Bill C-13 (Historical)

COVID-19 Emergency Response Act

An Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19

Part 1 implements, as part of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), certain income tax measures by
(a) introducing a one-time additional payment under the GST/HST tax credit;
(b) providing temporary additional amounts under the Canada Child Benefit;
(c) reducing required minimal withdrawals from registered retirement income funds by 25% for 2020; and
(d) providing eligible small employers a temporary wage subsidy for a period of three months.
Part 2 enacts the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act to authorize the making of income support payments to workers who suffer a loss of income for reasons related to the coronavirus disease 2019.
Part 3 enacts the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act, which authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in relation to public health events of national concern. It also provides for the repeal of the Act on September 30, 2020.
Part 4 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to allow the Minister of Finance to increase the deposit insurance coverage limit until September 30, 2020.
Part 5 amends the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act to authorize the Minister of Finance, with the approval of the Governor in Council, to make payments to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of increasing the Corporation’s capital.
Part 6 amends the Export Development Act to broaden the purposes for which Export Development Canada is established and to permit the Minister of Finance, until September 30, 2020, to determine the amount of Export Development Canada’s authorized capital as well as the amount of certain limits applicable to Export Development Canada. It broadens the transactions for which the Minister of International Trade, with the concurrence of the Minister of Finance, may grant an authorization. It also provides for the suspension of certain provisions of the Export Development Canada Exercise of Certain Powers Regulations.
Part 7 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to authorize additional payments to the provinces and territories for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2019.
Part 8 amends Part IV of the Financial Administration Act to authorize the Minister of Finance, until September 30, 2020, to borrow money under that Act for certain payments without the authorization of the Governor in Council, and it also amends that Part to extend the time for the tabling of the report on that Minister’s plans in relation to the management of the public debt. It also amends Part IV.‍1 of that Act to authorize that Minister to make payments to an entity and to procure the incorporation of a corporation or establish an entity, other than a corporation, for the purposes of promoting the stability or maintaining the efficiency of the financial system in Canada. Finally, it makes related amendments to the Borrowing Authority Act and a consequential amendment to the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act.
Part 9 amends the Food and Drugs Act to, among other things, authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations
(a) requiring persons to provide information to the Minister of Health; and
(b) preventing shortages of therapeutic products in Canada or alleviating those shortages or their effects, in order to protect human health.
Part 10 amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things, create a regime which provides for a leave related to COVID-19 of up to 16 weeks. It also amends that Act to provide for the repeal of that regime and to provide for a quarantine leave under the medical leave regime.
Part 11 amends the National Housing Act to increase, for a period of five years, the maximum total for the outstanding insured amounts of all insured loans.
Part 12 amends the Patent Act to, among other things, provide that the Commissioner must, on the application of the Minister of Health, authorize the Government of Canada and any person specified in the application to make, construct, use and sell a patented invention to the extent necessary to respond to a public health emergency that is a matter of national concern.
Part 13 amends the Canada Student Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on March 30, 2020 and ends on September 30, 2020, no interest is payable by a borrower on a guaranteed student loan and no amount on account of principal or interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 14 amends the Farm Credit Canada Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to determine the limit on the amounts that the Minister of Finance may pay to Farm Credit Canada out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Part 15 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to provide that, during the period that begins on March 30, 2020 and ends on September 30, 2020, no interest is payable by a borrower on a student loan and no amount on account of principal or interest is required to be paid by the borrower.
Part 16 amends the Business Development Bank of Canada Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to determine the limit on the aggregate of the paid-in capital — and any related contributed surplus — of the Business Development Bank and any proceeds prescribed as equity.
Part 17 amends the Apprentice Loans Act to provide that, during the period that begins on March 30, 2020 and ends on September 30, 2020, no interest is payable by a borrower on an apprentice loan and no amount on account of principal or interest is required to be paid by a borrower.
Division 1 of Part 18 amends the Employment Insurance Act to give the Minister of Employment and Social Development the power to make interim orders for the purpose of mitigating the economic effects of COVID-19.
Division 2 of Part 18 provides that every reference in any provision of the Employment Insurance Act and of regulations made under it to a certificate issued by a medical doctor or other medical professional or medical practitioner or by a nurse practitioner is deemed to be of no effect and that any benefit that would have been payable to a claimant had such a certificate been issued is payable to the claimant if the Canada Employment Insurance Commission is satisfied that the claimant is entitled to the benefit.

An Act to Provide Further Support in Response to COVID-19

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here. I will be splitting my time with the member for St. Albert—Edmonton. He has always got such incredibly intelligent debate and I always look forward to his words.

I am so thrilled to be back in the House. I very much thank the people of Calgary Midnapore for returning me to the chamber with the highest percentile of votes in Calgary, the highest percentile of votes in any major centre and what I am most proud of, the greatest number of votes for any woman in Canada. It is an honour to be back in the House.

I would also like to take a moment to thank my team, which was so incredible throughout the election. I would like to thank my campaign manager, Mr. Justin Gotfried, the son of Richard Gotfried, the MLA for Calgary-Fish Creek. I would also like the thank Katie Cook who was my communications point person and my sister Holly Schramm who served as my official agent, keeping me in line and out of trouble with those books. I would also like to thank all the incredible volunteers. I would like to thank my parents Keith and Angie Schramm, who are still my constituents to this day, and my very good friends who I grew up with in Calgary Midnapore who put out signs and raised money for me, Joanna Shaw Morin and Caroline Baynes. Of course, I cannot go without thanking the loves of my life, my husband James Kusie and my beautiful son Edward Kusie who supported me in this journey back to the House of Commons. I thank them and I love them.

Again, I thank so much the people of Calgary Midnapore.

Here we are again in the House debating legislation on new benefits. As the member across the aisle indicated, yes, we on this side of the House were very collaborative and certainly went along with the government's requests for funds and for programs, because we care about Canadians. We are compassionate individuals and we knew that was what Canadians needed at that time.

I will give a brief history of all the times we went along with the legislation despite concerns because we knew that was what Canadians needed at that time.

Let us go back to March 13, 2020, when Bill C-12, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act, was presented; one billion dollars in funding for approval. We did not put up a fuss on this side. In fact, it received royal assent the very same day.

Let us go forward a little further into time. On March 24, 2020, we had Bill C-13, an act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19. As the shadow minister for families and social development at that time, it was legislation to fix the shortcomings that the government missed at the time it created the original legislation, but, one again, we did not put up a fuss on this side of the House. We recognized that was what Canadians needed at that time. That bill also received approval from the House that day and royal assent the very next day.

On April 11, 2020, there was a second act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, Bill C-14,, which was CEWS, and we know there were certainly a lot of faults with that at the beginning, as well as the CERB. It received royal assent the very same day. Again, I am just pointing out the collaboration this side of the House had always provided the government in getting Canadians the benefits they need.

Here we are again today, being asked to approve Bill C-2, but we are in a different time. We are heading out of the pandemic. I recognize we have the omicron variant, and I hope no fifth wave, but Canadians want to move forward into the future.

Therefore, I have a message for the government today, and it is that you do not get a blank cheque.

It is time to move our economy from benefits to jobs, and I am very proud to say that as the new shadow minister for employment future workforce development and disability inclusion. We currently have one million job openings, with a 16.4% jump from August to September alone. That is incredible.

One-fifth of those are in the hospitality sector. Other major vacancies occur in these critical health care sectors, including nurses and psychiatric nurses. We have heard in the House about the crisis in the trucking industry, how the average age of truckers is near retirement age and how there are just no new workers coming forward to take these positions. In fact, over one-third of employers have indicated that they have limited their growth in general as a result of not being able to find employees.

This affects every region and so many sectors. I said this when I made my request for an emergency debate on Friday to have a discussion about the shortage of workers in the country. It affects Quebec, the manufacturing sector in Ontario and of course the tourism sector in my home province of Alberta. For this reason again, I say again to the members opposite, “You don't get a blank cheque.”

I would like to move on to something that is very uncomfortable to talk about, and that is the fraud that we have seen with these programs. In fact, FINTRAC reported that there were organized criminals who knowingly and actively defrauded the government with both CERB and CEBA programs, that social media was used to recruit people, and in fact that stolen identifications were used in an effort to get these funds. There was the use of prepaid cards to prevent a paper trail, so they were very smart about this. They knew what they were doing, unfortunately for the government.

In addition, there were individuals who received these funds while not even living in Canada and in fact living in jurisdictions of concern, countries that posed a higher money-laundering or terrorist financing risk. From the start of 2020 until October 31, 30,095 suspicious transaction reports were registered for COVID-related benefits. That is over 30,000. Sadly, 30,000 of those also dealt with human trafficking and drugs, two issues on which the government has failed, but prosecutions are unlikely. Why? In July 2020, the Canadian Revenue Agency advised the House of Commons finance committee that the program had been targeted by organized crime and that Canada does not prioritize the investigation and prosecution of financial criminals. In fact, in the past decade alone, Canada has secured fewer than, wait for it, fewer than 50 laundering convictions. The government is not taking organized crime seriously. Again, for that reason, “You don't get a blank cheque.”

Finally, we in this country need to get a grip on inflation. Canada is among the top 10 countries with the highest inflation rates in the G20. Canada has the second-highest inflation rate in the G7, second only to the United States, which I know the government thought it would get along better with, since the Liberals still talk about the previous president all the time. Rates are predicted to reach 4.9% this month, a three-decade high, and are expected to stay there well into 2022.

Some provinces, including Prince Edward Island, are experiencing rates as high as 6.3%, and unfortunately it is low-income Canadians who spend one-third on shelter and 15% on food and higher energy prices. We cannot control the pandemic, but we can control spending. There was $74 billion on the CRB and there will be $8 billion for Bill C-2 if it passes. We should investigate the fraud. We should evaluate this further. Perhaps we should bring it to the finance committee if the Liberals are willing to strike the finance committee up again, but my final message to them is this: “You don't get a blank cheque.”

[Dr. Marc-André Gagnon, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the committee members for the opportunity to speak with them. My presentation will focus on intellectual property related to COVID-19 vaccines, along with ways to increase vaccine manufacturing in Canada and abroad.

I'm an associate professor at the Carleton University School of Public Policy and Administration. I specialize in political economy in the pharmaceutical sector, and I have over 150 publications to my name. Aside from my role as an expert witness for Justice Canada in a 2020 Superior Court of Québec trial concerning the price regulation of patented drugs, I have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was impressive to see how researchers from around the world worked together based on the principles of open science. They systematically shared data to sequence the virus genome, track the development and variations of the virus, or produce protective or screening equipment.

In Canada, the federal government passed the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, Bill C-13, back in March 2020. This made it possible to use compulsory licences for six months for any technology related to COVID-19, in order to address potential shortages. This measure wasn't renewed in September 2020. However, the federal government can renew it at any time if necessary.

In May 2020, the World Health Organization, or WHO, established the COVID-19 technology access pool, or C-TAP, based on open science principles, in order to promote the sharing of expertise and knowledge regarding technology to combat COVID-19. The Unitaid-funded medecines patent pool, or MPP, also expanded its mandate to make it possible to share patents related to COVID-19.

Initially, things were very promising. There seemed to be a shift towards a scientific endeavour based on technological collaboration and data sharing to ensure that each country could maximize its efforts to fight COVID-19. Unfortunately, the old mindset of proprietary science for patents and technological monopolies quickly came back into play. No firm has yet agreed to share its technology with C-TAP or MPP.

Instead, each firm works in silos to maximize revenues. Vaccine firms have generally been very reluctant to negotiate licensing agreements to allow for increased production. AstraZeneca has been more flexible than other firms. However, this was part of the conditions that Oxford University established for supplying the vaccine. Since the potential revenues of firms depend on their ability to maintain control over technological expertise, this isn't surprising.

Each firm is seeking to control as much of its vaccine intellectual property as possible, rather than allowing for licensing agreements and maximizing overall production.

Even though governments have invested over $14 billion in vaccine development, it's still considered normal for vaccines to remain entirely monopolized by the private sector. The development of the COVID-19 vaccines by Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax was fully funded by public investments or non-profit organizations. Yet the vaccine is still monopolized by a firm-owned patent.

The prioritization of corporate property rights over global public health needs has led to the current situation. All countries are elbowing their way to the door of these firms so that the firms will agree to sell and deliver doses as quickly as possible to them, rather than to their neighbour. Regardless of public health priorities, it's everyone for themselves. It's vaccine nationalism.

However, Canada is doing quite well in this game of vaccine nationalism. It has managed to obtain a maximum number of doses amounting to 500% of its needs. Almost a quarter of the Canadian population has already been vaccinated.

Nevertheless, this game is highly troublesome in its own right. Production delays at Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have created major tensions in international trade. Instead of working together to produce as many vaccines as possible, countries are working against each other in order to distribute vaccines globally based on corporate priorities.

As of April 19, 2021, over 800 million doses of vaccine have been administered worldwide. Of these doses, 82% have been administered in wealthy countries, while only 0.2% have been administered in low-income countries, primarily through the COVAX initiative. It's estimated that the poorest countries will need to wait until 2024 to vaccinate their populations. In addition, Pfizer has just announced that its vaccine may require boosters, a third dose, and possibly annual boosters after that. This may further extend the delays for low-income countries.

Canada has vaccine production capacity. Why isn't that capacity being used right now to combat COVID-19?

In late January, Canada announced a $126 million investment in the National Research Council to expand vaccine production capacity.

The National Research Council is located on Royalmount Avenue, across the parking lot from PnuVax. For months, PnuVax officials have been touting their Health Canada-licenced assembly line and their readiness to begin producing a vaccine. However, they're unable to enter into licensing agreements with the various firms, and Canada isn't helping them negotiate with the firms. Canada has production capacity that isn't currently being used.

Recently, Biolyse Pharma, based in St. Catharines, Ontario, asked to list COVID-19 products under schedule 1 of the Patent Act. This would make it possible for the corporation to produce and export the Johnson & Johnson vaccine under a compulsory licence, for example through Canada's access to medicines regime, or CAMR. Yet Canada refuses to amend schedule 1 to allow a Canadian company to produce vaccines for low-income countries in the event of a pandemic. This is completely unacceptable.

Currently, about 100 countries, led by countries such as India and South Africa, are asking the World Trade Organization, or WTO, to suspend intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 in order to facilitate technology sharing and to allow for increased vaccine production by the end of the pandemic.

The suspension of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, or TRIPS agreement, would be a much better tool than the current flexible measures in the agreement. I'm talking about article 31 of the agreement, which says that every country must obtain a licence. A country that applies for a compulsory licence can get one, but it must then figure out how to implement the compulsory licence within the country. A suspension of the agreement provisions related to COVID-19 products would give individual countries the chance to actually work together to use their production capacity. South Africa and India have vaccine production capacity that isn't currently being used because of the lack of flexibility in the TRIPS agreement.

However, Canada, the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are adamantly opposed to this type of suspension of the TRIPS agreement. In many ways, Canada seems to have chosen to be part of the problem rather than the solution.

In its speech to the WTO on December 10, 2020, Canada blatantly lied—and I'm not saying this lightly. I very rarely use this type of language. Canada argued that the current flexible measures in the TRIPS agreement were sufficient. Canada said that this type of waiver was unnecessary because it was making its access to medicines regime, or CAMR, available to help low-income countries get the necessary treatments when they obtain compulsory licences without having local manufacturing capacity.

CAMR is currently such an ineffective bureaucratic atrocity that a country has used it only once, in 2007. Rwanda used it to get AIDS treatments, and subsequently criticized the ineptitude of the system. The system doesn't work. Instead, the system is designed to make it harder to access drugs during health emergencies.

The House of Commons even voted to reform Canada's access to medicines regime in 2013 because it was deemed completely ineffective. However, the delays in Senate ratification were so long that the reform died on the order paper.

On December 10, Canada even dared to claim that the fact that no one was using Canada's access to medicines regime meant that there was no need for flexibility and therefore no need to suspend the TRIPS agreement. Again, this is unacceptable. I have rarely felt so embarrassed to be Canadian as when I read Canada's downright ill-intentioned statement in the face of the critical global challenge posed by COVID-19.

Canada must stop being part of the problem. First, it must list COVID-19 health products under schedule 1 of the Patent Act now. There are rumours that, as early as this week, a country will ask CAMR to produce COVID-19 vaccines. However, at this time, Canada can't do so since it hasn't listed these products under schedule 1 of the Patent Act.

Second, it's necessary to support a TRIPS waiver for all COVID-19 products now, and to encourage all initiatives that make it possible to share open science technology for all COVID-19 products through patent pools such as C-TAP and MPP. I'm counting on Canada to be on the right side of history in this pandemic.

I'm ready to answer your questions.

Employment Insurance Act

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is such a great day to be debating in the House of Commons. Before I begin, I want to give a big shout-out. I have been in Ottawa for a while, and I think all House of Commons staff are doing an excellent job of keeping us fed and making sure that our system works for the well-being of Canadians. I really felt that this week. They are doing a great job.

Now I will get to Bill C-24.

Bill C-24 would increase the maximum number of weeks available to workers through EI, with up to a maximum of 50 weeks for claims established between September 27, 2020, and September 25, 2021. It would also change rules for self-employed workers who have opted into the EI program to access special benefits. This legislation would allow them to use their 2020 earning threshold of $5,000, compared with the previous threshold of $7,555. Also, it would fix the Liberal-caused loophole in the Canada recovery sickness benefit for international leisure travellers.

The Conservative Party is supportive of Bill C-24. These changes are necessary and long overdue. We must get help to Canadians in need whose jobs have been eliminated as a result of the government-mandated restrictions and closures in response to the pandemic. Lockdowns are still in place in many parts of the country, and businesses cannot get back to normal even though they are working incredibly hard to do so.

My constituents in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon are frustrated. They cannot go to church. They cannot earn an income the way they want to. They cannot live their lives the way they want to either.

The Conservatives' track record in this Parliament is strong. We have been behind pandemic assistance for Canadians throughout the entire COVID-19 period. We supported Bill C-13 one year ago, in March 2020. It brought in the Canada emergency wage subsidy for small businesses, a one-time additional payment under the GST/HST tax credit, temporary additional amounts to the Canada child benefit, a 25% reduction in required minimal withdrawals from registered retirement income funds, and the Canada emergency response benefit.

Last April, we supported Bill C-14 and Bill C-15, which improved the wage subsidy and implemented the Canada emergency student benefit. In July it was Bill C-20, to extend the wage subsidy. In September it was Bill C-4, for a CERB extension, the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit. In November it was Bill C-9, the emergency rent subsidy and wage subsidy expansion.

The Conservatives have been there to support Canadians every step of the way. What we are not supportive of, though, is the Liberal government's blatant disregard for parliamentary process, their lack of respect for Canadian democracy and their incredibly poor ability to manage the legislative agenda of the House to ensure that we can move past the pandemic.

Two days ago, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, popped into the HUMA committee and table dropped a substantive and constrictive motion for a prestudy of Bill C-24. Neither the text of the motion nor its intention was shared in advance. He ignored the proactive efforts of my colleague, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul, who had reached out to him as soon as Bill C-24 was tabled in the House.

The deadline at the end of the month, which the Liberals are trying to beat, is not some surprise that was sprung on them. To further illustrate that the right hand of the government does not know what the left hand is doing, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul had to direct the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to pick up the phone and talk to his House leader during committee because the motion he was attempting to ram through was no longer necessary. We had come to an agreement outside of his ham-fisted efforts.

Cross-party collaboration is more than possible. Think of all the time that could have been saved if the parliamentary secretary had attempted to engage himself in that process with committee members.

The Liberals love to complain that the opposition is holding up important legislation, yet here we are, in March 2021, debating necessary updates to legislation from September 2020. The Liberals knew for months that benefits would be expiring, but they failed to act until the last minute. They have repeatedly missed the mark on legislation for emergency supports, leaving thousands of Canadians behind.

A key component of this legislation is addressing the incredibly flawed Canada recovery sickness benefit. Because of the Liberals' disrespect for Parliament and their poor legislative drafting, a loophole was created that allows international leisure travellers to receive the CRSB during their quarantine. This is completely unacceptable. The CRSB is for individuals who must miss work because of COVID-19, not for subsidizing the quarantine period of international leisure travellers. This oversight is a direct result of the government's rushing legislation through Parliament because of its prorogation. It is outrageous that the Liberals waited months to fix their mistake.

If the government tried implementing the transparency it espouses to employ, so much headache would have been avoided. For instance, if the Liberals had tabled a federal budget at the beginning of March, this would have ceased to be an issue entirely. There is even a precedent by the government for including employment insurance updates in federal budget legislation. In 2018, the government proposed amendments to the Employment Insurance Act to implement a number of reforms related to the extension of parental benefits.

We have not seen a federal budget in 723 days. This is the longest period in Canadian history that we have been without one.

Even setting aside our criticisms, we cannot ignore how the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer has repeatedly called out the government for its lack of fiscal transparency. In a PBO report issued on November 4, 2020, on supplementary estimates (B), we found out that the Department of Finance, which under Bill Morneau had been issuing biweekly updates to the finance committee during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, stopped providing this information once Parliament was prorogued and Morneau had resigned. We are talking about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars heading out the door under the guise of COVID relief measures, and the government has revealed precious little about where these dollars are going.

From the same November 4 report, the PBO underscored that our role as parliamentarians is being obfuscated and obstructed by the government. As the report notes, “While the sum of these measures is significant”, some $79.2 billion, of which 91.5% was related to COVID spending, “the amount of information that is publicly available to track this spending is lacking, thus making it more challenging for parliamentarians to perform their critical role in overseeing Government spending and holding it to account.”

There is no publicly available list of all federal COVID-19 spending measures. There is no consistency in the reporting on the implementation of these measures. There is less and less information being provided transparently to parliamentarians and the PBO. The government could not do a better job of keeping its finances secret if it provided everyone in the House with blindfolds.

However, to its credit, the government has made some efforts to provide additional financial information. As the PBO noted in its February 24, 2021, report on the supplementary estimates (C), “Notable improvements include a complete list of Bills presented to Parliament to authorize spending for COVID-19 related measures”, which is information anyone could find on LEGISinfo, “and a reconciliation table between the Fall Economic Statement 2020 and the Estimates documents”. Still, as the PBO reminded us in February, “The frequency at which the Government provides an updated list of COVID-19 measures in one central document...and the inconsistency to which actual spending data on COVID-19 measures is made publicly available remain areas of concern.”

These are baby steps, but bigger leaps are needed from the government when it comes to fiscal transparency. We as parliamentarians depend on the government to provide us with accurate and timely information about federal finances. We cannot do our work of keeping the government accountable for its spending choices if it does not respect us enough to provide the necessary information to allow me and all of my colleagues to do our jobs effectively.

Again today, it is up to the opposition to correct the continued mistakes of the government. This is disrespectful to us as parliamentarians, it is disrespectful to this hallowed institution and it is disrespectful to the Canadian people, for whose tax dollars we are ultimately responsible.

[Glenn Purves]

Certainly, when you step back and think about the payment authorities that we're seeking from Parliament to address the vaccines—and in the response to Mr. Paul-Hus and his question—it adds up to about $9.2 billion. I gave a breakdown of what that is.

The payment authorities have come in different forms. Because the crisis started in March and supplementary estimates (A) weren't until June, Parliament approved Bill C-13, which included the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act.

Many of the supports that we're looking at are partially supported through what we call the “statutory” forecast side of the main and supplementary estimates, but then there's the voted component. What happened was that, at the end of December, the statutory authority under the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act expired, so many of the initiatives that were being supported under the payment authority have migrated over to the voted side. That's why you are seeing it effectively listed on the voted.

If you look on the statutory forecast side, you're often seeing an offsetting of reduction amount. On a voted basis, it seems like a very large amount that's coming late, but on a net basis, there are only a couple of measures that are really new.

There's the $485 million for the procurement of test supplies and testing production, which is going to the provinces and territories through the provision of test kits and supplies to supplement the existing testing capacity that they have.

There's $50 million effectively to support the surge in demand for distress centres during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, and $208 million, which is being used to stabilize key resources and operations in the agency.

It can be a challenge to see through that, but that's why, in a way, we put this on the InfoBase, because it's easier to track in that pane.

[Dr. Joel Lexchin]

First of all, let me point out that back in the early days of the pandemic, Parliament passed Bill C-13, which allowed compulsory licensing for a period of time. However, that expired at the end of September 2020.

Compulsory licensing, in essence, means that the government can issue a licence to another company to make a product that is still under patent. In that way you can expand the production capability and you also perhaps can get competition in terms of price.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is about Bill C-13, COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, passed in March 2020.

Under one of that bill's provisions, it would have been possible, until September 30, 2020, to override drug patents in case of health emergency and to import drugs that are not authorized for sale in Canada.

However, that provision was removed on September 30, 2020, and I would like to know why.

[Dr. Marc-André Gagnon, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning.

My remarks will focus on COVID-19 vaccines as they relate to research and development and manufacturing.

I am an associate professor in Carleton University's School of Public Policy and Administration. My research focuses on the political economy of the pharmaceutical sector. I have more than 150 publications to my credit, ranging from scholarly articles, book chapters and research papers to technical reports and professional publications. Apart from my role in 2020 as an expert witness for Justice Canada in a Superior Court of Québec case involving the regulation of patented medicine prices, I have no conflict of interest to disclose.

When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, it was impressive to see researchers around the world apply the principles of open science and work together to systematically share data, primarily to sequence the viral genome, monitor the virus's evolution and variations, and produce protective and screening equipment.

In March 2020, the Canadian government passed an act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, or Bill C-13. Under the legislation, compulsory licensing was permitted for a period of six months in relation to any technology that could play a role in the response to COVID-19, the idea being to overcome potential shortages. The provision was not renewed in September 2020, but the federal government can do so at any time, as needed.

In May 2020, the World Health Organization, or WHO, launched the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, based on the principles of open science. The purpose of the pool was to support the sharing of technological knowledge and know-how relevant to the fight against COVID-19. In addition, the Medicines Patent Pool, MPP, funded by Unitaid, expanded its mandate to facilitate the sharing of health technology patents that could contribute to the response to COVID-19.

In the beginning, technological co-operation and data sharing were thought to be guiding the global scientific effort, to help each country maximize its COVID-19 response. Unfortunately, old habits die hard, and private science, patents and monopolies on technology quickly prevailed. To date, no company has agreed to share its technology with C-TAP or MPP. Instead, each firm is working behind closed doors to maximize future revenues.

Even though governments invested more than $14 billion in the development of vaccines, the private sector's total monopoly over the vaccines continues to go unquestioned. For example, even though Moderna's vaccine was fully funded through public investment, the company has a monopoly on the vaccine because it owns the patent. Moderna is also charging the highest price of any of the vaccine makers, garnering it the Shkreli Award, a prize handed out every year to the worst profiteers in health care.

On its end, Canada launched the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force in the summer of 2020, to provide the government with strategic advice on vaccine matters. The lack of transparency around the task force and the conflicts of interest related to its members have been decried by numerous experts. Microbiologist Gary Kobinger even resigned from the task force in protest. In its recommendations, the task force seems to have put companies' proprietary rights above overall public health needs.

That has given rise to the current reality: countries tripping over one another for first access to vaccines. Every country is trying to convince vaccine makers to sell it doses over the country next door, and to deliver those doses as soon as possible. Forget about global public health priorities; it's every country for itself. Welcome to vaccine nationalism.

Canada plays a pretty good game of vaccine nationalism, mind you. Canada is the country that secured the largest number of doses, equivalent to 500% of what it actually needs. Under the current agreements, Canada should be one of the first countries to achieve herd immunity through vaccination.

Although Canada has a flair for vaccine nationalism, the game, itself, is extremely problematic. The production delays at Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca have created tremendous international tensions. Instead of working together to produce the most vaccines possible, countries are working against one another, letting vaccine makers' priorities dictate the global distribution of vaccines.

Canada has the capacity to produce vaccines, so why is it not leveraging that capacity to help fight COVID-19?

Countries such as India and South Africa are calling on the World Trade Organization to suspend intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 technologies, to facilitate knowledge sharing and increase vaccine production during the pandemic. Nevertheless, Canada, the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are categorically opposed to the suspension of those rights. In many ways, it appears that Canada has chosen to be part of the problem, instead of the solution.

I would be happy to answer any questions you have.

Taxation

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, throughout this pandemic the government has been very clear: Workers who lost their income due to COVID-19 were going to receive support, the Prime Minister assured us. Again and again, in statement after statement, the Prime Minister told Canadians “We're here for you.” Those were the words that meant everything to Canadians who did not know how they were going to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Today, however, those words ring hollow for hundreds of thousands of Canadians and their families, people who put their faith in this government and believed that the Prime Minister had their backs, only to discover that it was not true.

More than 400,000 Canadians who applied for the CERB in good faith, who were told by the government that they were eligible and who were in fact eligible according to the CRA website, who received CERB in order to survive, have now received a letter from the CRA informing them that they have to pay that support back. Why? It is because their government changed the rules on them. It is not just wrong: It is a betrayal. It is a betrayal of the House and a betrayal of Canadians.

We spent a lot of time working together in a committee of the whole to get Canadians the help they needed to get through the pandemic. The NDP pushed the government at every turn to do better, and often the government listened to us. We recognized that provinces and territories had to implement strict public health measures to combat the transmission of the virus. We knew that these measures would cost people their jobs. We knew that if we did not act, our economy would be devastated and lives would be ruined. I and my fellow New Democrats called immediately and repeatedly for help for those who needed it, and the government listened and made that critical promise to Canadians that help would be coming.

When the government finally brought the CERB forward for a vote, the legislation, Bill C-13, defined those who would be eligible for support as “...a person who...for 2019 or in the 12-month period preceding the day on which they make an application under section 5, has a total income of at least $5,000”, and the CRA website listed the eligible sources of income to include income from self-employment. That is the bill that I and other members of the House voted for, but that is not what self-employed Canadians are getting from this government.

Canadians should be able to trust their government, and if they follow the rules, so should their government.

The CERB was a lifeline for millions of Canadians. It was a way to make it to the next month, and the next and the next. It is the difference between paying rent and becoming homeless and the difference between hanging on and bankruptcy. Now the government has taken that lifeline away from hundreds of thousands of self-employed Canadians. Worse yet, it is throwing them back overboard.

It is inhumane and, quite honestly, ridiculous, and it does not have to be this way. The government can decide right now to reverse this inane decision. Just apply the legislation the way it was written, which means allowing self-employed Canadians to use total income rather than net income to determine CERB eligibility. It means counting income from grants to artists and performers the same way it is counted for tax purposes.

Will this government restore Canadians' trust and reverse this disastrous CERB clawback?

Opposition Motion—Status Update on COVID-19 Vaccines

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Jonquière for a very good speech. I would like to talk a bit more about those pharmaceutical companies, and I'm drawing inspiration from the open letters my colleague from Joliette published. He published another one just this week in L'aut'journal.

Recently, the Government of Canada admitted that the U.S., the U.K. and Germany would start vaccinating their populations in December 2020, whereas Canada would have to wait until the first months of 2021. Why will Canada be starting the process months after the others? It is hard to know, because the Government of Canada signed confidential agreements with pharmaceutical companies that put Quebeckers and Canadians in line behind the Americans, Brits and Germans. That is why the Bloc Québécois demanded that the federal government agree to the Government of Quebec's request for more information about how we will be getting the vaccine.

The Government of Quebec and the Bloc Québécois want to understand why Canada did not get any guarantees for priority processing of its orders. Why did it not align its approval process with those of the vaccine-producing countries in order to synchronize timelines? Why will Quebeckers not be vaccinated at the same time as the rest of the world? Why is Canada unable to come up with a solution to Canada's vaccine production and licensing capacity so that the vaccine could be produced in Canada on a tight deadline? Above all, why did the Prime Minister give a false impression about how quickly the vaccine would be available in Canada?

Upon closer examination of the Government of Canada's decisions and actions, it is hard to know whether there is a real plan for vaccination and, more importantly, whether there is any willingness to increase vaccine manufacturing capacity in Canada, particularly in Quebec, with Medicago, a Quebec-based pharmaceutical company that has the capacity to meet the demand for vaccination with other international pharmaceutical labs.

That is why the Bloc Québécois demanded that the federal government agree to the Government of Quebec's request for more information about the decisions and actions of the Government of Canada. With former Bill C-13, the federal government had established the legal framework required to ensure that pharmaceutical companies could produce a competitor's vaccine without having to wait for a licence. However, Ottawa backed out after the first step. Lastly, the Prime Minister gave false impressions.

I will now speak about the destruction of our pharmaceutical industry because it is worthwhile delving into this issue. I would like to remind my colleagues in the House of Commons that just a few years ago, Quebec had the capacity to develop and sell vaccines. For decades, Quebec was a world leader in the pharmaceutical sector. In Longueuil, Laval and Montreal, in the metropolitan area, large pharmaceutical companies were well established in Quebec.

Under the Government of Quebec's requirements, Canada was collaborating with the Government of Quebec to develop a true pharmaceutical cluster. At the time, the pharmaceutical industry in Quebec was thriving, with many start-ups. The governments of Canada and Quebec were providing economic incentives and policies favouring the development of large laboratories, as well as local manufacturing of innovative drugs. Hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of start-ups, SMEs and jobs were being created.

In the 1980s and 1990s, through the collaboration between the federal and Quebec governments, Quebec built a true pharmaceutical cluster, but as usual, the federal government simply destroyed Quebec's pharmaceutical cluster in the 1990s and the 2000s.

It was the Liberal Party that started the destruction in the 1990s by reducing patent protections for pharmaceutical companies operating in Canada. The Liberal Party then suspended Technology Partnerships Canada, a risk-sharing investment program. When the Conservatives returned to power in the 2000s, Stephen Harper simply finished what the Liberals had started by abolishing the program.

From then until 2012, all of the big pharmaceutical laboratories in Quebec shut down one after the other. Once again, Quebec was abandoned by Ottawa. Meanwhile, the Liberals and the Conservatives chose to favour pharmaceutical companies in Ontario at the expense of those in Quebec. I should also point out that the pharmaceutical companies in Ontario have always contributed significant amounts to Liberal and Conservative election campaigns. Both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party were responsible for Ottawa's choice to stop investing in pharmaceutical companies in Quebec.

That is why, even though the Government of Quebec wanted to develop its pharmaceutical cluster on its own, it simply could not keep this industry competitive in the face of global competition. What kind of dynamic growth would we have seen in Quebec's pharmaceutical industry? What kind of expertise would Quebec have now? I believe that this industry would still have been one of the best in the world. It would surely be in the process of manufacturing a vaccine. That vaccine might even have been approved by now, and we would have been vaccinated.

Once again, Ottawa undermined an important industry in Quebec. Once again, Quebec had a world-class pharmaceutical industry, but Ottawa kept dragging Quebec down. Once again, Quebec's expertise was world-renowned, but Ottawa kept plundering Quebec's industry to help Ontario's. It is always the same old story with Ottawa.

As we saw with the shipbuilding, auto and forestry industries, and as we are currently seeing with the aerospace industry, Ottawa continues to drag Quebec down. Quebec gives half of its tax revenue to Ottawa, but Quebeckers have a bad feeling that they are paying for the destruction of Quebec's most successful businesses with their own money. They have felt that way for far too long. We see it happening with the decisions made by the Liberal and Conservative parties, which do not really care about Quebec's economic development.

I think it is worth mentioning these industries. It has been said that this was a missed opportunity and that there has been a decline in the pharmaceutical industry in Quebec. We were once one of the major world centres. In the early 2000s, we had seven big private pharmaceutical labs in Canada, six of which were located in Quebec. They were Merck Frosst, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Witten A.R., Shire BioChem, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca, whose vaccine is currently undergoing approval.

In 2006, the best year for Quebec's pharmaceutical sector, investments totalled $600 million. Six big pharmaceutical companies had research centres that employed 8,100 people. The pharmaceutical sector had 21,000 employees.

All the big pharmaceutical laboratories subsequently closed their doors. Now, the pharmaceutical industry is one-third smaller. Several major researchers have left the country. Several small pharmaceutical companies were bought out for their patents, and their products are now manufactured abroad. That is the crux of the problem.

If this had not happened a dozen or so years ago, the vaccine could surely have been manufactured in Quebec and Canada. The pandemic might have been over by now, and we would have been able to leave our homes. We could have spent Christmas with our families. The Liberals and the Conservatives bear a certain responsibility for this.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, a Globe and Mail article reported that part 8 of Bill C-13 permits the finance minister to create a corporation or an entity to purchase assets from financial institutions or private companies, including material assets.

We've heard today about some of our Crown corporations. I understand that the Bank of Canada has brought on BlackRock to advise on buying up corporate debt under its new commercial paper purchase program.

Does the PBO have any purview over the commercial paper purchase program? How have they calculated that into the risks on a move forward?

COVID-19 Response Measures Act

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening in support of Bill C-4, an act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19.

This is a very important bill. It will allow us to build on the measures already set out in Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan so we can protect Canadians during the next wave of the pandemic and, more importantly, continue to support them as the economy reopens.

A number of my colleagues have already spoken eloquently about the new measures this bill proposes, such as the Canada recovery benefit, the Canada recovery sickness benefit and the Canada recovery caregiving benefit. I will also talk about them in a few minutes, but I would first like to talk about the importance of passing Bill C-4 quickly. Time is running out.

As we know, the legislation we are debating here today would, among other things, extend the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act to the end of this year. It is a very long title for a very important act that is otherwise set to expire. As hon. members may recall, it was enacted in March as part of Bill C-13, adopted by the House. It allows the government to spend the money needed to protect Canadians and address the public health crisis of the global COVID-19 pandemic. It has been a cornerstone of Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan, a plan that has been critical to supporting Canadians and Canadian businesses.

I know I have spoken about this many times, but I cannot understate the extent to which Canadians have relied on our economic response to get them through these extraordinary times. Through this plan, our government has delivered on programs, such as the Canada emergency response benefit, that have helped millions of Canadians. The CERB has ensured that millions of Canadians have not had to make impossible choices between putting food on their tables and paying their bills when they have lost their jobs or seen their incomes reduced as a result of the pandemic.

The CERB has helped nearly nine million Canadians since March.

Given how many Canadians lost their jobs this year, it quickly became apparent that many of them would need financial support until they could get back to work. However, the existing income support programs were not designed to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. That is why we created the Canada emergency response benefit, or CERB, and made sure that many Canadians would be eligible, for instance by allowing workers to earn up to $1,000 per month while still receiving the CERB.

The Canada emergency response benefit has been a key program, supporting millions of Canadians unable to work because of COVID-19. It has had a tangible impact on the quality of life of millions of families from coast to coast to coast, in every constituency in this country, and that is thanks to the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act. The Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act also paves the way to support businesses across this country, especially our small businesses.

Canadians have worked their whole lives to establish businesses that serve their communities and provide good local jobs. Small businesses not only are the backbone of our economy, but define our neighbourhoods. They give our main streets their character, owners become community leaders and they become the places we rely on to connect to one another.

The list goes on. It is largely thanks to the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act that we are able to help Canadians, support our businesses, and protect everyone's health and safety. However, there is still more work to be done. The increase in COVID-19 cases across the country and the arrival of the second wave clearly show that we are still grappling with the pandemic. We must not let our guard down. We must continue to protect the Canadians who need us most. We must continue to support them, but first we must give ourselves the means to do so, and we must do it now. When Parliament passed the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act in March, the date of repeal was set for September 30, 2020. This means that the act will expire tomorrow, but COVID-19 will not expire. We must extend the act. We owe it to Canadians.

The limited extension of this act would allow the government to continue to do a lot of the things we have been doing to support Canadians and businesses that are most in need. For example, this act would allow the government to keep buying the necessary personal protective equipment to help essential workers. It would also crucially continue support for the public health, social and economic response in indigenous communities. We understand that indigenous communities are vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19, which is why we acted quickly to provide nearly a billion dollars to support public health and community-led responses in these communities.

Extending the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act to December 31 would ensure that there are no needless interruptions to several programs, especially since a second wave of the pandemic is imminent and has already hit some regions. The extension would enable the government to continue to support the provinces and territories and improve the capacity of our health care system. Take, for example, the federal government's investment in testing and contact tracing. We are talking about a legislative framework that has been essential to our assistance plan.

Extending the act would also enable the government to help small businesses and maintain support measures for farmers, food companies and food supply chains. It would ensure that there is no interruption to the final payments under existing programs, such as the CERB, while we begin to transition to the new assistance programs.

We are now six months into the worst health and economic crisis in Canadian history. COVID-19 has affected all aspects of Canadians' lives, from their health to their livelihoods. We will overcome this pandemic, but this will require the work of every order of government, every community and every one of us. For our part, we will support people and businesses through this crisis as long as it lasts. Let me be absolutely clear with the House and with all Canadians: We will do whatever it takes to get through this pandemic.

We are trusting science to lead the fight until a safe, effective vaccine becomes available. Until then, we must remain vigilant and use the tools available to us, such as testing, treatment and physical distancing. The government will continue to be there for Canadians, just as Canadians are there for each other. We will do whatever is necessary.

Canadians are counting on their government to be there for them when they need it. We know that too many are still unable to work because of COVID-19, including many women, many newcomers to Canada and many people who are self-employed. As we have said previously, and the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion said earlier this evening, we will continue to support these vulnerable Canadians. Those who have been receiving CERB will be supported by the employment insurance system. Let me be clear on something: We will not let down those who do not qualify for EI.

Bill C-4 would ensure that the workers impacted by COVID-19 have the support they need by creating three new transitional benefits to ensure that Canadians can continue to support their families and make ends meet.

First, under the Canada recovery benefit, $500 per week for up to 26 weeks could be available to those individuals not working due to the pandemic and who do not qualify for EI, including the self-employed. This would also be available to those individuals working reduced hours who have lost 50% or more of their income due to the pandemic.

Second, the Canada recovery sickness benefit would provide $500 per week for up to two weeks to workers who are unable to work for at least 50% of the time they would have otherwise worked, either because they contracted COVID-19, think they might have it or because they isolated because of the virus.

Third, the Canada recovery caregiving benefit would be available to those who cannot work because they are caring for a close relative or because their child cannot go to school or day care because of the pandemic. These Canadians could receive $500 per week for up to 26 weeks.

These transitional benefits are proposed as part of the government's plan to support Canadians, as we work to build a stronger, more resilient economy. All three would be available for one year. We know this crisis will not pass this week or next.

This pandemic is the worst public health crisis Canada has ever encountered. Canadians of all ages everywhere in the country have been hit hard. Millions of Canadians lost their jobs or had their hours cut along with their income. Job losses may be the most obvious effect of the global economic shock we have all had to withstand, but the shock also highlighted a whole range of quality-of-life issues, such as mental health, family violence and social ties.

We firmly believe that policy development must be guided by prosperity and quality of life for all Canadians. That is what will help us build a stronger, more resilient country, and that is what guides us as we develop the pandemic recovery plan.

This is not the time for austerity. As Canadians continue to weather the consequences of the pandemic, we must maintain certain assistance program and launch others. Bill C-4 will enable us to round out many of the existing measures. It will also help us make our COVID-19 economic response plan more effective. In the medium and long terms, we will also have to recover from the pandemic by building a stronger and more resilient Canada.

Canada entered this crisis in the best fiscal position of its peers. For the past six months, the government has been using that fiscal firepower so Canadians, businesses and our entire economy have the support needed to weather the storm. The same firepower can also help us to overcome this crisis and build back as a stronger, more resilient country.

It is critical to ensure that the Canadians who need it the most continue to receive the support they need. It will help to ensure that Canadians and the businesses where they work continue to receive the support they need.

I will end by saying this. Our government's first priority is addressing this pandemic and ensuring Canadians are healthy and safe. We are getting them the help they need today, while finding solutions which will improve their quality of life over the months and years to come.

Our government's priority is to fight this pandemic and make sure Canadians stay healthy and safe. We will give them the help they need now, and we will come up with solutions to improve their quality of life in the months and years to come.

The measures contained in this bill would help us to do exactly that. I urge every member of the House to do the same.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, as others have said, the reality we have been dealing with for the past six months has plunged workers in Quebec and Canada into a climate of unparalleled uncertainty.

Week in and week out, our constituents have been calling us and reaching out to us for answers to their questions. The government has loosened the purse strings to support people during this difficult time, and that is great. Now the plan is to transition CERB recipients to special recovery benefits outlined in Bill C-4. The bill includes three benefits and measures to make EI more flexible.

As an aside regarding EI, it is important to remember that, over the past 25 years, successive governments have robbed the EI fund of $59 billion to balance their budgets. Those governments, Conservative and Liberal alike, used their discretion to redirect those billions towards other budget priorities of the day.

With the EI fund having been plundered, COVID-19 certainly required a robust, costly measure that would have to be implemented quickly. That was the CERB. In terms of public finances, one can imagine that the support scenario might have played out differently if the EI fund had not been plundered so badly. Many women and young people have suffered because of this.

The CERB was good, but it had what I would call some design flaws. It helped a lot of families, and with all the uncertainty and the second wave, the Canada recovery benefit is very welcome, especially as it puts a renewed focus on the employment insurance system and more specifically the stabilizing role it plays for the economy. That is the role this system must play.

We were elected by people who are close to us in our ridings. We have responsibilities to them. Even though, as an opposition party, we did not introduce Bill C-4, it is still our duty to point out to the government the inconsistencies in some of the measures or some of the rules. It is also our duty to act with kindness and integrity in the hope that we will be heard. That is how we give a voice to our constituents, regardless of their political stripe. However, are our voices heard when they are conveyed by elected members?

I want to share with this assembly a specific case that is certainly not unique in Canada: the parents of critically ill children benefit EI program. That program came into effect in 2017 with a remarkably compassionate objective.

In the summer of 2019, an evaluation was done. The evaluation noted that there were just over 15,000 recipients, 80% of whom were women earning around $40,000 a year. The conclusions and recommendations section of the evaluation stated, and I quote:

...the Parents of Critically Ill Children benefit was effective overall in meeting its policy objectives. The benefit:

-was effective in easing financial pressures on parents in order to allow them more time to provide care to their...child;

-provided adequate temporary income support;

-helped keep claimants attached to the labour force; and

-contributed to positive social impacts....

These objectives seem quite similar to the objectives of maternity benefits, in that they allow parents to take care of children. Unlike maternity benefits, these special EI benefits for parents of critically ill children were not factored in when calculating eligibility for the CERB, even though the objectives are very similar.

I bring this up because my office has been devoting considerable time and effort to the case of Ms. Beaulieu, from Repentigny, since April. We have written letters, held Zoom meetings and made phone calls to two departments, including calls to the ministers themselves, a deputy minister and regional assistants. Ms. Beaulieu is one of the people who was left out of the CERB. Her four-year-old son has a critical illness. Ms. Beaulieu will likely never be able to hold a full-time job again.

Because of COVID-19, she lost her part-time job, the first job she had been able to hold in two years. As a result of the design flaw in the CERB that I mentioned earlier, parents of critically ill children do not qualify for the special benefits. This woman's eligible earnings fell less than $3,000 short of the threshold to qualify for the CERB.

The report indicated that, from 2013 to 2017, the period that was assessed, 15,300 people were eligible to receive the benefit. That is only 15,300 people in four years. When someone is taking care of a sick young child and then COVID-19 suddenly strikes and they lose their income, what are they supposed to do? The options are nothing short of heartbreaking.

How is it possible that no adjustments have been made to these measures after five months of lobbying? How is it that the government took advantage of this new bill to make changes to EI, but it did not listen to these people? Very few people are applying for this benefit, and they can easily be identified based on the seriousness of the child's health status or medical condition.

The government was quick to offer the CERB to other segments of the population. Why did it not listen to this legitimate request on behalf of caregivers of critically ill children? There were simple solutions; they only needed to be deemed eligible. If the government is going to review the terms of the EI program at all, why not do it properly? I just summarized a situation for which solutions could easily have been found.

I have another example. A few weeks before the pandemic eroded our parliamentary democracy, the House voted by a wide margin in favour of a motion moved by the Bloc Québécois to increase EI sickness benefits to a maximum of 50 weeks. This would also have been a great opportunity to align EI with a majority decision from the House. What does this failure to act say to the elected members of the House who voted overwhelmingly in favour of this motion and whose views on the changes were not considered? It is pretty disappointing that the government is refusing to listen.

We know full well what the deployment of programs like the CERB represents. Nothing is perfect, but our job is to work on improving what is introduced. The changes that should have been made to the CERB were delayed or non-existent. In the case of Ms. Beaulieu, we presented a solid argument. We did so diligently and respectfully in the appropriate forums. Eligibility for the special benefits for parents of critically ill children was never considered. To date, no official answer has been provided on this issue. One minister's staffer even refused to let me contact a deputy minister who was designated as the lead on this issue. Obstacle after obstacle was thrown up.

Ms. Beaulieu would have to wait. Two departments spent months passing the buck back and forth and telling us what we already knew. All we could do was watch as time ran out on the CERB program, without any benefits for critically ill children. Still today, because we continue to fight, we are told that an analysis is under way that will look into the rationale for treating earnings from these benefits the same as maternity benefits. From what I understand of the analysis, this has nothing to do with the issue; it is about determining whether Ms. Beaulieu is eligible. However, that is not what we want. We want this for everyone affected by this matter.

We support the new recovery benefits proposed in Bill C-4, but what are we supposed to think of the past six months and the approach that was taken? How should we interpret the complacency and lack of consideration for such a serious case? The government gave itself extraordinary powers through Bill C-13. Today I will not mention the files that have been overlooked for the past few months, but on the flip side, I do have to criticize the political reasons behind the Liberals' decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks. Opportunities have been missed, as this bill would have been put through its paces.

To the MPs who watched time run out without doing anything or even responding to the communications from various ridings regarding cases like the one I talked about today, I have just one word to describe how people perceived it. That word is indifference.

Government Business No. 1

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, all Canadians want Parliament to function properly. All Canadians care about what is going on with health care. All Canadians, particularly folks in Quebec and Ontario, are seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases. We need measured, worthwhile, relevant action, but we believe that must happen through healthy democratic debate. What we are seeing now is anything but.

The government is about to introduce legislation that will result in $57 billion in spending, and it is reducing the time parliamentarians have to speak on the bill to barely four and a half hours.

This is anything but parliamentary democracy. As elected officials, we have a duty to hold the government accountable. We were elected to ask the government what it is doing, how it is doing it and why. With four and a half hours of debate, we cannot hope to understand where the $57 billion is going. Unfortunately, that is what the government is forcing us to do, and we condemn it in the strongest terms.

Why are we here today? We are here because we are concerned about the health situation of Canadians. We are concerned about the survival of Canadian businesses. We are concerned about Canadian workers who are out of jobs because of the pandemic. We are concerned because the Liberal government tabled some ideas, proposals and policies that created a lack of manpower and businesses were forced to close.

In my riding, many restaurants and other businesses closed their doors because they needed workers but instead people preferred not to work and to use what we call in French the PCU.

The debate is serious, which is why we must take the necessary time to study the measures the government is proposing.

All of us on this side want to help Canadians. All of us on this side want to help the business community. All of us on this side are concerned about the health of Canadians and want to help everybody on that issue. All of us on this side want to work hand in hand with the provinces. On this side, we are not going to say what is good for the provinces but rather ask how we can help them. That is the Conservative view, not the Liberal one.

What we have today in front of us is a government that acted at the last minute. The government decided to have just four and a half hours of debate for $50 billion in taxpayers' money. This is unparliamentary, and we strongly disagree with the approach of the government.

We are here today because the government has acted in an unfortunate way in recent weeks. We should remember that when the pandemic broke out, we had urgent action to take. We worked with the government, but we also took the government to task on a number of occasions. I will come back to that later. We wanted to work together. That is why we agreed to have the hybrid Parliament and why we agreed to have committees. We were doing our job, which is really relevant.

Some senior members in our party, including the hon. member for Carleton, the hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton, just to name a few, asked questions that were very relevant to the WE scandal, but awkward for the government. The government had decided to give $900 million to friends of the regime without a call for tenders. Once it started really feeling the heat, the Liberal government decided to kill parliamentary democracy by proroguing the session.

Let's keep in mind that, in 2015, these paragons of virtue said that they would never use prorogation and that they would never prevent parliamentarians from expressing themselves, but they did at the first opportunity.

We would not be where we are today had the government allowed parliamentarians to continue doing their job, yet that is exactly what the government is encouraging us to do. For six weeks, we were unable to do our job as parliamentarians, a necessary job.

The government recalled the House with a throne speech last week. The very next day, it introduced Bill C-2, which includes budgetary measures to help Canadians.

We understand that time is running out because of the sunset clauses on government measures. Because of these sunset clauses, the House has to vote on certain issues before October 1, but the government is the one in charge of the calendar. It is the government that decided to shut down committees and close Parliament six weeks ago. It is the government that decided to recall the House last week when it could have easily done so earlier. The government could have easily allowed Parliament to do its work in committee, but no.

These people who really enjoy controlling Parliament and the situation have made it so that we have just a few hours before the sunset clauses take effect. They bear all the responsibility for that.

It is very funny to hear the government House leader saying that Liberals want to walk together and work together and that there is no time for political games. This is exactly what they are doing. We are not working together. They want to work all by themselves. They say they do not want to play political games. That is exactly what they are doing right now. We have $50 billion in front of us that we have to debate and they are letting parliamentarians talk about it for only four and a half hours. This is a big joke. This is everything but parliamentary democracy. We need to work together, obviously, but we need the tools to do that and what the government is tabling today does everything but give parliamentarians the right tools to do the work.

Conservatives are here for Canadians. I can assure everyone that we will stand by our guns in this situation because we need to work correctly, and that is exactly what we intend to do.

Last week the government introduced Bill C-2. We saw millions of dollars' worth of spending on the horizon. After question period last Thursday, the government House leader told us that Monday and Tuesday, so today and tomorrow, would be dedicated to Bill C-2, which was fine.

Even then we realized that we might not have enough time to really get to the bottom of things. Acting in good faith and to avoid partisan games, we proposed something that we thought was entirely fair and appropriate and that, above all, would mean that we could get the work done. We proposed meeting on Sunday in committee of the whole for over six hours to allow four ministers to appear before us and answer questions from the opposition and the government, in order to get to the bottom of the matter in relation to Bill C-2. That is our job as parliamentarians.

That is the way Conservatives are working. We have to hold the government to account. We are here to ask questions and the ministers are here to answer questions.

Being in cabinet is a privilege. If the gods and my leader are willing, maybe one day I myself will be in cabinet. Who knows? At any rate, being a minister is certainly something.

The ministers we hoped would answer questions before this committee were serious ministers, senior ministers who are responsible for billions of dollars. We wanted to hear from the Minister of Finance. We wanted to hear from the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, as well as the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development and the Minister of Labour. These four ministers played a central part in the discussions surrounding Bill C-2, which represents more than $50 billion in spending. They could have answered the committee's questions. However, our proposal was declined. We were fine with that, because it is part of the democratic process.

A few hours later, however, we found out that the government and the NDP had hammered out an agreement on Bill C-2. That agreement was negotiated in a proper democratic fashion. We are not going to raise a fuss over it.

We will see how the debates go. What points will people raise about the bill that is about to be introduced? What are members going to be able to say in a mere four and a half hours about $57 billion in proposed spending?

This is the key element of this debate today. The government is asking taxpayers to spend $57 billion and we, the representatives of Canadians, will only have four and a half hours of discussion and debate. That is absolutely not enough, and there is no partisanship in that. Those are the facts. Technically speaking, we need to go deeply into this bill. We need to know exactly what the intention of the government is. We have a job to do, but the government, which killed the parliamentary process this summer and dodged the responsibility it had to work with other parties, decided to kill our responsibility to go deeply into the bill.

When the Liberals are attacking us on that, they are not attacking us; they are attacking Canadians. Canadians deserve answers. Canadians have elected us to ask tough questions. I know them. I know they are ready to answer that. Let us do our jobs. The government is not doing that right now.

It might come as a surprise to some of us that the government would treat parliamentary procedure so grievously.

I have had the privilege of representing the people of Louis-Saint-Laurent for almost five years now. I cannot thank them enough for electing me twice. This is not the first time in the past five years that this government's approach to the rights, privileges and responsibilities of all parliamentarians, including those in opposition, has been a little too authoritarian.

Members will recall the infamous Motion No. 6 tabled in May 2016. It gave the government extraordinary powers to ram through bills that should have been given more serious attention.

Sadly, we all remember how that led to a deeply unfortunate and disgraceful incident: the Prime Minister left his seat, grabbed an opposition member—our party whip—by the arm and marched him across the chamber like a crook.

This was called “elbowgate”. The Prime Minister crossed the floor, grabbing a political adversary and using it just like that. That was everything but good. That was a shame. I have never seen an act so disgraceful, and it was coming from the top, the Prime Minister. Why? Because we were asking to have a friendly debate, and Motion No. 6 was anything but that. The Prime Minister was not happy with our position and he did something very wrong. Obviously, he excused himself the day after. He did what he had to do.

We were then able to proceed. However, the government's main intention with Motion No. 6 was to hinder the work of parliamentarians, especially opposition members.

A year later in May 2017, the government did exactly the same thing. It once again proposed measures aimed at limiting parliamentary work, especially that of the opposition and particularly in committee. Thanks to a vigilant opposition and our tireless work at committee trying to block this measure, the government realized that it made no sense.

A number of bills were introduced in May 2019. The government wanted them to pass after just minutes, never mind hours, of debate. It was unacceptable.

Hon. members will also recall that in the winter of 2019, when another Liberal scandal, the SNC-Lavalin one, had just erupted, the government decided to put an end to the parliamentary committee's work. That was also unacceptable.

This Liberal government's first Parliament ended with 63 time allocation motions. Yes, the current government imposed 63 gag orders. That was also unacceptable.

As I said earlier, during the campaign, the Liberals said that they would be very frank and very honest with all parliamentarians, that they would make Parliament work, that they would not prorogue the House. However, that is what they did. They also adopted 63 time allocation motions. This is anything but parliamentary freedom and this is everything but good parliamentary attitude.

We ended up with this new Parliament following the election. When the COVID-19 crisis began, all members from all parties worked in good faith for the good of Canadians. Obviously we had to give the government certain powers, as the situation was unforeseen. Nevertheless, the Liberals gave themselves powers that were excessive, to say the least.

Let's not forget that the first version of Bill C-13 would have allowed the government to take measures and write cheques at will until the end of 2021. They were very ambitious, not to mention greedy. That was not what needed to be done. Our vigilance, and that of the other parties, ensured that the government backed down.

That was a good indication that the government was very ambitious. When it came time to say that this was an extraordinary situation and that Parliament could not sit in its usual fashion, the government decided to give itself all sorts of powers until December 2021.

How could we accept the fact that the government was ready to have full power for more than a year and a half? That is not parliamentary democracy. Canada deserves better. We understand and recognize that we to address some situations if some emergency arises, but we shall respect the responsibility of parliamentarians. Again, this morning the government is so happy to shut down the parliamentary system and this is unacceptable to us.

We are very sad to see that the government wants to muzzle parliamentarians once again. The Conservatives are well aware that we need proper measures for Canadians and that these measures have to correspond to the needs of Canadian families, that we must take into account Canadian businesses that are facing tough challenges, that we must take into account Canadian workers who lost their jobs, and that we must take into account the men and women with children who are worried.

Indeed, we have measures to bring in. Indeed, we must work together. Indeed, we must put partisanship aside in order to act for the good of Canadians. However, we have a job to do, and when the government is getting ready to spend $57 billion, we think parliamentarians should do their job. Four and a half hours does not leave enough time for us to do our job properly.

Therefore, I move the following amendment:

That the motion be amended:

(a) in paragraph (b), by replacing the words “not be deferred”, with the words “be deferred until the expiry of time provided for Oral Questions at the next sitting day which is not a Friday”; and

(b) by replacing paragraphs (c) to (e) with the following:

“(c) if the bill is adopted at second reading, it shall be referred to a committee of the whole and the House shall, when the orders of the day are next called after the bill has been read the second time, resolve itself into a committee of the whole on the said bill, provided that:

(i) the committee be subject to the provisions relating to virtual sittings of the House,

(ii) the Speaker may preside,

(iii) the Chair may preside from the Speaker’s chair,

(iv) the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, and the Minister of Labour be invited to appear,

(v) each minister shall be questioned for 95 minutes, provided that:

(A) the chair shall call members from all recognized parties and one member who does not belong to a recognized party in a fashion consistent with the proportions observed during Oral Questions, following the rotation used for question by the former Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic;

(B) no member shall be recognized for more than five minutes at a time which may be used for posing questions;

(C) members may be permitted to spilt their time with one or more members by so indicating to the chair, and

(D) questions shall be answered by the minister or another minister acting on her or his behalf,

(vi) notices of amendments to the bill to be considered in committee of the whole may be deposited with the Clerk of the House at any time following the adoption of this order until the conclusion of the second hour of debate in committee of the whole,

(vii) at the conclusion of time provided for questioning ministers, or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, the Chair shall put forthwith and successively every question necessary to dispose of the committee stage of the bill, including each amendment deposited with the Clerk of the House pursuant to subparagraph (vi);

(d) once the bill has been reported from the committee of the whole, the Speaker shall put forthwith and successively every question necessary to dispose of the report and third reading stages of the bill, provided that no recorded division shall be deferred; and

(e) the Standing Orders relating to the ordinary hour of daily adjournment shall be suspended while the bill is being considered under the provisions of this order”.

Government Business No. 10

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member across the way for her speech. Also, I find it interesting that she gave a little list of all the things that she has been up to. It is always wonderful to hear different approaches.

I have a specific question.

The member mentioned the importance of family and the importance of certainty, particularly during a pandemic. Earlier today, I did ask the Minister of Employment multiple times, as I have over the past few months, about the issue of accessing parental benefits. I just want to find out from the member if she is hearing from her own constituents, from mothers and fathers who are unable to know where they stand. I talked to one woman who was eight hours short of meeting the requirements for eligibility to receive parental benefits from employment insurance. The minister has been given the powers under Bill C-13, with a stroke of a pen, to deal with it. Is the member facing the same circumstances in her riding? Does she support dealing with this as quickly as possible and treating this with the urgency that is necessary?

Having a baby during a pandemic is bad enough, but trying to figure out where one stands with employment insurance with that uncertainty is, I think, unconscionable.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Chair, I would just go back to our original discussions around Bill C-13. The Liberal government made an unparalleled power grab and the opposition leader pushed back, along with many members of the opposition parties, to say that we were not going to give unfettered, unheralded power to amend our laws without going through Parliament.

What we did give the government was a lot of power to introduce programs. This is where it is really important for us, as members of Parliament, to be relating the experiences on the front lines of the pandemic in our ridings. Ottawa is very far away from British Columbia.

When we bring up suggestions, for example, about the Canadian emergency business account, stating those loggers, realtors and barbers using a personal chequing account are now at a disadvantage to their competition across the street who have been using a business chequing account, it is really unfair. In May, the Prime Minister said that the government would fix this, but it still has not done that.

We have done a lot of good things on this side, such as the Canadian emergency wage subsidy among others, and a lot of other parties have contributed to that. However, the government needs to continue to understand that we are on the front lines and that members of Parliament do understand the problems in their ridings. The Liberals need to respect that and start listening. Again, if we are to see the country get through this pandemic, it will be because Canadians bring the problems to Ottawa and they are heard and responded to ably.