44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 15, 2024 11:00AM
Uqaqtittiji, I rise to speak in support of Bill S-209. I thank my colleague from Vancouver Centre for sponsoring this bill.
A pandemic observance day, if passed, would honour the loved ones we lost to COVID-19. It would recognize the countless sacrifices made by frontline workers in Canada and abroad. It would provide us with a chance to reflect on the ongoing impacts COVID-19 continues to have.
On behalf of Nunavut, I will reflect on our experiences during the pandemic. I thank Dr. Michael Patterson, who was the chief public health officer for Nunavut during the COVID-19 pandemic. While I was apprehensive at first, I gained great respect for him and his role. Because of his great leadership, it took much longer for COVID-19 to reach Nunavut compared with other provinces and territories.
I remind the House that all 25 of the communities I represent in Nunavut are fly-in only. That was part of the reason it was easier to isolate, quarantine and screen for infections. Starting on March 25, 2020, the territorial government restricted all travel into Nunavut. Only residents and essential medical workers were allowed to enter, and they were first required to quarantine for 14 days. The territory was essentially on a complete lockdown.
While cases surged in Canada and abroad, Nunavut remained without cases of COVID-19. For once, our isolated communities were protected. I thank the decisiveness of members of the territorial government, whose fast and aggressive actions kept Nunavummiut safe. I thank the former premier, Joe Savikataaq; the current premier, P.J. Akeeagok; the minister of health, John Main; and the chief medical officer, Dr. Michael Patterson, for their leadership in these difficult times.
For many months, Nunavut’s pandemic measures were controversial. Many Nunavummiut struggled with being isolated in hotels, waiting to go home. Mental health supports were needed as people struggled in their journey home.
The following June, many restrictions were lifted. First, parks and day cares were reopened, and outdoor gatherings were allowed. By the end of the month, even bars and restaurants reopened, subject to social distancing.
Nunavut would not see a positive case until eight months after the pandemic officially began in Canada. On November 6, 2020, Nunavut’s first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Sanikiluaq. In a week, this increased to eight confirmed cases. A week after that, cases exploded to 84. I am positive that this huge spike in cases is 100% related to the overcrowded housing situation that Nunavummiut are forced to endure.
While new lockdowns and social distancing measures sought to keep COVID-19 under control, the bubble had burst. Overall, Nunavut recorded 3,531 cases of COVID-19. I am very sad to say that 10 of my constituents died. These were people I knew, who were mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and friends. Extended family is important in my riding, and more than 10 families changed forever because of the pandemic. In a territory as small and tight-knit as Nunavut, these losses are amplified.
While the pandemic may be considered over, its effects persist. Many have spoken about the impacts of social isolation on mental health. The profound impacts on Nunavummiut of increased loneliness and two years without socialization remain; these include worsening anxiety and depression. With colonial policies, the mental health needs of Nunavummiut continue to be ignored. There are more completed suicides there than in any other jurisdiction, especially among youth, and this is extremely concerning.
While I have complete faith in Nunavummiut to support each other, they are given hurdles that make healing beyond their reach. The Liberals must invest in Nunavut. We need better access to culturally relevant and trauma-informed mental health care. The health care system in Nunavut is already extremely strained. COVID-19 highlighted many of the issues that my constituents must live with every day. Just last year, health services had to be reduced in six communities because of the lack of staff. More than two dozen key positions were unstaffed. Some are still operating on an emergency-only basis, meaning people cannot access primary health care.
The life expectancy in Nunavut is 71 years, while in Canada overall it is 82 years. Even when a doctor or nurse is available, for most basic and specialized services people must fly thousands of kilometres south to hospitals in Iqaluit, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Yellowknife or Edmonton. The federal government must do more to support, train, recruit and retain qualified health care workers in Nunavut. More must be invested in health infrastructure so that families are not separated just to get the care they need.
COVID-19 is not the only respiratory disease that people in Nunavut endure. The Nunavut Department of Health announced tuberculosis outbreaks in Pond Inlet last March, in Naujaat last May and, more than two years ago, in Pangnirtung. Tuberculosis has been practically eradicated in the rest of Canada, but it persists in my communities. According to a 2018 report by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the average annual rate of TB among Inuit is 290 times higher than in Canadian-born, non-Indigenous people. This number is Canada’s shame. It is evidence that the government does not meet its obligations to Inuit.
Hopes were high in 2018 when the Liberals announced a plan to end tuberculosis in Inuit communities by 2030. Six years have passed, and infection rates remain high as federal funding continues not to be enough. Five people in Inuit communities have died by TB since 2021. I should not have to call on the federal government to recommit funding to address tuberculosis and save lives in Nunavut, yet here I am, practically begging the government to please invest in Nunavut. This includes investing in housing so that respiratory diseases are prevented from spreading based on overcrowding.
To conclude, the NDP supports the intent of Bill S-209. COVID-19 had immeasurable impacts on Canada and abroad. My thoughts are especially with the 10 Nunavummiut who died from COVID-19, and their families. We must do better. We must be better prepared if there is ever another pandemic. I hope that the Liberals will address the persistent health issues that I outlined. I hope that the budget tomorrow will include major investments in Nunavut.
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Mr. Speaker, as always it is an honour to rise in this place to talk about the issues that are so important to my constituents and all Canadians.
Particularly, on Bill S-209, I find it interesting that we are debating the creation of a day, which happened approximately four years ago, for when COVID-19 became a big thing. I remember that four years ago well. I was in this place as a newly elected member of Parliament, and it was a chaotic time. Many people did not know what was going on. We had differing intelligence and news. In fact, it was not even called COVID at that time. However, then it was declared a pandemic, and then this place and basically the country was shut down. Now, four years later, we have an attempt to memorialize this in the context of a day of recognition.
What I think is interesting, and I would suggest very troubling, is that we have an effort by a member of the Liberal Party to sponsor and bring forward this pandemic day act in the House of Commons, which was put forward by a senator. However, what I think needs to be said very clearly is how impactful COVID was, and not just the virus, which had an unquestionably significant impact on so many lives.
As I have reflected back, and because the debate of the bill was bumped back a couple of weeks I have had additional time to consider it, what I find very troubling is the mismanagement and the efforts of the Liberals, in particular, to squash and disregard the rights and freedoms of Canadians and the division that took place. I think of the 2021 election. In fact, I was reflecting the other day on how unbelievably divisive that election was.
Literally, in this place two months before the Prime Minister went to Rideau Hall to call an election, he promised that he would not do that. However, he used vaccinations. Again, he promised that he would never force Canadians to get vaccinated, and then he used that as a political weapon to divide Canadians against each other, splitting families apart, churches, organizations and communities, and for what? The purpose was in pursuit of power.
I reflect back on the early days of the pandemic when the actions of this place were shut down and there was, I would suggest, cross-partisan collaboration and a willingness to say, “Okay, we do not know what's going on.” We certainly could not trust what was coming out of China. There were questions about what the WHO was saying, and we had to figure things out. However, what did the Liberals do instead of being willing to work together? They would claim on television that a team Canada approach was needed, which is simply code for “they failed” as we have learned time and time again since that point. What we saw was that there was not a willingness to collaborate. They wanted unlimited taxation and spending authority for a year and a half, which is something that would have defied 800 years of Westminster democratic tradition.
We look time and time again at the tumult of COVID-19 and the pandemic, and there were certainly significant challenges. We saw our health care system put under tremendous strain. It was unfortunate that the result of that was not a realistic conversation about the fact that we had a virus that brought our health care system to its knees, even though we invest hundreds of billions of dollars a year into that health care system. We have not had those realistic conversations in the follow up to that.
I was speaking to someone earlier today who talked about the trauma to him and his family. They talked about how a member of their family committed suicide because of the isolation they faced during COVID. We see tragic stories like that, and we still have concerns, whether they are concerns around vaccine injuries, which the Liberals seem quick to suggest are simply conspiratorial, or concerns related to long COVID, where there are individuals who still cannot get access to the care that they need to deal with some of the consequences of a virus that we still do not necessarily have a good understanding of.
I would just note a practical impact of the mismanagement. There used to be a pretty significant consensus, and I have been very vocal in my support for the use of vaccines, dating to long before COVID. However, because of the Liberals' intentional dividing of Canadians, today we see greater vaccine hesitancy than there was only a few years ago.
I happened to be on the ethics committee, on which I have the opportunity to serve during this Parliament as well. We saw that, when Liberals spend money, along with that money, comes scandal. Whether it was the WE Charity, ventilators or arrive scam, on and on the scandal train goes. We see how things that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago have been normalized because of the willingness of the government to take advantage, and the members even use language like this. They used it in trying to reshape the economy to some utopian vision that is certainly not leaving Canadians better off, so it is the furthest thing from a utopia, but that is the language the Liberals use.
I would simply suggest this: There are still many Canadians who want answers about the spending, the actions and why things were allowed to devolve. So often, still today, we hear how COVID is still being used as an excuse, whether that be for the debt or deficits, yet we learned that, of the COVID spending, 35% of that money expended during COVID was not even related to the pandemic.
We see mismanagement. When it comes to the national response, especially in the early days of the pandemic, the economic inefficiencies with which the government managed its programs are astounding. The government was unwilling to work with industry, but encouraged sectors of the economy to lay people off, subsidized their being laid off, and then subsidized those businesses to continue to keep their doors open. Talk about inefficiencies. No wonder we have such a productivity gap existing today.
Four years ago, on March 11, I remember that briefing that took place, and the irony. It was interesting because there were a couple of hundred people packed into a committee room that had been set up in a theatre style in the Wellington Building. There were health officials there who were basically saying that they did not know what was going on. We see how, in times of crisis, the virtue of leadership shows up, and in that regard, Canada was left lacking. We saw, instead of bringing the country together, the Prime Minister attempted to enrich himself and his friends. We saw a government that, instead of trying to collaborate, tried to consolidate and bring forward more authority upon itself.
Do we need a day to acknowledge the trauma that so many faced? I still hear from people who have broken relationships, broken family members and have lost loved ones, and they are on all sides of each debate, whether that is for vaccines or against vaccines, for lockdowns or against lockdowns. They are on both sides of the debate whether to support action on COVID, taking it seriously, or to not support that. The trauma that was unleashed upon our country because we had a government that was more worried about self-preservation than working in the best interest of Canadians is a legacy that certainly bears reflection. However, I do not think the way to do that is through a day of recognition because, on the division, I think Canadians would far rather see accountability.
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