the things it talks about. I would like to suggest that, when it comes to the reckless behaviour of a political party, all one really needs to do to get an appreciation of that is to listen to how the Conservative Party has been talking about COVID-19.
We have a very active ongoing interest in COVID. Contrary to what some Conservatives might believe about COVID-19, people are still testing positive for it today. It is very important, not only for the federal government but also other levels of government of all political stripes, to recognize the health hazard that was caused as a direct result of COVID-19. It varied depending on population and density in different regions of our country. That is one of the reasons we took a team Canada approach to dealing with COVID-19. It was a worldwide issue, a pandemic that did not spare any country.
Here in Canada, we had strong leadership coming from the Prime Minister's office, all the way down, working with the different provinces, municipalities, indigenous leaders, not to mention numerous stakeholders and some opposition parties. It was taken very seriously. We saw some provinces even put in a curfew. Most provinces had mandatory masking put into place.
A couple of the Conservatives are a little sensitive about this because they opposed all that in many different ways. They certainly did act as if they were very proud of that fact, which is good for them.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, there are many Conservatives who opposed mandatory masking, no matter whether it was coming from progressive Conservative provincial governments or from the Government of Canada in certain situations. The difference is that those who were in power, the provincial governments, municipalities and the federal government relied on health care professionals, individuals who had the expertise as opposed to—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Oct/24/23 5:34:04 p.m.
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Order. The way I look at it is that, the more we interrupt the hon. member, the longer we have to listen to the speeches, and the longer it will take to get through PMB.
The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your trying to tame the Conservatives on this particular issue.
What transpired, virtually from day one of the pandemic, was an educational curve for all of us. We saw things, such as the importance of masking, become a reality. Initially, that was not necessarily being advocated for. We learned the importance of washing ones hands and of ventilation for collections of people in groups. We also saw different provinces in particular coming to the table with their health experts, recognizing something that the Conservatives did not recognize, which was that it was a public health issue.
Contrary to what the Conservative Party tries to espouse, vaccinations worked. Vaccinations made a difference. That is why we saw the different provinces and stakeholders get behind it in a very significant way. There were some protests. We saw that first-hand. We saw a number of Conservative members of Parliament who went out to protesters, gave them a pat on the back and applauded them for what they were doing. Public health, what the City of Ottawa was going through and what was happening at border crossings, with billions of dollars put at risk, did not matter. The reckless direction coming from the Conservative Party was truly amazing.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. A number of Conservatives have come in to listen to the member for Winnipeg North, but I cannot even hear him because they are heckling so loudly. Perhaps you could ask them to tone it down a little so I can hear the member.
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- Oct/24/23 5:36:48 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I did not think the tone had reached that level yet, but I will ask members to please be respectful of the member for Winnipeg North, who has the floor.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that members have come in to listen to me getting wound up over an important issue.
We got a lot of resistance when we started talking about the behaviour of some of the Conservatives. I truly believe that there some who recognize the importance of public health and see the value of vaccinations, but a good portion do not, and this is from the leader down. The person who really gave birth to this legislation was the leader of the Conservative Party.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, not all of them are clapping, we will notice, because they recognize the irresponsible behaviour and the reckless attitude the Conservative leader has taken on this legislation.
He has passed it on to another member, but the fact still remains that, as a health issue, we have seen other jurisdictions of different political parties recognize that vaccinations do in fact work. They care about the environment that people work in and want safe working environments. When people board an aircraft or a tube in the sky, air ventilation is important. These are the types of things about which we should all be concerned.
The only ones who seem not to care are in the official opposition, the Conservatives. I do not know if they have mustered any other support, but I do not think they have. I do not think there is another political entity in the House of Commons that is against vaccines, let alone within provincial governments, especially since provincial governments put in things such as curfews, mandatory masking and wanting to get vaccines to the public. Many of them took the initiative of providing proof of vaccination. They should take a flip-flop on this issue.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, I am running for prime minister to put Canadians back in control of their lives by making Canada the freest nation on earth. That freedom includes bodily autonomy, the freedom to decide what people put in their own bodies. That is why I was proud to introduce a private member's bill in the House of Commons that would put an end to COVID mandates in all of the federal sector. I want to thank the hon. member for Niagara West for having adopted my private member's bill so we can move it forward even faster.
Before the Prime Minister proceeds once gain to maliciously divide and attack, let me remind him that the position put forward in the bill is now not only the position of the common-sense Conservatives, but also the position of the majority of provincial governments, of the Liberal member for Louis-Hébert and of the military review complaints commission, the tribunal responsible for hearing grievances from members of the armed forces.
I will also remind the Prime Minister that the position reflected in the bill is now his position. Members may question why I would say that. The reason is that the Prime Minister had the temerity to go on television about three months ago and claim he never forced anyone to get vaccinated. He claimed it should be a matter of personal choice. He wanted us all to forget the way he divided, insulted and name-called millions of people right across this country who are patriotic, law-abiding, decent people. If he really believes he never forced mandates on anyone, surely he will be happy to vote for this bill to ensure those mandates do not apply anymore and will never be imposed again.
Let me be clear about what this bill would do. This bill targets the unreasonable overreaches of the federal policy and unjustified abuses of federal government power. The bill targets these overreaches and abuses of power based on two different but important types of evidence. First, it follows the scientific evidence about COVID-19 vaccines, how they work and what they do. Second, it responds to the evidence from the experience of the government's decision to exploit a public health situation for partisan political gain.
This was most clear in the Prime Minister's deliberate decision to go beyond guiding and protecting Canadians, to punishing people who chose not to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Let us remember that the Prime Minister originally said vaccines would be a matter of personal choice. Then he did a poll showing that it would be popular to target a small minority of people who chose not to be vaccinated. He flip-flopped and said he would make it mandatory, and three days later, he called an election and attempted to exploit that political moment in order to regain power.
This is funny: When he announced that the vaccine mandates would be imposed on the federal sector, he did it with such political haste, based on the advice of not public health experts but polling experts, that even his own human resources team at the Treasury Board put out guidelines suggesting that it would be a matter of personal choice, not mandatory imposition. While he was advocating for a mandate, his own bureaucracy published rules against a mandate. That is because they were following the medical science and he was following political science.
This bill would put into law a prohibition on the government imposing COVID mandates again in the future. Members may wonder why the government would need such a prohibition given that it has reluctantly agreed to remove mandates for most federally employed workers. The answer is that the government has kept open the possibility of reimposing mandates, both on federal workers and on federally regulated travel.
Furthermore, there continue to be military service members who face vaccine mandates today. It is ironic that these same military service members could legally go into a bar and French kiss with a perfect stranger, but they could not do their jobs in the armed forces. How is that scientifically sound? They could not, for example, go out into a field and practise with their fellow members in infantry, but they could do things that involve far greater and more intimate personal interaction in public places, according to the law. How could that possibly be based on science?
We know that it is not and never was, because we now know that the military grievance tribunal has ruled that the government's imposition of mandates on service members violated the section 7 charter rights of those members and that the violation was not justified under section 1 of the charter, which gives the government the ability to override rights in order to uphold reasonable public interest requirements. The government's own grievance tribunal has found that the mandates violated the charter when it comes to members of the armed forces, yet still the mandates remain in place in open violation of the Charter of Rights. That is not according to the Leader of the Opposition and not according to the countless civil libertarians who have been advocating for an end to these mandates, but according to the government's own grievance tribunal and according, moving out of the military to the rest of the federal sector, to the PIPSC, the CAPE and the PSAC, three public sector unions representing 300,000 federal public servants, who have brought legal challenges against this government saying that its blanket policy was “punitive”, “unreasonable” and an “abuse of management authority”.
To quote the unions, “There was no proper consultation, nor a comprehensive process of correctly identifying all the possible circumstances faced by our members. Appropriate solutions were not developed by the employer to deal with many individual situations.” However, the Prime Minister did not listen to them. He continued to go forward with firing federal employees who were not vaccinated, and he kept this policy in place even after his public health officer said, “we do need to get back to some normalcy.”
I will go back to the Military Grievances External Review Committee on this point, which said:
...I conclude that the limitation of the grievors' right to liberty and security of the person by the [Canadian Armed Forces] vaccination policy is not in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice because the policy, in some aspects, is arbitrary, overly broad and disproportionate. Therefore, I conclude that the grievors' rights protected under section 7 were infringed.
However, that policy goes on.
The review committee continued:
...I find that termination of service for some members was a disproportionate response to their non-compliance with the vaccination policy.... I conclude that it was overly broad and not using the least restrictive option in its implementation.... I find that the disputed provisions of the CAF vaccination policy are unconstitutional and, therefore, invalid.
This is the government's own grievance tribunal saying this, yet our heroes, soldiers who loyally serve, follow the law and put their lives on the line for this country, are out of jobs, out of income and out of justice. My bill, the bill now adopted by the member for Niagara West, would restore that justice by putting an end to COVID vaccine mandates and ensuring that no such new mandates are reimposed in the future on our brave soldiers, sailors and airmen, on our public servants and on Canadians seeking to travel in federally regulated sectors.
The Prime Minister has withdrawn and apologized for some of the extremely incendiary and divisive comments he made about Canadians who made different medical decisions than he would have made. Adopting this bill would be a recognition that this ugly chapter in our history of turning Canadian against Canadian and using a public health matter to pull apart our country and grab more power is permanently behind us.
Let us recognize that Canadians have freedom of choice over what they put into their bodies. Let us adopt this legislation. Let us restore personal freedom. Let us give Canadians back control of their lives in the freest nation on earth.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-278, the prevention of government-imposed vaccination mandates act. To begin, I believe it is important to note that the discussion surrounding this legislation has been highly politicized and riddled with misinformation from the day it was first introduced by the member for Carleton during the Conservative leadership race.
At that time, the bill was promoted by the member as a means to “scrap all vaccine mandates and ban any and all future vaccine mandates”. This is, of course, simply not accurate. The text of the legislation before the House now only references a single disease, which is COVID-19.
Indeed, Bill C-278 would legislatively restrict the federal government's future ability to set COVID-19 vaccine requirements, regardless of the future trajectory of the virus or the development of new vaccines. If a future variant turned out to be extraordinarily deadly and a vaccine was developed that could stop its transmission, this legislation would legally prohibit the government from imposing any kind of requirement to have that vaccine, even if the health of millions of Canadians was put at risk.
The member for Carleton has also incorrectly described to the House the current status of the mandates. The COVID-19 vaccination requirement for federal public servants was lifted on June 20, 2022. Employees who were placed on administrative leave without pay for non-compliance with that policy in force were contacted by their managers to arrange their return to regular work duties.
As of June 20, 2022, the vaccine requirement to board a plane or train in Canada was also suspended. In addition, federally regulated transport sector employers were no longer required to have mandatory vaccination policies in place for their employees. Finally, effective October 1, 2022, the federal government removed proof of COVID-19 vaccination requirements for anyone entering Canada.
With the record a bit corrected, I would like to proceed with what New Democrats believe. We support an approach to vaccination policy that appropriately balances the rights of people who have not been vaccinated and who choose not to be vaccinated with our individual and collective rights to health and safety. We believe that decisions with respect to imposing or suspending vaccination requirements should always be based on the best available evidence, current science and the advice of experts, not politicians speaking from the House of Commons with little or no background in any of those things.
The Conservatives cannot argue that it was wrong for the Liberal government to politicize Canada's COVID-19 response, which I think they did, while simultaneously asking politicians to legislate our country's vaccination policy indefinitely into the future without any evidence.
If the Conservatives sincerely wanted to take an evidence-based approach to COVID-19 policy, then they would have supported an independent inquiry into Canada's pandemic response when they had the opportunity to do so. However, shockingly, when the NDP moved an amendment at the Standing Committee on Health yesterday to legally mandate that a COVID-19 inquiry, under the Inquiries Act, be struck within 90 days, the Conservatives sat on their hands and abstained, allowing the Liberals to kill that inquiry.
I can see why the Liberals might be reluctant to call an inquiry into their own COVID-19 response, but this reversal from the cover-up Conservatives is truly shocking to see. Under the leadership of their previous leader, Erin O'Toole, the Conservative Party repeatedly called for an independent, expert-led inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response. The Conservative Party pledged to call such an inquiry during the last election. We will need to leave it to the current Leader of the Opposition to explain this departure from his predecessor's position and the party's public pronouncements.
I believe it is unacceptable that the Liberals and Conservatives joined and worked together yesterday to block an independent review of Canada's response to the most severe pandemic in a century, because serious issues remain unexamined. Some of them include the following. We started the pandemic with not enough personal protective equipment: not enough gloves, masks, gowns and respirators. We had no proper national inventory of the personal protective equipment.
Canadians may remember that we had to throw out millions of pieces of PPE because they were expired. We saw no vaccine production in Canada, a shocking omission that has stretched over Liberal and Conservative governments for decades, who watched as Canada's ability and capacity in this regard was left to wither and die.
There was little to no public guidance on infection-acquired immunity. There was a curious dismantling of Canada's early pandemic warning systems. Canadians had no access to whole vaccines, only MRNA vaccines. There was confusing and contradictory information on the impact of vaccination on transmission. The impact and effectiveness of mandates remains a question.
Border controls were inconsistently enforced. Effectively, border controls in Quebec and Alberta were virtually absent. There were ravages through seniors' homes, overwhelmed emergency rooms and ICUs, and uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines on mutating variants.
Now, instead of papering over previous mistakes or relying on pseudo-science to set public health policy, we must leave no stone unturned to learn from the past and prepare for future threats. Many prominent public health and security experts have called for the federal government to launch an expert-led independent inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response.
The NDP has proposed an inquiry under the Inquiries Act, because such an inquiry would be independent. It would be led by an impartial person, notably a judge. It would be properly resourced with counsel. It would have the power to subpoena documents and compel the attendance of witnesses. It would be conducted in public. At the end of the day, it should do a searching root-to-branch comprehensive analysis of every issue that Canadians have raised during the pandemic response by the federal government.
Again, the Conservatives had a chance to make that happen, because the NDP and the Bloc were voting in favour of this motion, but they said no. They abstained. Instead, the Conservatives want to legislate science from the floor of the House of Commons. That is irresponsible.
Prominent Canadians, such as David Naylor, co-chair of the federal COVID-19 immunity task force, and the former chair of the federal review of the 2003 SARS epidemic, thinks there should be an independent public inquiry. So does Richard Fadden, former national security adviser to Stephen Harper. Recently, the British Medical Journal, one of the world's oldest general medical journals, published a series that examined Canada's COVID-19 response and called for an independent national inquiry.
Why do the Conservatives not want one? Again, they would rather play politics. The New Democrats do not and will not allow the Conservative Party or the Liberals to play politics with Canadians' health.
The British Medical Journal documented a number of deeply troubling pandemic failures in Canada, including that Canada's emergency response was impaired by long-standing weaknesses in the public health and health care systems. These included fragmented health leadership across federal, provincial and territorial governments. They noted that pandemic performance varied widely across Canada's provinces and territories, hampered by inconsistency in decision-making, inadequate data, infrastructure and misalignment of priorities.
They noted that lacking an independent federal inquiry allows others to step into the frame. We have seen the so-called National Citizens Inquiry, led by Preston Manning, for example, which appears to be fuelled by vaccine safety misinformation and ideological concerns with government public health measures. This is far from the full, national and public inquiry led by independent experts that Canada's pandemic performance deserves.
An inquiry would help deliver on Canada's ambition to be a global leader, and most importantly, it would deliver answers to Canadians, whose confidence has been shaken. At the end of the day, a public inquiry is needed to restore the Canadian population's confidence, to ensure accountability for decisions that have been made and, most importantly, to find out what went well and what did not. Thus, we could better prepare for the next pandemic, as experts tell us that it is not a question of if, but when.
While the Leader of the Opposition pontificates, pretends and politicizes this very important public health issue on the floor of the House of Commons, New Democrats are pushing for what Canadians really want. That is a full, independent, public, impartial, searching and comprehensive public inquiry.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I rise to speak since you were elected Speaker. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you and wish you a long reign.
I want to begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois, the adult in the room, is opposed to Bill C-278. The summary of this bill reads as follows:
This enactment amends the Financial Administration Act to provide that the Treasury Board may not require as a condition of employment in the federal public administration that a person receive a vaccine against COVID-19. It also amends the Canada Labour Code to provide that regulations may not be made that require, as a term or condition of employment in or in connection with the operation of a federal work, undertaking or business, that a person receive a vaccine against COVID-19.
In addition, the enactment amends the Aeronautics Act, the Railway Safety Act and the Canada Shipping Act, 2001 to provide that no regulation, order or other instrument made under any of those Acts to prevent the introduction or spread of COVID-19 may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting a person from boarding an aircraft, a train or a vessel solely on the ground that they have not received a vaccine against that disease.
What can I say about this bill? First, we will begin with a short step back in time. Back in the day, Bill C‑285 required reasonable accommodation for people who refused to get vaccinated and wanted to use various means of transportation like trains, planes or ships. It also prohibited employers from retaliating against people's health decisions. The bill stated that a person who lost their job for refusing treatments such as a vaccine could not be denied employment insurance. This was understood to be the COVID‑19 vaccine.
Bill C‑278 essentially does the same thing, but this time it prohibits restrictions related to vaccination status specifically for COVID-19. Bill C‑285, on the other hand, targeted all types of medical treatment. What disturbs us about this bill are the reasons that led to it. Still, I would rather speak to the House about the reasons why we think it makes no sense.
We consider that the restrictions, such as the vaccine mandate for international travel, were justified. They were temporary and necessary in the context of COVID‑19. Although some measures seemed unreasonable, for example, the vaccine mandate for all federal public servants, even those who do not come in contact with the public, these measures were up for debate during the 2021 election campaign and were upheld by the courts.
The Bloc Québécois also refuses to buy the conspiracy theories the member for Niagara West is selling. The many statements this member has previously made on vaccines, as well as the nature of the petitions he has sponsored, make it difficult to see his initiative and this bill as anything other than the umpteenth attempt to discredit vaccines. This is what we are talking about when we talk about the reasons that motivated the member to bring in this bill.
Let us not forget that the restrictions specific to COVID-19 and the borders have all been lifted since October 1, 2022. As for the vaccine mandate for federal employees, it was dropped on June 20, 2022. What is more, this bill seems to be aligned with several anti-vax petitions that contained many false statements based on dubious sources. Nevertheless, the member sponsored these petitions.
The Bloc Québécois will not be fooled. It knows that the bill's intention is to curry favour with the base of the member's party by spreading misinformation. COVID‑19 was not a conspiracy; it was a tragedy. The different waves of COVID‑19 in Quebec and Canada cost close to 18,000 lives back home in Quebec, over 50,000 in Canada and close to 6.5 million worldwide. This is no dream; it is reality. However, we see here that the Conservatives' sympathies do not lie with the victims, the health workers or all our young people who made sacrifices to protect our seniors. Neither do its sympathies lie with my friend Annie, an immunocompromised kidney transplant patient who risks death simply by getting COVID‑19. The Conservatives' sympathies lie with pandemic deniers.
The Conservatives have chosen to forget all of that by voting against the principle of Bill S‑209, which calls for the designation of March 11 as pandemic observance day.
Not only do they not wish to acknowledge the tragedy, they are now proposing that we deny that vaccines saved many lives and enabled us to emerge from the pandemic. They can be the ones to tell those who lost a family member to COVID-19, those who were separated from their loved ones for a long time, or those who suffer from long COVID and are still affected by the virus, that this pandemic is nothing but a conspiracy, a hoax. They can be the ones to ask the guardian angels who have propped up our hospital system all this time whether COVID-19 is a sham, an invention.
Misinformation is a growing problem in our society, and it is very alarming. Misinformation has become an illness amongst the Conservatives. We need only look at the falsehoods they are spreading about the carbon tax, pretending that it applies to Quebec because it suits them to say it does.
It is preposterous to claim to be the party that will form the next government by spreading falsehoods. We can argue about a lot of things, and people can be more right leaning or left leaning. The Conservatives can even shamelessly criticize the current government's decisions on the pretext that it is too left-wing. However, they cannot lie to people just to gain power, although that is exactly what the Conservative Party is determined to do. It is unfortunate for democracy, for the people, and for the trust and honesty that we must honour in this place.
I invite the Conservative Party to reconsider the methods it uses to gain power. People are not naive. The shift towards lies and misinformation is dangerous. Fortunately, the Bloc Québécois is elevating the debate and bringing some lucidity and maturity to the conversation. The Bloc Québécois is responsible and will vote against this bill because, from the beginning, the Bloc has always supported bills that make sense and opposed those that do not.
By refusing to recognize the value of COVID‑19 vaccines, the Conservatives are once again denying science. If this bill passed, our entire society could someday have to sacrifice its very safety and security to the anti-vax beliefs of a small group of people who are still in denial. That would be completely unacceptable. We have to ask ourselves if individual freedom ends where collective freedom begins.
The Conservative Party needs to go redo its homework, because I am sure that the people who supported it up until now will be put off when they see the party's true colours. It is a party of lies that need to be debunked right now.
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- Oct/24/23 6:08:19 p.m.
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Before I give the floor to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities, I would ask that all members take care when they use the word “lies” or accuse someone of lying. That is very important, even when one is not addressing an hon. member present in the House. One must be very careful when using those words.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see that the Conservatives have decided to take a break from denial of climate change and go back to an old debate, denial of vaccine effectiveness. Vaccines save lives, right off the top. It is not something I have heard today from the other side. This is the priority today of the Conservative Party. It is the priority of its leader to deny vaccines.
There was no mention, not that I heard, that more than 54,000 Canadians have died of COVID-19. That is more than the number of Canadians who died in the Second World War. Some 751 Niagara residents died of COVID-19, and in the past month, there have been six in intensive care in Niagara. They could be constituents of mine or of the member for Niagara West, who is sponsoring this bill on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition.
Vaccine denial is not a new thing. Vaccine denial is as old as vaccines. It goes back to the 19th century, when the first vaccines against smallpox came around. Funnily enough, at that time in the 19th century, vaccine denial was led by people who were selling snake oil and trying to make money on the side with their snake oil remedies to combat smallpox, which did not have any effectiveness. We see the grift continue here, but it is disappointing to watch the official opposition dive in head first again and again. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and unfortunately, when dealing with a massive health crisis, there are those in His Majesty's loyal opposition who echoed the disinformation and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
I would like to go back a bit. I wish it was not more than 20 years ago, but when I was in my early twenties, I got a job in the labour pool at a paper mill in the Niagara region. I got through the interview and there was a requirement that I show proof of vaccination for tetanus. I had not had the vaccine within the past 10 years, so I had to get it before I could start work at the paper mill.
Every doctor, nurse, soldier, firefighter, pilot or police officer whom any Canadian has ever met in their lives has had a vaccine and had to have a vaccine before they started work. What is the reason for this? The Conservatives talk about having to protect our soldiers, having to do this and having to do that. Through world wars we have required soldiers to get vaccines because it protects their health and that of the person next to them in the trenches or foxholes. However, Conservatives do not care, and it is truly unfortunate that they are trying to take us back to square one.
Vaccines, as I mentioned, are safe, and it is alarming that we have not heard that from the official opposition. All its speakers gloss over that. They gloss over the effectiveness. If our ancestors saw that, it would be unbelievable to them that we would give away this miraculous medical breakthrough on all the diseases that have killed so many people through the years, including COVID-19.
One of the most horrific stories that I heard during the pandemic, and heard it time and again, was about nurses. Do members remember when they were our health care heroes? Well, that has faded, unfortunately, for the Conservatives and the Leader of the Opposition. They had to sit there and watch people die, people who listened to the misinformation and disinformation. People were begging on their deathbeds for a vaccine from nurses and doctors, only to be told they would have had to get it before they got sick and could not get it at the last moment.
Again, there was deafening silence from the Conservatives on that. I am not sure who they are trying to rally to. Actually, we do know who they are trying to rally to. They closed down this city for a few weeks. They closed down international borders. They tried to grind the economy to a halt.
The Conservatives talk a good game, although usually only during question period, about vulnerable Canadians. They talk a good game of wanting to stand to protect vulnerable Canadians. In this case, vaccines do that. I may be lucky, and most of us here may be healthy enough that, if we contracted COVID–19 and the disease progressed to a point, maybe we would be okay, but maybe not.
What about small children? What about seniors? What about people with severe illnesses? I hope members never have to witness a baby with whooping cough, for example, who did not get a vaccine. It takes a second. I can understand some people being concerned about it because it is a needle in their arm, but they should speak to their physicians about it because they know best about their patients' health.
My doctors told me to get it as soon as it was available. That is how much confidence they had. I know my doctors are good doctors. The doctors throughout the Niagara region, and throughout Canada, are highly regulated. These are people who are here to protect our health and would tell us to get the available vaccinations immediately.
Through the course of human history, disease has ravaged us so much that perhaps we are benefiting from its success if we can say in 2023 that we do not need these vaccines or to worry about things such as polio, smallpox or measles. I am sure many members of the House had measles when they were a kid and think it was okay, but kids die of measles. There was a kid in New York State who contracted polio in 2023. Mercifully, there was no outbreak, but there could have been. As more politicians like those in the Conservative Party try to make political hay out of vaccines and vaccine mandates, there is an acceptance that these snake oil sales people are trying to make us less healthy, which is truly disappointing.
I want to thank the vast majority of Canadians who did their part. Canadians stood up to protect their neighbours, families, loved ones and co-workers. They knew it was the right thing to do. It is shameful that the Conservatives would stand up to cheer on those who would stand against that, but there is no willingness on their part to stand up for the most vulnerable. They talk a good game during question period, I will grant them that, but after those 45 minutes are done, and sometimes it is a little longer, we do not see any of that. Their disregard for public health is absolutely shocking.
For more than 150 years, vaccines have been a valid public health tool, and in a crisis such as COVID–19, something we had not seen in our lifetime, it was a valid public tool to use. To take it off the table just shows the Conservatives' denial for science, for what is best for the Canadian people and for the protection of vulnerable members of society. In another pandemic, we would not want that party in charge. It is just not worth the risk.
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