House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 31% of the vote.
Loans and Grants November 23rd, 2009
Mr. Speaker, the federal government refuses to transfer the money from its new loans and grants program to the Government of Quebec. But in June 2008, the current political lieutenant for Quebec confirmed that Quebec could withdraw from the new program that will replace the millennium scholarships. He said that the government respects Quebec's areas of jurisdiction.
Why is the government getting in the way of the Quebec government, which has chosen to target its least fortunate students?
Post-Secondary Education November 17th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, colleges and CEGEPs are calling for more federal money to support their research activities. The government has to realize that transfers for post-secondary education are still below 1994-95 levels. The annual shortfall is $3.4 billion for Canada and nearly $800 million for Quebec.
When will this government stop holding up research in post-secondary institutions and restore their funding?
Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act November 17th, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I listened with considerable interest to my colleague's remarks. I have a very simple question for her.
In 2008, the committee responsible for international trade conducted a study costing several tens of thousands of dollars. The members went to Colombia to study what was going on there, in greater depth. The committee submitted a report, but the Conservatives ignored it.
As we have said from the outset, the Bloc has no problem with free trade as such. Our problem is with the way it is done and the rules and framework.
When I see that the Conservatives do not even take the time to look at a committee report, I think they are ridiculing democracy and the work we do. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say.
Employment Insurance Act November 3rd, 2009
Mr. Speaker, my question will be very short.
Yesterday the NDP tried to corner me, if I may put it that way, with a very poorly worded question about whether or not my constituents supported Bill C-50.
I would like to ask the same question of the member for Shefford. Have his constituents spoken to him about Bill C-50? Have they told him, as my constituents told me, to oppose Bill C-50 since it serves no purpose?
Employment Insurance Act November 3rd, 2009
Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attention to the remarks of my colleague, the member for Shefford. As always, he very clearly explained the position of the Bloc Québécois. He also explained why the Conservatives and the New Democrats defend the indefensible, especially concerning the utility of this bill for workers and the unemployed in Quebec. My colleague gave pertinent examples of the completely ridiculous reasoning of the Conservatives with regard to Bill C-50.
I would like my colleague from Shefford to give me his opinion of the NDP position. We know that if Bill C-50 is passed, it will be thanks to the support of the New Democratic Party. In our view, that support is completely irrational since the NDP has condemned the Conservative government for many years. It recently boasted that it has always opposed the government’s plans; but we recognize now that for electoral reasons the NDP has sold its soul to the devil for peanuts, as I said yesterday.
I would be interested to know what my colleague from Shefford thinks of the NDP support.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is very interesting, and here is why. First of all, indeed, the ten percenter he mentioned is very telling. I must admit, like him, I was also appalled by what the Liberals did, and I invite people to read the evidence of the Standing Committee on Health. Now the problem is that no matter how many mistakes the Liberals made, they do not excuse the Conservative government's mistakes. Furthermore, while the Liberals may have made some mistakes, they are in opposition. The Conservatives, however, are in power, and that is much more dangerous.
Mr. Speaker, thankfully, at least in Quebec we have the Government of Quebec, which makes up for the rest of Canada, I am sorry to say. What is unfortunate, as my colleague from Guelph just indicated, is that the Conservatives were much more interested in investing money in things that would pay off politically, such as their infrastructure programs—which they boasted about to no end, but from which we have yet to see any results—for electoral considerations, in order to win the next election, as opposed to investing in an information campaign concerning vaccination. I mentioned this a little while ago when we were talking about the big logos on the giant Conservative Party cheques.
This is what posed a big problem for us, because from the beginning, people did not have the necessary information. They knew a lot more about the money the Conservatives were giving to their riding than they did about the need to be vaccinated. I must admit, I find that extremely shocking, because they are playing with the health of our citizens.
Mr. Speaker, clearly, everything is not okay. The Conservative government made promises and created high expectations with regard to GSK's ability to distribute enough vaccine. The problem is that GSK did not hold up its end of the bargain.
Why did it not hold up its end of the bargain? That is an interesting question. It did not do so because all of a sudden, it turned out that the government did not plan for the production of non-adjuvanted vaccine, or at least, failed to consider its usefulness. What did the government do? It paid dearly for vaccine from Australia and asked GSK—in a politically motivated and amateurish decision—to alter its production line to produce non-adjuvanted vaccine when it suddenly realized that it had nothing to give the highest-risk group, pregnant women.
It is clear that everything is not okay. Someone is hiding the truth. Whether that someone is the government, well, if one looks at how it has handled this matter from the beginning, some serious questions have to be asked.
Not long ago, there was talk of supplying 3.5 million doses per week, if I am not mistaken, but actual production has been dramatically lower. So there was a problem and, as I was saying, the problem was with the shift in production priority. From one day to the next, someone decided to change production over to the non-adjuvanted vaccine. Since the very beginning, we have been talking about the underlying problem, which is that there was one single supplier.
I see that, unfortunately, I have very little time left. If only the government had dealt with other pharmaceutical companies, they could have helped meet the need in this kind of situation, and we would not be here debating this issue today.
Mr. Speaker, there we have the Conservatives’ only argument and the proof that this member was not present at the Standing Committee on Health, because I was there with my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes. We asked the witnesses questions, we questioned Dr. Butler-Jones, and the answers he gave us were plainly in agreement with what we were saying.
I may have been off the mark, if I may put it that way, and I do not think I am smarter than the people at the Public Health Agency of Canada. I simply think that I represent the people in my riding who have fears, because we do not have the necessary doses. There is a word for that, and it is “responsibility”. The government had a responsibility to live up to. It had a responsibility to do business with companies other than GSK.
Why did the government not do business with other companies that had the capacity to produce these vaccines? Why did it not even bother to talk with those companies about whether they were also capable of supplying some of the doses?
Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have the opportunity this evening to talk about the H1N1 issue and the urgency surrounding it. As a member of the Standing Committee on Health, as I just said, I have come to understand the tremendous breadth of the H1N1 problem over the past few months.
I have to say that I was extremely surprised by the government's amateur—yes, amateur—handling of the H1N1 crisis.
Earlier, I asked my colleague a question about companies. In 2006, the government signed an exclusive contract with GSK to distribute vaccines. As the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine said, six companies were capable of supplying the vaccine. Therein lies the problem. We knew we were headed for a pandemic. The government was warned months ago, nearly a year ago. We agree that the H1N1 pandemic began sometime in December 2008 or January 2009. The government was therefore well aware of the issue and could see the problem coming.
In my opinion, the federal government is to blame for the long lineups of people waiting to get the H1N1 vaccine, because of its poor organization and lack of preparation. We went through the SARS crisis, which gave us some idea of what to expect. The federal government should have learned something from the SARS crisis and come up with some improvements regarding this situation.
The problem is that the Conservative government did absolutely nothing. It could have taken action a long time ago. On January 11, 2009, the WHO declared a phase 6 pandemic for H1N1. The Government of Canada waited until August 2009 to order 50 million doses of the adjuvanted vaccine and until September 2009 to order the non-adjuvanted vaccine for pregnant women. That is extremely worrisome. I mentioned the month of August 2009 for 50 million doses of the adjuvanted vaccine. Since that time, the government has known that the adjuvanted doses could not be given to pregnant women, and this was repeated many times in committee. We heard from witnesses and doctors who knew it posed a problem, but the Conservative government never got the message. Suddenly, about a week and a half ago, it finally realized there was a problem and that there would not be enough non-adjuvanted doses for pregnant women, who are one of the of high-risk groups for H1N1.
This government's mismanagement does not end with the H1N1 flu. Unfortunately, it extends to a number of other files, so much so that sometimes I miss the Liberals.
About a week and a half ago, the government purchased almost 200,000 doses from Australia even though our pharmaceutical companies were ready to manufacture the vaccine. The government did not want to do business with them, which I find very troublesome for another reason.
My colleagues may find it ironic coming from a Bloc member, but I think this is unfortunate for Canada's pharmaceutical industry in general. We have some very good pharmaceutical companies, in Quebec as well. I am thinking primarily of the very good companies located on Montreal's West Island, as well as in the rest of Canada, in Toronto, for example. They could have started up production and supplied the vaccine. Unfortunately, the government did not want to do business with them.
The government did not act prudently. Rather than ordering the vaccine from a number of pharmaceutical laboratories, in order to ensure a steady stream of deliveries, the government relied solely on GSK. It then blamed the company for overestimating its production capacity. You do not take such risks with people's health.
At present, the Government of Quebec has a lack of resources to deal with H1N1.
The shortage of vaccine doses has sparked a wave of panic among citizens. With all the horror stories circulating about the swine flu, I can understand why people flocked to the vaccination clinics when the first doses became available. In some areas, there was an odd dynamic because people were being urged to get the vaccine but the polls showed that they did not necessarily want to be vaccinated. We ended up with the problem of having everyone wanting to be vaccinated because of the disastrous scenarios circulating.
People have shown up in droves to be vaccinated, even those not in the high risk categories but who had concerns about H1N1. That is understandable given the confusing announcements about the Conservatives' plans and their amateurism in telling us that all was well but that there were some problems. We were never given the right information by the Conservatives. And that is also the case for a good number of other files.
Without accurate information, citizens have decided out of fear to go en masse to be vaccinated. We now have the problem of not having enough doses of vaccine.
What is more, according to the Canadian Press, money is available to provide the provinces with additional funds to cope with this urgent situation. The government did not hesitate to write big cheques with the Conservative Party logo on them, but it is slow to open the coffers to help the provinces to deal with this pandemic.
I will admit that I have a great deal of difficulty with the Conservatives telling us that we in the opposition are engaging in demagoguery with H1N1, that we are playing politics with H1N1, and the public is not fooled either. It knows full well that when the Conservatives advance that type of regressive argument that adds nothing to the debate, they are only hurting themselves.
The federal government, as I was saying, is largely responsible for all this. The Bloc Québécois feels that the federal government is largely responsible for the H1N1 vaccination campaign. By taking this crisis so lightly, the government has caused panic in the public, who feel caught off guard and completely misinformed. The government's lack of organization just confirms the concerns the Bloc Québécois has had from the start about the possibility of the vaccine not arriving on time to avoid the second wave of the H1N1 influenza pandemic.
I was saying earlier, being a member of the Standing Committee on Health, that we have been talking about this since August. Since August we, together with the Liberals and the NDP, have been expressing our fears and pointing out the problem and we have done exemplary work. I am thinking about the hon. member for Verchères—Les Patriotes, who did a fantastic job of asking the government for answers and asking witnesses to provide arguments to show that the Conservatives had not been doing their job.
The government's lack of organization just confirms our concerns. The World Health Organization had been warning authorities for quite some time about a global outbreak of the pandemic. The concerns about this possibility were raised as soon as the virus appeared in early spring 2009. What is more, the WHO declared this a pandemic in June 2009.
The federal government could have planned ahead for the production of non adjuvanted vaccine for pregnant women, who are the most vulnerable to H1N1, knowing that there was no clinical test for that group and thereby prevented an inexcusable delay in the production of the regular vaccine.
I have a hard time understanding how Europe approved the vaccine weeks ago, yet our government had not yet approved it. If memory serves me right, it was not approved until last Wednesday. The member for Verchères—Les Patriotes could tell me. Yes, it was last Wednesday.
Europe had already approved it weeks earlier, and the Conservatives did so only last week. The Public Health Agency of Canada has had to deal with droves of people, and the government approved it last week, based on the European studies. Why did the government not encourage the agency to approve it earlier? In the end, they used the same European studies, but they waited, and that delay cost us very valuable days for producing the vaccine. When we are talking about fighting a worldwide flu pandemic, like the H1N1 pandemic, every day counts.
The federal government should have planned ahead for the production. Although Canadian public health officials have confirmed that they had not anticipated such a rush from the public to get the H1N1 vaccine, they should have planned to order doses based on the total population, and not on the number of people who expressed an interest, since at the beginning of the crisis, the government thought that several doses would be needed for each person. This is a matter of public safety.
In fact, at the start of the information campaign, the government ordered 50.4 million doses from GSK, enough for everyone in Canada to receive an initial dose. All the governments of Quebec and the provinces are asking the federal government is to provide them with enough doses for their population. But this is something the federal government cannot seem to do properly, judging by the latest news about delays in the distribution of the vaccine. The Conservatives can say that all Canadians who want the vaccine will be able to receive it, but it remains to be seen whether they can protect themselves before it is too late. It is estimated that, with luck, everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be by Christmas, which still gives the virus plenty of time to spread.
As I said earlier, this debate is useless. It provides an opportunity to show how the federal government has failed. The government has a responsibility to release additional funds so that Quebec and the provinces can hire more nurses to vaccinate people when the vaccine arrives. These funds could also be used to improve information sharing on the vaccination campaign. So far, the federal government has been sending mixed messages to the public, and people are becoming more and more confused.
I would like to summarize the situation. The WHO advised health authorities on June 11, 2009 that the world was at the start of a phase 6 influenza pandemic. Canada announced that it was ordering 50.4 million doses from GSK on August 6. As I said earlier, every day is important in the fight against a pandemic. There is evidence that the government wasted valuable time for no reason. The federal government ordered 1.2 million doses of unadjuvanted vaccine for pregnant women on September 6, 2009. I feel that this brief chronology is very important, because it shows how the Conservative government has failed.
When a pandemic as serious as this one is developing, the government should not waste precious weeks waiting and twiddling its thumbs. I am not questioning the quality of the work done by the nurses at the Public Health Agency of Canada and all of Canada's health officials. The problem lies with the government, which took the issue lightly, as it has done in a number of other debates. It did not take the issue seriously and wasted many weeks thinking, deliberating and waiting instead of acting.
There is something that is very unfortunate and very ironic. Suppose we look at the byelections being held now in Quebec. The Conservatives’ slogan is “Action, not elections”. Unfortunately, just the opposite is happening.
There is no government action. Health Canada approved the H1N1 vaccine on October 21, 2009,and the vaccination campaign started on October 26, first for health workers and then for other groups at high risk, such as children from six months to five years old, people who have compromised immune systems, people living with babies under six months of age or with others who have compromised immune systems, and pregnant women, more specifically, women who are at least 20 weeks pregnant as well as all pregnant women who have a chronic illness.
Most people—and this is the problem—will not be able to start getting vaccinated before December 7. It does not take a genius to know that the flu will have already wreaked havoc by December 7. If the government had not lost so many weeks, we could have started vaccinating people well before the critical point was reached. There is not much danger of the flu spreading in the summer, and the proof is in the fact that the number of people infected with the H1N1 virus went down this summer, at least in the northern hemisphere.
We all know that the critical time will be between December and February. Why did the government not act responsibly and ensure that we had the vaccine in time to reduce the risk of the virus spreading?
The government’s information campaign has caused total confusion in the target population from beginning to end, whether because of the lack of basic advice or the lack of vaccine. We note, in particular, the time it took to get the H1N1 vaccine approved. Canada was one of the slow ones in this regard. The United States approved it on September 13, Australia on September 18 and France on September 25.
Those governments acted responsibly. They wasted no time approving it since they already had conclusive results about the vaccine and they made sure to do it as quickly as possible, suspecting that the faster it was approved, the faster the pharmaceutical companies would be able to produce the vaccine, and the faster the public would be able to get vaccinated.
That delay allowed time for the public to become wary of the vaccine's safety and for myths and conspiracy theories to spring up.
I am told I have only two minutes left. I will say that we are very short of time because I could have spoken for hours. I did however talk about it at length in the Standing Committee on Health.
I have to say that the one thing I have noticed regarding the Conservative government on this issue, and it is the same on every issue, is the amateurism with which they have acted. What I find tragic is that this is extremely dangerous because we are talking here about the health of the public. All the Conservatives offer us is not apologies; they simply say that the opposition is playing politics with a subject as serious as the H1N1 flu, when exactly the opposite is true. We have stepped up to our responsibilities, we have questioned the government and we have made our recommendations.