Bill C-293

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act

An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness

This enactment enacts the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act to require the Minister of Health to establish, in consultation with other ministers, a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan, which is to include information provided by those ministers.
It also amends the Department of Health Act to provide that the Minister of Health must appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from among the officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada to coordinate the activities under the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act .

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-293, An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

There is one motion in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-293. Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted upon.

Motions in Amendment

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

moved:

That Bill C-293 be amended by deleting Clause 3.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to my report stage amendment to Bill C-293, the pandemic prevention and preparedness act. My amendment would delete clause 3 of the legislation for the simple reason that this section, if it were allowed to stay in the bill, would prevent the establishment of a transparent and independent review of Canada's COVID-19 response.

Instead, as currently written, it would establish an “advisory committee” that would report directly to the Minister of Health. In other words, the coach would acting as referee, as the minister would be appointing those very people. Moreover, the legislation contains no requirement that the results of that advisory committee's review be tabled in Parliament or be made available to the public. This is simply unacceptable.

In the NDP's view, Canadians deserve a root-to-branch, dispassionate, independent and fully public assessment of the lessons learned throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada's New Democrats will not support any legislation that would prevent this. To be clear, our party strongly supports the other provisions outlined in the legislation. We believe that the Minister of Health should be required to establish a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan and appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator. If my amendment is adopted, New Democrats will support the legislation at third reading because it would preserve those valuable parts of the bill. However, if my amendment is blocked, we will not hesitate to vote against the bill.

It is important to note that the amendment at report stage would not have been necessary if the Conservatives and the Liberals had not joined forces at the Standing Committee on Health to block my motion to amend the bill to create an independent public inquiry to Canada's COVID-19 response. On October 23, 2023, I moved an amendment at the health committee to legally mandate that a COVID-19 inquiry, under the Inquiries Act, be launched within 90 days of Bill C-293's adoption.

Under the Inquiries Act, commissions of inquiry are established to impartially investigate issues of national importance and provide findings and recommendations. This is Canada's national legislation to get real answers to important public policy questions. Unlike the advisory committee proposed by clause 3 of the bill before us, however, commissions of inquiry have the power to subpoena witnesses, take evidence under oath, order production of documents and retain the services of technical advisers and experts. Hearings are held in public, and the commission's findings and recommendations are reported to the public.

Shockingly, however, the Conservatives sat on their hands and abstained on my amendment, allowing the Liberals, who voted against it, to effectively block such an inquiry. Interestingly, under the leadership of Erin O'Toole, the Conservative Party during the pandemic repeatedly called for an independent, expert-led public inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response, and even currently they often criticize the way the federal government handled the COVID-19 inquiry, with many criticisms that the NDP shares. The Conservative Party pledged during the last election to call such an inquiry.

I can see why the Liberals would be reluctant to call an inquiry into their own government's COVID-19 response, but I find it rather difficult to understand why Conservatives colluded with them to block an independent inquiry into our country's response to the most severe pandemic in a century. Conservatives and Liberals joining a COVID collusion coalition, indeed. The Conservatives are fond of tossing around the word “coalition”. Perhaps they can explain to Canadians why they joined in a COVID collusion coalition with the Liberals to block an independent COVID-19 inquiry.

Perhaps they decided to flip-flop on the need for an independent inquiry last fall because, at that time, former Reform Party leader Preston Manning was urging the federal Conservatives to weaponize the dubious findings of his highly politicized COVID review. While the Liberals want to provide the illusion of oversight and accountability with inadequate internal reviews as contained in this legislation, the Conservatives seem to want to play political games with partisan reports. New Democrats, for our part, want a full, fair, fearless and public COVID-19 inquiry led by independent experts. That is because the NDP believes Canadians deserve answers, and we will settle for no less.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Canada, all levels of government had to respond to keep Canadians safe. People have the right to know why decisions were taken, what mistakes were made and if their government acted appropriately. Throughout the pandemic, New Democrats identified the eventual need for a fully independent, comprehensive and penetrating review of Canada's COVID-19 preparedness response. To date, the Prime Minister has deferred questions about a COVID-19 inquiry, only saying that there will be a time for a “lessons learned” exercise someday in the future.

In September 2022, the former Liberal health minister noted that a government decision could come “soon” on what kind of review should be held. However, when asked if it should be independent, he would only say that a strong review is necessary.

With the emergency pandemic conditions behind us, the NDP believes it is unacceptable that the Liberals still have not called an independent review of Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Frankly, we are shocked that the Conservatives blocked one. Instead of papering over the federal government's inadequacies and failures, we must leave no stone unturned to learn from past mistakes and to prepare for future threats.

Many prominent public health and security experts have called for the federal government to launch an expert-led independent inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response. For example, the British Medical Journal recently published a series that examined Canada's COVID-19 response, and it called for an independent national inquiry. The series' authors are experts across a diverse range of clinical and research areas. The picture that emerged from their review was an ill-prepared country with outdated data systems, poor coordination and cohesion, and blindness about its citizens' diverse needs.

The authors found that what ultimately saved Canada was a largely willing populace that withstood stringent public health measures and achieved among the world's highest levels of vaccination coverage voluntarily. In other words, Canadians stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic while their governments faltered.

Major questions remain, including whether vaccine mandates were warranted, why infection-acquired immunity was ignored and why federal emergency preparedness was so inadequate. There are many more important questions that Canadians want answers to.

The British Medical Journal series outlined many reasons why an independent inquiry is needed in Canada. Here is the first:

...failing to look to the past will ensure an unchanged future. Undoubtedly, lessons can be drawn to inform new health investments and preparedness, and much learning comes from decisions and actions that failed or faltered.

Positive lessons can also pave the way to a better future, when we can review what went right.

Second, lacking an independent federal inquiry allows others to step into the frame. For example, the so-called National Citizens Inquiry, launched by Preston Manning, has been fuelled by misinformation, ideology and conspiracy theories.

Third, an inquiry would help deliver on Canada's ambition to be a leader on the world stage, since domestic and global health security are linked.

Fourth, an inquiry would provide an actionable framework for reforming Canada's health care and public health systems, which were struggling prepandemic and are currently on life support.

Finally and most importantly, an inquiry would provide accountability for the nearly 60,000 direct deaths and five million cases of COVID in Canada that devastated families and left a legacy of long COVID for many in their wake.

New Democrats agree with the British Medical Journal. We are calling on the federal government to call an independent public inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response without delay. For that reason, we are moving this amendment today and can only support this legislation if it is adopted.

We cannot accept an inadequate whitewash. Only a root-to-branch, fearless, comprehensive, thorough, public and independent COVID-19 inquiry will do in these circumstances. Canadians deserve no less. Only the NDP is standing in this House to demand that. That is what is fuelling this amendment today.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's remarks and the amendment. It follows from the debate we had at second reading. I was clear at second reading when I said that the core of this bill is the plan. We need legislation passed in this House to ensure that all future governments take every step possible to prepare for the next pandemic and, ideally, take steps to reduce pandemic risks to prevent the next pandemic.

The review body, the advisory body, was not intended to have some searching, backward-looking accountability function. It was intended to ensure that experts come together to learn lessons and inform the plan.

In conversations with colleagues subsequently and even at second reading debate, I was clear that this was not a hill I was going to die on. The core of this is accountability to Parliament for every future government to ensure that every three to five years, which I said I was open to as an amendment too, the government comes back and tables the plan and improves the plan. This would ensure we are doing everything we can, knowing that the costs of prevention and preparedness pale in comparison to the human and economic costs, the costs we just lived through and the costs that our kids are likely to live through in relation to the next pandemic.

To be clear, I do not subscribe to all that my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway has said. I do not suggest that this is a whitewash. The idea was for experts to come together to inform a plan. However, I am nothing if not pragmatic, and I would like this bill to pass. I think it is incredibly important that the core of it passes and that we see serious thought go into a whole-of-government approach. We talked about that.

This bill sets out specific ministerial responsibilities to inform the plan. The bill is informed by and worked on by the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystems and its report on preventing the next pandemic. It is informed by UNEP's report on preventing the next pandemic. It is informed by the Independent Panel's report on pandemic preparedness.

The core of this, the most important part of it, is that there is a plan in place, tabled in Parliament, to prepare for and prevent the next pandemic, that future governments ensure that plans are tabled to improve upon those efforts and that there be accountability to this House. It is not that PHAC and the government would do this work separately. There would be accountability to the Canadian public on an ongoing basis.

We know, having seen what took place post-SARS, that there was a lot of good work to make recommendations and some good work to implement those recommendations, although not fully and by no means completely, and then the public lost interest. We moved on to other things and were not as prepared as we could and should have been. This bill would remedy that. It would ensure that every future government takes these serious obligations as seriously as they should.

I certainly accept the amendment. I do not accept the characterization of the advisory body, but if removing the advisory body and that particular review is what it takes to get the core of the bill passed, that accountability to Parliament on a pandemic preparedness and prevention plan, then so be it. Let us get the amendment passed and let us get this bill to the Senate.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the common-sense Canadians in the reasonable riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke to reveal what this private member's bill is really about. I oppose Bill C-293 because it seeks to cover up the repeated failures by the government during the pandemic. I do not believe it is the intention of the member for Beaches—East York to cover up his party’s gross incompetence, but if passed, that would be the effect of this bill.

As more Canadians are forced to attend political re-education camps, they are only learning that intention does not matter, only effect. Similarly, I do not think it was the intention of the member to perpetuate harmful racist stereotypes about people who live in China, but this bill does have that effect. Thankfully, I have not been forced to attend a Marxist re-education program yet. That is why I still believe the intention does matter a great deal.

It is clear the intention of the member for Beaches—East York was to have the federal government undergo a critical examination of how it managed the pandemic, then use that knowledge to inform the next pandemic plan. We have all heard the calls for an independent public inquiry or a royal commission into the handling of the pandemic, but this does not do that.

Instead, this bill would have the Minister of Health appoint a committee of gender-balanced advisors. These hand-picked Liberal advisors would review not just the federal government’s actions, but also the actions of provincial and municipal governments. Barging into provincial jurisdiction seems to be a favourite pastime of the NDP-Liberal coalition. It also has the added bonus effect of diluting any possible criticisms that could come from a report prepared by people selected by the health minister.

That the member for Beaches—East York felt the need to bring forward this bill is a scathing rebuke of the NDP-Liberal government. Despite repeated assurances during the pandemic that the government would conduct an independent review, the Liberal member had so little confidence in his own government that he had to try to pass a law to get them to act responsibly.

At the same time, the Liberal cabinet had so little confidence in its caucus that even while this bill was before committee last October, the health minister was conducting a secret review. When journalist Paul Wells asked the government in November if there was a secret pandemic review, the government stonewalled him. If not for the Order Paper question put forth by the member for Yorkton—Melville, it is likely this secret pandemic review would never have come to light.

Fortunately, Canadians do not have to wait for the Liberals to release results of their secret pandemic review. The United States National Institutes of Health conducted a review of Canada’s pandemic response. Here is what it wrote:

In comparison with its southern neighbors in the Americas, namely the United States and Mexico, the Canadian experience appears to have been a relative success. However, comparisons with exemplars during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, highlight shortcomings in Canada's pandemic preparedness and responses.

The British Medical Journal conducted a review in 2023. Here is what it found:

Experts found that lessons from the 2003’s SARS-CoV-1 outbreak had not been heeded and Canada’s governments and health authorities were ill-prepared for Covid-19, with fragmented health leadership hindering a coordinated response.

That quote from the journal of medicine really underscores a major problem with this bill. The 2003 SARS outbreak was supposed to be the wake-up call. It was the catalyst for creating the Public Health Agency of Canada. There was a pandemic plan in place, just as this bill calls for. There was an international pandemic surveillance unit, just as this bill calls for, except the Liberals gutted the surveillance unit to focus on flavoured vaping.

They ignored the existing pandemic plan and decades of emergency management practices, which brings us to this legislation. If all this bill was proposing was to have the health minister appoint some advisors and draw up a plan, it would already be moot. The minister already has the authority to appoint advisors and has already done so in secret. The government already has the authority to draw up a pandemic preparedness plan. If the government already has all the powers it needs, what is this bill really about?

Earlier I mentioned that this bill reinforces harmful racist stereotypes. With its focus on regulating agriculture and putting limits on land use to prevent urbanization, it reinforces the racist “wet market” theory. Despite the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting research on coronavirus carried by bats, which scientists had collected and brought back to Wuhan, many still believe the virus crossed multiple species at a live animal market.

For too many, it was easier to believe that people who reside in China live, work and shop for food in unsanitary conditions. These outdated stereotypes risk blinding us to the growing threat of bioterror and biowarfare.

For all of human history, the viruses which sought to kill us have been the kind which cross species, but we do not live in that world anymore. We live in a world of low-cost gene editing. The rapid development of mRNA shots illustrates just how powerful biotechnology has become, yet the bill is entirely silent on the most likely source of the next deadly pandemic. Instead, the bill seeks to use pandemic preparation as a pretext to advance the progressive ideological agenda, a communist manifesto.

The bill calls for new regulations on farming. It would grant the minister the power to shut down any type of animal farming deemed high risk. Say good-bye to the chicken and pork industries in Canada.

Before my Liberal colleagues begin screaming disinformation, I would encourage them to compare what subparagraph 4(2)(l)(ii) says versus subparagraph 4(2)(l)(iv). Subparagraph (ii) calls for the regulation of commercial activities, including industrial animal farming. Subparagraph (iv) says that any farming involving “high-risk species” is to be phased out. Nowhere does the bill define what a high-risk species is, but a reasonable person could assume that any species that has previously been the source of a deadly virus would be a high risk. There is a big difference between regulating risk and phasing out risk.

If the member were truly concerned about the pandemic risk of productive farming practices, he could have brought together farmers and scientists to come up with legislation to reduce risk. However, that is not the goal of the Liberal vegan base. They want to phase out livestock farming altogether. Using people's fears of another pandemic to push that agenda is diabolical. However, that is the difference between a Conservative vegan and a Liberal one. The Conservative vegans just want affordable fruits and vegetables for themselves, while the Liberal ones seek to impose their vegetables on everybody else.

For the record, not all far-left radical socialists are vegan. That is why the bill also calls for measures to promote “alternative proteins”.

Alternative protein is just a far-left dog whistle that means crickets. What is it with the far-left and their desire to have us all eat bugs? First they claimed we would have to eat bugs because of overpopulation. When that did not pan out, they seized on climate change and claimed that crickets produce fewer greenhouse gases per pound of protein, all the while portraying cows as climate criminals. Now, they are using the threat of future pandemics to phase out pork and poultry, while pushing their favourite alternative protein. Canadians are not biting; they see through this pretense.

What Canadians do not see is any real accountability from this government for the decisions taken during the pandemic.

With the member for Beaches—East York's reputation for independence within one of the most servile Liberal caucuses I have ever seen, it is easy to imagine the bill may have started out seeking real accountability. Unfortunately, the only contribution to pandemic preparedness the publication of the bill achieves is to increase the nation's supply of tissue paper. It would give powers to the health minister that the health minister already has. It seeks an advisory committee the minister has already appointed in secret. It reinforces the racist stereotypes of people living in China. It is a power grab for opponents of modern farming. It remains completely silent on the increasing risk that the next pandemic could originate in a laboratory.

At best, the bill is ineffectual. At worst, it opens an avenue for more regulation of land use and seeks to phase out modern farming. It may have been the intention of the member to use the bill to prepare Canada for the next pandemic, but the effect of the bill is to advance a far-left agenda while blinding us to the growing threat of bioterror. The bill is not worth the cost to Canadians.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think the amendment of my—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

The hon. member has the floor, and I would ask members to please be respectful and allow him to do his speech without interruption.

The hon. member for Montcalm.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, after these speeches, it seems to me that the amendment of my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway is even more necessary. After 6.5 million deaths worldwide and 45,000 deaths across Canada, we must avoid partisan perspectives at all costs.

Throughout the work that was done by the Standing Committee on Health during the management of the pandemic, my colleagues—some of whom are here in the House—were able to see that the Bloc Québécois was always trying to find solutions, to elevate the debate, to set partisanship aside, not just to find out who was at fault. The Bloc Québécois tried to find solutions, to ensure that we are all responsible for what happens and to make sure that it never happens like that again.

In that sense, I do not understand why the members opposite are resistant to an independent public inquiry. First, I would like to remind them that there was a bit of a ruckus on Wellington Street at one point. There was a bit of a crisis of confidence. Public health is mass medicine, and the patient must be willing to participate if it is to work. As soon as the patient loses confidence in the measures being taken to remedy the situation, we are not in the right place and we are in trouble. If, in order to restore confidence, there had to be an objective, independent review, totally free of the interests of the executive, it seems to me that this would go a long way to reaching all those who are experiencing a crisis of confidence in our institutions.

In that sense, I totally agree with what my NDP colleague from Vancouver Kingsway said. The Bloc Québécois worked in committee to replace clause 3, as my colleague's amendment proposes. At the outset, when we received the bill, we did not really understand why people disliked it so much. I felt it bothered everyone, both the members opposite and those on this side of the House. Obviously, setting up an advisory committee made no sense to us. There are so many advisory committees. However, a crisis of this magnitude deserves an independent public inquiry so that the commissioners can get to the bottom of this.

Now, we thought the Conservatives were on our side. It would have been interesting if the Conservative Party had joined forces with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP given that there is a minority government in place. We could have replaced this first part of the bill. However, that did not happen. I should note that when we received the bill, our Conservative friends were not as high in the polls. I do not want to say anything else about partisanship, because my comments could be described as partisan. It seems that once people realize they are likely to end up on the other side, they are reluctant to let go and leave it to others, who are impervious to their influence, to set the record straight. In all honesty, our Conservative friends do not care much about facts.

That said, the Bloc Québécois will certainly be voting against the bill as it stands. We had a number of concerns about the prevention plan. It seems to me that it goes without saying that we need a prevention plan. In fact, tools exist for that. All we need is competent people, resources that will not be squandered and cuts that are not made in the wrong place.

What happened? We have some answers. We have the Auditor General's report and the results of a few small investigations. We have some answers. However, one question begs an answer above all others. Keep in mind what the government did a month before Parliament shut down. It sent 19 tonnes of personal protective equipment to China even though it was sorely lacking here, and even though the national stockpile was exhausted. If that is not a mistake, I do not know what is. However, what interests me is not who made the mistake. What interests me is why it was made. I do not care about the “who” of the matter, but the “how”. At some point, an independent public inquiry is what we need to identify why and how it happened, and make sure these kinds of things never happen again.

What happened with the internationally touted Global Public Health Intelligence Network? These are the people we expect to raise the red flag when various pandemics and epidemics break out around the world. In an interdependent world like ours, where borders are becoming increasingly porous, it makes perfect sense to have a state service like that identify dangers based on scientific observation.

I remember the first meetings we had with public health officials, where we were told that there was little chance of it leaving mainland China and coming here. There was little chance, they said, and we had no reason to contradict them. I remember in the early days we had debates about whether it was an epidemic or a pandemic. It did not take long before it became a pandemic, it became global and it became a nightmare. When I say that it became a nightmare, my heart aches for all those who experienced it first-hand, who lost loved ones, who were forced into lockdown, who had their lives restricted with repeated lockdowns in order to protect health care systems that were not robust enough to continue functioning. It affected every aspect of our society.

Another thing that comes to mind is the chaotic management of the borders. Quarantines and borders are a federal responsibility. Why did the mayor of Montreal have to go to Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport to try and pass on information so that people would have what they needed to deal with this pandemic? It was ridiculous.

In short, we will never accept this bill without this amendment. We also think that the federal government needs to stay in its lane. I think it has a lot of work to do in its own areas of jurisdiction to be able to better manage any future pandemics.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-293, An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to my support for Bill C-293, an act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness.

Allow me to begin by recognizing and thanking the exceptional efforts of various health centres, health care workers, and compassionate individuals and organizations in my riding of Richmond Hill to safeguard the health and safety of Canadians throughout COVID-19.

First, I would like to recognize the efforts of long-term care health centres, notably Mariann Home in Richmond Hill, for their unwavering protection of our seniors and vulnerable community members during the pandemic. It is truly commendable that not a single long-term care facility in Richmond Hill lost a resident to the pandemic, which is a testament to their vigilance.

Second, I would like to recognize the immense contributions of our health care heroes, the doctors, nurses and workers, at the Mackenzie Health hospital in Richmond Hill and the dedicated team of health care professionals at Richmond Green facility, which was pivotal in administering vaccines across the community during the pandemic.

Third, I would like to thank the great compassion and generosity demonstrated by Richmond Hill residents and organizations, such as the New Canadian Community Centre and Canada China Trade Innovation Alliance, which donated personal protective equipment, masks and other supplies to hospitals and care centres across Canada.

Last but not least, I would like to recognize and thank all of our frontline workers who confronted high risks of COVID-19 exposure to continue providing critical, everyday services for our communities. These are our grocery store workers, police and firefighters, public transportation workers, small business owners, and social service workers.

I am so proud to speak of all the commendable efforts and hard work within the Richmond Hill community in safeguarding the health and safety of Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their contributions have inspired and guided our government's response over the last four years to the largest public health emergency we have experienced over the last 100 years.

I am also pleased to note that, as a member of the Standing Committee on Health, I had the opportunity to study the clauses of this bill in depth to ensure it would provide the best outcomes in protecting the health and safety of Canadians in preparation for future public health emergencies.

With all that being said, I am speaking to this bill today because it intends to achieve what has become particularly important to our government and to Canadians since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is how we can deliver a system, in collaboration with provinces, territories, and health care partners, that would work to effectively prevent and prepare Canada for future pandemics.

Allow me to begin now to outline the three requirements that Bill C-293 would establish for the Minister of Health to create a strong federal response and preparedness plan. First, it would establish an expert review of Canada's COVID-19 response. Second, it would develop and regularly update a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan. Third, it would appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator to oversee and implement the plan.

The first requirement would be to establish an advisory committee to review Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic within 90 days of the act coming into force. The government has benefited from and taken actions in response to various reviews and assessments on Canada's pandemic response, including a number of COVID-19-related reports from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. For example, based on lessons learned, the Public Health Agency of Canada has made progress on strengthening public health assessments and early warnings of public health threats, managing Canada's national emergency strategic stockpile of medical assets, and improving the collection, access, sharing and use of public health data in collaboration with provinces and territories.

These are just a few examples of where advancements have been made in addressing recommendations for improvement that would equip Canada to deal with future public health events more effectively and achieve better health outcomes for all Canadians.

I will now touch on the second and third requirements. The second requirement that the Bill sets out is for the Minister of Health to establish a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan within two years of coming into force. The development of a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan must leverage existing plans, recognize and address jurisdictional implications, and allow for a flexible, adaptable approach to emergency response and preparedness efforts, as every pandemic is different.

Lastly, the third requirement would be the appointment of a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator. Their role would be to coordinate the previously mentioned activities under this proposed act. The Public Health Agency of Canada is currently working with key partners to incorporate lessons and practical application from the COVID-19 experience in Canada and internationally to support a robust approach to managing future health emergencies, including testing and updating preparedness plans.

It is also important to keep in mind that we must continue to work closely with provinces and territories, which are at the forefront of the health system in Canada and are responsible for implementing public health interventions within their jurisdictions.

Before concluding, allow me to touch on a key component of this bill, which is the adoption of a One Health approach. One Health recognizes that integrating science and expertise on human, animal, and environmental health is essential to understanding, preventing and responding to pandemics. To protect our own health, we must recognize how intertwined it is with the health of animals and the environment. This has been a very important concern of my constituents in Richmond Hill.

We fully support this approach, as it is one that is based on science and evidence. This has been integrated by the Public Health Agency of Canada into all its activities, thus helping to preserve the well-being of humans, animals and the ecosystem we all share.

In closing, protecting the health and safety of Canadians remains a top priority for our government in both the short and long term. This includes ensuring preparedness for future pandemics and global health events. That is why we are supportive in principle of several key elements underpinning this proposed legislation.

Once again, I thank the House for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-293 and highlight what the government is doing regarding pandemic prevention and preparedness.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak to Bill C-293 from my friend across the way. I think the last time I spoke to this bill, I was suggesting some slogans for his leadership campaign, but I continue to wish him very well in all of his personal endeavours. He did very well, although he did not take my advice to go with the slogan I suggested at the time.

I do, more seriously, want to recall and build on some comments I made in my last intervention on this bill regarding the impact the pandemic has had on our communities and the need to seriously reckon with some of the challenges that have resulted from that.

The last time I spoke in the House on this bill, I said that I wanted to conclude by saying that I am very concerned about some of the social and cultural impacts of this pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, we were already seeing trends where there was a breakdown of traditional community and greater political polarization. People were less likely to be involved in neighbourhood and community organizations, community leagues, faith organizations and those kinds of things, which were becoming more polarized along political lines. Those existing trends were dramatically accelerated through the pandemic, when the restrictions made it difficult for people to gather together in the kind of traditional community structures that had existed previously, and we have seen a heightened political polarization with people being divided on the basis of their views on masks and their vaccination status.

As we evaluate what happened during the pandemic, and this is more of a cultural work than a political work, we need to think about how we can bring our communities back together, reconcile people across these kinds of divides and try to rebuild the kinds of communities we had previously where people would put aside politics and were willing to get together and focus on what united them.

Over the last two weeks, with the exception of some arrive scam hearings that brought us to Ottawa, most of us were in our constituencies connecting with our constituents. I had a number of round tables and discussions with my constituents. It has really come to the fore again and again, as I have talked to people since the pandemic, how the failures of government during the pandemic impacted trust in government decision-making and, indeed, trust in our institutions. It would be desirable for people to be able to trust our institutions, but that trust has to be earned. Government policy-makers and public institutions cannot demand trust simply by virtue of the positions they hold. They have to earn that trust by demonstrating themselves to be trustworthy.

For many Canadians, the pandemic was a demonstration that institutions they had trusted were not as effective as they had thought they would be and were not defending their concerns or their interests. People were affected by the pandemic in various ways. They were, of course, forced apart from each other. They were also impacted by draconian policies that demonized people and punished people for personal health choices.

This has not just affected that moment in time. It is not just something that happened in the past during the pandemic and is now over. There have been profound consequences in social trust as a result of those events, and it was a result of the fact that the government was not prepared for this.

In the years before the pandemic started, in the years leading up to it, the government was not attending to the appropriate stockpiles of materials. Then the government madly thrashed around, giving different advice, such as saying one should not mask and then that one should mask. Initially, the public health authority said that masking was counterproductive and then reversed that recommendation. Initially, we were told to take any available vaccine, and then we were told to actually take these ones as opposed to those ones.

There was inconsistency, and I think a lack of humility, in the kinds of pronouncements that were made by governing authorities. This has affected social trust in significant ways, and understandably so.

We had an exchange on this specific point recently, during the break, at the public accounts committee, where, in the process of Conservatives criticizing aspects of government decisions, a Liberal member said we should not do that because that is impacting social trust. Our view is that government institutions have to earn trust, and it is our job as the opposition to hold them accountable for their failures.

Therefore, it is through accountability, through honest reckoning with the failures of government and other public institutions, that we are able to come to the kind of reconciliation that is required. I do think there is a stock-taking required. Although Conservatives do not support this bill because there are some significant problems in the way the proposed reviews are structured, as my colleagues have pointed out, there is a need for a fulsome and independent reckoning. The government failed in so many different ways in the course of its management of the pandemic and the kinds of decisions it made throughout.

In my own constituency, from conversations I have, people now struggle to believe anything they hear from the government or any other kind of official institution because of how badly betrayed they felt by the inconsistencies and the demonization that happened during the pandemic. We need to have a government that does its job, that plans for crises effectively and that understands its responsibility to earn the trust of Canadians rather than demand the trust of Canadians. Governments ought to try to earn people's trust through the work they do.

At the same time I think about the kinds of processes that should happen for investigations of this nature, and they require authentic independence. We see over and over again with the government that, when it wants us to be looking at or investigating some kind of issue, it always wants that investigation to be something where it can control the outcome. We are dealing with this issue, for instance, in the government's approach to the arrive scam scandal.

Every independent investigation has been extremely critical of government procurement. The government has now said it is going to have an internal investigation within CBSA by an investigator who is within and reports to the chain of command within CBSA. Inevitably, that is a process that can be controlled by the government, and the people who should be held accountable through that process actually cannot be held accountable effectively because the investigator is part of that internal structure. Again, we see a process proposed in this private member's bill that has similar obvious kinds of flaws.

To review the key points, the government failed profoundly during the pandemic. It contradicted itself and spent a great deal of money on matters that were not pandemic related. We saw it, in the early days of the pandemic, pursue this horrifying power grab, trying to seize on the worry that existed at the beginning of the pandemic, saying it wanted to have the power to effectively make law without Parliament. Conservatives pushed back and put a stop to that. Then we saw how it tried to use the circumstances of the pandemic to create division and conflict within this country at the expense of certain Canadians who were making certain choices.

There is a need for a reckoning, but it has to be an honest reckoning. We need a government that is prepared to do the work to rebuild trust, not a government, like the Liberals, that continually fails Canadians yet demands their faith and trust in spite of all these failures. We need a government that is honest with Canadians and works to get things done for their good.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to join this debate on this private member's bill, Bill C-293.

There are a lot of conversations going around now about how a different approach to the pandemic would have looked. I want to go back a little and talk about how the pandemic did evolve, what the decisions by government were and how we should have a review of that. However, that review cannot be done by one of the Prime Minister's ski buddies. As my colleague, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, said, it needs to be a transparent review.

It was not too long ago that Canadians were not able to come together to celebrate Christmas or Easter. I remember Canadians were not able to celebrate birthdays or funerals with one another or with family. That happened so quickly. It drove a wedge between Canadians. That is what the Prime Minister is so very good at, wedging and dividing Canadians. That is what we saw with the government's approach during the pandemic.

We saw the government stigmatize people who made different health choices. We saw people who were literally not able to travel. We saw people who wanted to work but due to a personal health choice were unable to go to work. Therefore, they were fired and were unable to support their families.

I think we learned a lot through the process of the pandemic. Coming out of it on the other end, where we are now, I believe Canadians would never go back and agree to the decisions that were made over that period of time. We did have a review of the approach the government took, and it was found that the use of the Emergencies Act was unconstitutional. The constitutional rights of Canadians were broken by the government.

How can we then have the same government put people in charge of doing yet another review? Trust has been broken. That is something that takes a long time to build back. There are so many things that happened during the months of the pandemic. We are now seeing that money was flying out the door, whether it be through CERB or CEBA, and how that money was allocated inappropriately.

The flagship of inappropriate spending that we see right now is the arrive scam app. Literally, a two-person company was given $20 million of taxpayers' money, and it did not have any IT expertise. It is unbelievable, as we are looking at some of this.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

It was millions from Harper too.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, my colleague, the current member for Winnipeg North, who is in trouble in his riding, is trying to get in as many words as possible. It is interesting that every time he thinks something is inappropriate, he says “Stephen Harper”. I actually feel quite bad for the member for Winnipeg North, because former prime minister Stephen Harper has been living rent-free in this guy's head for years, and we know how expensive rent is right now. It must be nice for Mr. Harper to have that ability. There is a fair bit of room there, so I think he would be quite comfortable.

It does come down to what the Liberals say time and time again. If something goes wrong, they say, “Stephen Harper did it differently.” I guarantee that Stephen Harper would have done the pandemic differently. There would not have been billions of dollars spent on things that did not need to be done. The allocation of funds to Liberal friends would not have happened—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I would remind the hon. parliamentary secretary that he does not have the floor. Therefore, he should not be making any comments. If he wishes to speak, he can look to be added to the list at some point. At this point, he should just be listening.

The hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is true that things would have been done very differently if there had been a Conservative government that had the opportunity to govern during the pandemic. Perhaps people would have been able to go to funerals. I know other countries did take a different approach. We can see that people had the ability to do some of those things in different countries, like Sweden, while we did not have the opportunity to be with our loved ones—

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Those were provincial.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Madam Speaker, the member said that was provincial and I hear that, but I remember we lost my uncle. At my uncle's funeral, when we listened to the eulogies, I listened to them in the truck, because there were only a few people allowed in the church. I believe Canadians never want to get back to a point like that.

We do agree that there have to be more reviews done. They have to be done fairly, and we have to know who is going to be doing them. Like I said earlier, we did talk about how the constitutionality of the Emergencies Act was challenged. It was done by an independent body, and that review came back and said the Emergencies Act was invoked and it broke the constitutional rights of Canadians. Those are the things we need to really come together on and say they should never happen again.

People's bank accounts were frozen in this country because they donated $25 or bought a T-shirt to support a movement. That is not the Canada I want my three kids to grow up in. I think we are better than that, and we should always be vigilant and stand on guard to make sure things like that never happen again.

We talked about what happened with the spending, and my Liberal colleague from Winnipeg North was talking about spending the millions and billions of dollars. How many people made a lot of money during the pandemic who did not have the ability to follow through on contracts? I can think of several. They talk about being there for Canadians and having Canadians' backs. A big chunk of the spending, billions of dollars of COVID spending, was never spent on COVID programs. It was not spent at all on COVID programs, so there should be an audit of finance during COVID as well, because I think we have only hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to programs like the arrive scam app.

We should not forget that it is not just about the money when it comes to the arrive scam app. Tens of thousands of people were forced by the government to quarantine who never should have had to. The failure of that app was not just the millions of dollars of taxpayers' money that was wasted. It was that it actually took away some more rights and freedoms of Canadians. They had to quarantine, miss work and not be with their kids for no reason at all.

There are a lot more of these funds and this spending that happened during COVID-19 that we really should take a look at, and I cannot wait to see what happens when we are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am sorry. I do have to interrupt. The hon. member will have two minutes and 50 seconds the next time this matter is before the House, because the time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

Pursuant to order made on Monday, March 18, the House will now resolve itself into committee of the whole to consider Government Business No. 37.

I do now leave the chair for the House to go into committee of the whole.

The House resumed from March 19 consideration of Bill C‑293, An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C‑293.

As members know, this bill is divided into three main parts.

First, the bill “enacts the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act to require the Minister of Health to establish an advisory committee to review the response to the COVID‑19 pandemic in Canada in order to reduce the risks associated with future pandemics and inform a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan.”

The bill “also requires the Minister of Health to establish, in consultation with other ministers, a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan, which is to include information provided by those ministers.”

Finally, “it amends the Department of Health Act to provide that the Minister of Health must appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from among the officials of the Public Health Agency of Canada to coordinate the activities under the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act.”

Basically, the first part concerns the creation of a committee to review the response to COVID-19. While the intention is laudable, we in the Bloc Québécois feel that an independent public inquiry would be a better way to judge the government's actions. The second part concerns the development of a pandemic prevention plan, and the third concerns the appointment of a federal coordinator.

The Bloc's criticism of these two elements is the same. We want to ensure that Ottawa does not overstep its jurisdiction. We believe that the federal plan should focus on its prerogatives. As a reminder, Ottawa not only failed in its responsibilities regarding these questions, but scuttled two important preparedness measures: the national emergency stockpile and pandemic detection.

Also, Canada has a guide entitled “Canadian Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Planning Guidance for the Health Sector”, which was published in 2004 and updated as the various pandemics arose. This plan had been approved by the federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers. Furthermore, the government inherited a number of plans, reports and recommendations from its departments and the Public Health Agency during previous pandemics, such as the response from the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009.

In this context, we have to wonder what the point is of the plan proposed by this bill. We believe that conducting the public inquiry should be the priority. I would remind the House that the Bloc Québécois voted against Bill C‑293 at second reading. It will also vote no at third reading.

An amendment negotiated among the parties sought to amend the bill to compel the holding of a public inquiry into the pandemic. The Liberal members voted against because they do not want to be held accountable on this subject, and the Conservatives, who had called for a public inquiry, abstained, which was so hypocritical of them. As a result of all that, we will not be having a public inquiry, much to the dismay of the Bloc Québécois.

Why does the Bloc Québécois want a public inquiry? First, the COVID‑19 pandemic caused 6.5 million deaths around the world, including 45,000 in Canada. There were over 15,000 deaths in Quebec, of which 40% occurred in long-term care facilities.

The families forced to grieve in appalling circumstances must not be forgotten. In my riding of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, fear of this pandemic led to roads being closed and managed for emergencies. Indigenous communities took proactive steps by self-isolating, which caused other problems after the pandemic.

The Bloc Québécois believes that such an inquiry is overdue. Many pandemic-related failings have been noted, including in terms of quarantine, border management, national emergency stockpiles and the global public health information network. This more than justifies an inquiry.

Furthermore, certain measures curtailing freedoms, such as mandatory vaccine passports for all federally regulated transportation systems, vaccine mandates for federal employees and denial of access to EI deserve sober, non-partisan scrutiny. It is important to re-establish social dialogue now that the health emergency is behind us.

Finally, from the beginning of the pandemic, the government took action to improve the situation, for example signing agreements with pharmaceutical companies to improve Canada's vaccine production capacity. Therefore, it seems appropriate to do an overview to assess how effective those actions were. These are all good reasons to call for a public inquiry.

Also, certain elements of the bill are problematic for the Bloc Québécois and lead us to vote against it. For example, regarding the scope of the comprehensive review of the COVID-19 response, the bill proposes that Ottawa collaborate with provincial and municipal governments to assess the public health and pandemic response capabilities of those governments.

We in the Bloc Québécois believe that the inquiry should focus on the responsibilities and actions that come under federal jurisdiction. We also think that it us up to Quebec and the provinces to conduct their own assessment. Ottawa interferes enough in areas of provincial jurisdiction as it is. We will not give them an additional opportunity to meddle.

The Liberals are responsible for Canada's lack of preparedness for COVID‑19. While the current government likes to fashion itself the champion of the fight against COVID‑19, let us not forget that the lack of preparation was entirely their fault. They had axed the main pandemic protection measures in the years leading up to the COVID‑19 crisis.

The Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, is an online early warning system that monitors global news sources in nine languages for potential public health risks happening anywhere in the world. It was under the Liberals that GPHIN's mandate was amended in 2018. The Liberals wanted to exert control by imposing top-down approval to authorize alerts and thus control messaging. The alerts ended in May 2019, nearly 400 days before the start of COVID‑19. Bravo.

What is more, the Liberals neglected the national emergency strategic stockpile once they came to power in 2015. Their lax approach made it necessary to destroy thousands of personal protective equipment such as N95 masks. Worse still, not only did Ottawa destroy the emergency stockpile, but it failed to replace it. Consequently, the federal government was caught completely off guard when the pandemic was declared.

In addition, border management during the pandemic was an abject failure on the part of the current government. Its inaction was such that the City of Montreal had to dispatch its own personnel to Montreal Airport to enforce quarantines while the Liberal government, rather than protecting people, wondered whether the concept of borders was acceptable in a post-national state.

Then there is ArriveCAN and its many issues, not to mention the exorbitant cost. People were sent to quarantine in error, when they did not need to isolate. People who did not have smart phones or data did not have the same access, and there were all kinds of bugs that prevented access to the app. In short, ArriveCAN alone is worth looking into.

The management of temporary foreign workers during the pandemic was another disaster. Inspections were rushed and the immigration and refugee protection regulations were breached several times. Even after numerous warnings from the Auditor General, the situation did not improve and the department did not honour its commitments. In fact, the longer the pandemic went on, the worse the situation got. After being slow to shoulder its responsibilities, the government continued to refuse to present a plan to lift the health measures, which exacerbated the already severe difficulties being faced by the tourism sector.

The COVID‑19 pandemic also revealed Canada's dependence on vaccine production. From the beginning to the end of the pandemic, the government did some things right, but it made a lot of mistakes. We need to examine what failed, and a public inquiry is the only reliable tool we have. Unfortunately, this bill misses a good opportunity by omitting that option. We could get hit by another pandemic tomorrow morning. A public inquiry would help prepare us for this eventuality and prevent a lot of deaths. It could also spare us the isolation forced on a large swath of the population. Entire communities were isolated, as we were in Nunavik. Nunavik's 14 communities were cut off from the world for weeks, and must never be forced to endure something like that again.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we should be contemplating and debating this as it is of the utmost importance. Bill C-293, an act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, has two components to it, but we need to harken back to the impacts of the COVID pandemic.

Members will recall that, on March 13, 2020, the House, by unanimous consent, took the dramatic and unparalleled step of suspending its work, as the pandemic raged across our planet. I recall stepping up with the other House leaders and taking that unprecedented step with respect to parliamentary innovations and the changes that took place. For a number of months, we had to operate by unanimous consent. It was an exceptional time in our democracy, which ultimately led to the creation of a virtual hybrid Parliament. Members now, regardless of what emergencies they are experiencing in their ridings or families, can still fully participate across the length and breadth of the world's largest democracy, of our nation.

The impacts were felt, of course, right across the country. Indigenous communities suffered horribly through the course of the pandemic. We saw, particularly in long-term care homes, an appalling loss of life. We saw the images of some of those long-term care homes where the staff had become sick or were simply not present, where people passed away, or were not cared for or were unable to get basic medication or food. It was a terrible tragedy beyond the loss of life. We need to ensure that everything is put into place so that the next time a pandemic hits we are prepared right across the length and breadth of our country.

There are two components to this bill. One is the pandemic prevention and preparedness plan, which obliges the Minister of Health to establish a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan. We know from the impacts on long-term care homes, schools and indigenous communities that we must have this in place. However, there is nothing that prevents the Minister of Health from doing that already. Certainly, we support that idea.

However, to properly prepare for the next pandemic, and with the climate change, sadly, it is likely it will occur again, we need to ensure that we have done a very full and comprehensive review of the response that took place in the last pandemic. That takes a public inquiry. The NDP has been very clear about this. The idea that the minister would put together an advisory committee, which is what is foreseen in the bill, is simply not adequate to the size and scope of what needs to happen.

My colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who was the previous health critic, has been steadfast in raising in the House the importance of having a public inquiry, as have other parties. I know our colleagues in the Bloc Québécois have also called for a public inquiry into the COVID response. That is what is required. The resources need to be put in place. That is why my colleague, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, tabled the amendment that would take out the idea that we would have some sort of advisory committee doing that COVID response. That is not adequate, it is not appropriate and it is not at all what we favour.

We have the amendment now before the House of Commons. We will be voting on that before we vote on the bill itself. Unless the provision that an advisory committee will be offering suggestions on the COVID response, rather than having a full public inquiry, which is what the member for Burnaby South, the member for Vancouver Kingsway and all members of the NDP caucus have been calling for, is stripped out, we will not be supporting this bill. We believe profoundly that a public inquiry is warranted and needed.

We do not object to the Minister of Health preparing a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan. That absolutely needs to be put into place. However, it needs to come as we are fully investigating all aspects of what transpired during the pandemic.

We need to fully engage with the long-term care sector to know what led to such a terrible loss of life and, quite frankly, a meltdown in many of our long-term care facilities. Imagine seniors, who have given their lives to our country and to their community, not having any care aids around to help them with basic needs, of food and toiletry needs, and then so many of those who passed away in those long-term care homes not even having their bodies cared for after death.

This is an appalling result of a lack of preparation. It is an acknowledgement that the long-term care sector needs to be fully changed. The NDP has been calling for a long-term care act that obliges standards in every part of our country so that seniors are treated with the dignity and respect they should have. We are going to continue to push for that.

We believe in long-term care funding that is adequate across the country. We believe in taking profit out of the long-term care sector. Many of these private institutions, where the conditions were absolutely deplorable, were also multinational corporations that had huge profits in the same year. There is something profoundly wrong with that.

Since the days of Tommy Douglas, the NDP has called for a health care system that is a public health care system and is adequately funded. That is why we pushed for dental care and pharmacare. Later today, we will be considering the pharmacare bill in its final reading before the House of Commons. It is something we celebrate, but long-term care has to be front and centre as well. The idea that a corporation would profit at the same time as we see misery in the long-term care sector needs to be fully investigated in a public inquiry.

Indigenous communities received none of the supports that other parts of the country received. That needs to be fully investigated. Only a public inquiry would get to the bottom of why indigenous communities were so cruelly neglected during the height of the pandemic, and why communities that called out for supports did not receive those supports. Only a public inquiry could fully investigate that.

We believe profoundly that we need to prepare, sadly, for the next pandemic. The climate crisis sends a very clear message that in the coming years we will be tested again. We need to ensure that everything is in place. The NDP has been using its weight in this minority parliament to push for that so the conditions are in place. Despite the fact that two recognized parties in this place have been pushing to put in place that public inquiry, sadly we have not yet forced the government to do that. That absolutely has to happen.

The amendment we are proposing will eliminate this notion of an advisory committee reviewing all the repercussions of the pandemic. We think it is extremely important that a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan be developed. There is nothing stopping the Minister of Health from developing one now.

Most importantly, however, we need a public inquiry into all the issues related to the pandemic, including the impact on indigenous communities and long-term care facilities. All of these aspects need to be fully examined. The only way to do that is through a public inquiry. That is why we are proposing an amendment that will eliminate this negative aspect of the bill. If our amendment is adopted, we will vote in favour of the bill. If the amendment is not adopted, we will be voting against the bill.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today with respect to a private member's bill tabled by the member for Beaches—East York, who, in addition to being a very good member of Parliament, is an excellent podcast producer as well. On a serious note, the member has put forward a number of bills in the time we have served together. They have been incredibly thoughtful, ranging from animal welfare when we were first elected back in 2015, which I thought was an excellent bill at the time though many others disagreed, to now a pandemic response bill.

Before my speech, I looked up information on the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is continuing. I know many of us like to think that COVID is over and we have gone back to life as normal. For many of us, we have. However, even last week, 12 Canadians died from COVID-19. In total, 59,382 Canadians died from it. That is more than the number who died in the Second World War. I know that there will be many commemorations of D-Day this week, and rightfully so, and we are still commemorating and remembering it 80 years later.

It is important that the member for Beaches—East York has brought this bill forward, because we do not want to forget what has happened in the last few years, including the lessons that were learned, how provinces, territories, municipalities and society at large were caught flat-footed. We need to do better as a society.

The member for New Westminster—Burnaby raised an excellent point in his speech about the environmental impact of the pandemic response. I believe the statistic is that 75% of diseases are animal-borne. As we are deforesting, as we are as a society globally moving closer and closer into wilderness, we are going to see that interaction. As the climate is changing, we are going to see the behaviour of animals, including mosquitoes and disease-carrying animals, change. Diseases that Canada may not expect because of our cold-weather climate may be something that we continue to experience, or will experience, in the future. We need to have a prepared pandemic response.

It would be nice to think that this is a once-in-a-hundred-years type of scenario. The Spanish flu post-World War I really tested Canada back in the 20th century. COVID-19, 100 years later, did the same thing. It would be naive to say that it is not something we have to worry about for another 100 years.

That is why I like what the member outlined with respect to establishing an expert review of Canada's COVID-19 response. We need to look back at what happened. I know that everyone, including provinces, municipalities, corporations and the federal government, did the best they could at the time under the circumstances. The word that was overused was “unprecedented”, but it truly was. We can take the lessons that we have learned about what can happen and apply them to what may happen in the future to ensure we have the proper supplies and vaccinations on hand.

I remember a time when there was unanimity among the parties in the House about the benefits of vaccination. Unfortunately, that unanimity seemingly disappeared. However, I think most of the parties in the House still support that as a core public health message, but we need to ensure that continues, as political opportunists across the country push aside public health and public health expertise when there is a threat to Canadians.

Public health and public health officials have spent their careers trying to protect. Maybe we do not like to hear that we should eat better, should run more, should get all of our shots and should do all the things we know we should do, like drink less. We may say that we will just leave it and that we will be fine, but embedded in that is a desire by public health officials to see us live longer.

COVID-19 has seen and shown, for the first time, declining life expectancies. The life expectancy in Canada is now slightly lower than it was before the pandemic, and this is something we need to address. All governments and all political parties should want to see this as a goal. I think there is an understanding, and I think there is an agreement that we should have as much as we can in place. Bill C-293 would require us to develop and update a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan and to table that plan at regular intervals. That is fundamental.

We have seen the impact of a pandemic. I would like to think that maybe one will not happen ever again, and I hope for my kids that we do not see one in our lifetimes, but the possibility and the probability exist. We should have that plan to ensure that we have proper equipment in storage and that we have plans in place for that “What if there is a next pandemic?”, because it is not unreasonable to see. Before 2020, we thought it was just something that we saw in movies to concern us about this type of threat to the country, but a pandemic is a direct threat to Canadians.

As I said, nearly 60,000 Canadians have died because of COVID-19, and I am happy to compare our response to other countries' responses, but even within Canada, many provinces did a much better job than other provinces. I recall the army having to go into privately run nursing homes in Ontario, an army that is not trained for that type of task, because, clearly, no one was ready for this type of pandemic; the result was that many seniors died.

This is an important bill to come forward. The third major point that Bill C-293 would require is to appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator to oversee and to implement the plan. We get a lot of plans tabled in the House, and I know that is a surprise to many people here, but it is excellent that there would then be someone in charge to implement it, someone who is keeping an eye on things and ensuring, through a public health lens, that we are ready for the next one, God forbid.

Again, we need to be prepared. We need to be ready. I want to commend the hon. member for his work on this and for his work on many other files, but it is important that Canada stays ready. We can compare our response to other countries' responses in a very favourable way in deaths that were prevented, but that number is still almost 60,000, and we need to ensure that should a pandemic hit again, we protect as many Canadians as possible.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the House for this vigorous discussion around Bill C-293.

It is an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Tobique—Mactaquac and the broader concerned citizens across the country today in regards to Bill C-293 and the debate on it.

Although some of the attempts of the bill may be laudable in regards to creating a framework for pandemic prevention and preparedness, there is a big, unfortunate aspect to the bill that would have huge ramifications and potentially even bigger implications with respect to the One Health approach that is being lauded in the bill.

First, I think it is broadly overreaching and going across various jurisdictional lines without giving adequate consideration for the legitimate concerns being raised by provinces, by stakeholders, by those in the agricultural sector and by privacy rights advocates. They all have concerns pertaining to the bill, Bill C-293, and where it could potentially lead. There is a lot of angst, which all of us have experienced at home, in our ridings and among the people we represent across the country. When we talk about COVID, it is almost like there is an element of PTSD that comes with that. People still can become very emotional when they are discussing COVID and the various responses to it.

It was stated by the previous speaker in the House that it was truly an unprecedented time, and it was. Many of us had never experienced anything like that in our lifetimes, and there were tremendous response efforts made across the country and internationally to address the concerns, to tackle the pandemic that was approaching and, then, as it set in. Various jurisdictions took different measures in ways they felt were best for their people. Coming out of that, I think all of us would have to admit that there were things done right and that there were things done wrong. There were outcomes we did not foresee. There were things done that created some really adverse effects amongst Canadians and amongst families even.

I remember being particularly moved throughout that time as I saw people from various sides of the equation approach me, call my office and reach out with heartfelt letters of expressions on various sides of the issue. They would raise concerns from, I believe, the best of intentions, but the one overarching concern that kept coming through was that they felt that their voices were being ignored and that they were being steamrolled in a process. If they had questions or if there were things they were uncertain about, sometimes they felt as though they were marginalized or labelled because they viewed things differently.

As has been called for by some parties in the House, including ours, we want a full review of the response. We want to look at what we got right and what we got wrong, and we, as Canadians, can be better prepared for a future pandemic, which, hopefully, we do not have to face again in our lifetimes. How can we best position Canada to go forward in response to that? We have called for those reviews, but those reviews have not been undertaken, as of yet. We have not seen an in-depth analysis done that we could examine whether Canada could have done better, whether we could have done things differently, and how we could make sure that we could be ready to tackle this comprehensively, if and when it happens again.

Obviously, there are huge concerns that would arise out of the bill, Bill C-293, being implemented, which would come from our provincial stakeholders, because this crosses into areas of provincial jurisdiction. As we know, different provinces handled the pandemic differently, based on their areas of jurisdiction. We must not undermine areas of provincial authority in response to this. We must work collaboratively on that.

I think that there is one big lesson that came out of our response here in Canada to what we just went through with COVID-19, which is that there has to be greater connectivity between the various levels of government as it relates to responding to it. We must listen to the concerns coming up from the regions so that it would be less us against them, less one against another, less one approach versus another, less one ideology versus another, and it would become more about how we could tackle this collaboratively and could welcome all voices to be heard so that there would be a transparent approach to the issue. If people felt that they had legitimate concerns, then they would not be marginalized, left out or trampled over, but they would be able to raise those questions and could have serious debate and discussion.

Obviously, we are hearing concerns from people as it relates to this, but this is even getting into a place where it crosses over international issues of jurisdiction. We must be very vigilant about protecting our sovereignty when it comes to our approach on this because we have some of the best of the best scientists in the world right here in Canada. Let us make sure that those voices are heard, that we come up with a Canadian response and that we prepare ourselves so that we have the necessary food security and the necessary supplies in place to protect our citizens when that time comes.

I would be curious to know what steps the current government is taking to make sure that we are ready, that we have the supplies needed and that we can handle it be less reliant on international circumstances or on other countries, which are obviously going to prioritize their own populations. Let us make sure that we, as a Canadian government, are doing everything we can do to prioritize Canada's approach and to have in place all that we need to deal with the circumstance, if and when it arises.

There are major concerns coming out of this bill, Bill C-293, as it has been proposed. It has not only concerns of jurisdictional overreach, but also concerns as it relates to the effects it may have on agriculture and on production of agricultural food. One thing we heard, repeatedly, was about our need to strengthen our own food security within Canada. Obviously, there is also a need to strengthen our energy security within Canada. That will be for another debate. We need to make sure that we have adequate supply chains and readiness available, as they relate to food, energy and health supplies, if and when another pandemic arises.

Let us make sure that we have a made-in-Canada approach to this. That does not mean that we should not work in collaboration with other nations whenever possible and should not do what we can to help others where needed, as well as not be the recipient of help when we need it, but let us make sure we never surrender our sovereignty over the rights to our approach to any kind of a health crisis in this country and make sure that we are best prepared now by learning the difficult lessons to be learned coming out of COVID. I remember getting the phone calls. I remember hearing the stories, as all members do, I am sure.

There are some very important lessons we needed to learn, with one being this: We, as elected officials, must prioritize the concerns of Canadians and must make sure that, even if we personally may agree or disagree, every Canadian feels that their voices are respected and are heard by their elected officials. We must take a responsive approach, not an arrogant approach, not a top-down heavy approach, but a bottom-up, grassroots approach where we let Canadians know that we have heard their concerns and that we get why they were upset. We understand that we are learning more things now about it, as well as about our response, that what was once considered settled has not been settled and that what was once considered to be an absolute certainty, as we found out, was not quite what we thought. In fact, sometimes it was the exact opposite.

With what we have learned, we are willing to adjust our approach so that if at any time a crisis hits this nation, rather than dividing our people, we would strive with everything in us to unite our people. That starts by respecting individuals with different approaches, with different philosophies and with different ways of looking at things. Maybe they see things differently, and perhaps if we listen, we could adjust, learn and develop a more comprehensive, holistic, made-in-Canada approach to solutions.

I appreciate being given the time and the opportunity to address the House on this issue.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill that was introduced by a Liberal member.

It must be said that there has been a lot of water under the bridge since the bill was introduced in 2022, when it was clear that we needed to correct past mistakes and take the time to look at what had been done, what was done well and what was done poorly.

The Bloc Québécois's position was clear from the start. We called for a public, independent inquiry into the COVID‑19 pandemic in order to learn from our mistakes. Our position has not changed. That is why we have been opposed to this bill right from the start. I will reiterate why.

First, the bill seeks to create the pandemic prevention and preparedness act, which is essentially made up of three parts.

First, the bill establishes an advisory committee to review the response to the COVID‑19 pandemic, which is obviously very commendable. However, here again, we believe that an independent public inquiry would be a much better way of looking into this. What is more, an amendment was introduced that was negotiated among the parties. However, in the end, the government members and the members of the Conservative Party voted against the motion. That shows a lack of transparency on the part of the government and a certain amount of hypocrisy on the part of the Conservative Party, since the Conservatives had also been calling for an independent public inquiry.

The second part of this bill has to do with establishing a prevention plan. The third has to do with the appointment of a federal coordinator.

We have similar concerns regarding both of those parts. We are worried that the federal government will overstep its jurisdictions. As is the case with most private members' bills that are introduced here, we must ensure that the federal government focuses on its own prerogatives.

Obviously, the federal government had a very large role to play in the pandemic, but there were also roles that Quebec and the provinces had to play as well, because health comes under their jurisdiction.

There are also things that already exist, tools and guides available to the federal government, such as the document entitled “Canadian Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Planning Guidance for the Health Sector”. This guide was published in 2004 and is supposed to be updated as various pandemics arise. It was approved by the federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers. This seems to be an important existing tool. There are reams of reports, plans and recommendations by the various federal departments that can equip the government to respond to this type of situation.

In the circumstances, however, I would reiterate that the best thing as far as we are concerned—and as far as much of the population was concerned when they called for this near the end of the pandemic when we were starting to get back on our feet—would be to hold an independent public inquiry.

Why? It is very simple. As certain members have recalled here this morning, it was pretty devastating. It is perhaps the first major event in modern times that we can recall. The pandemic left over 6.5 million dead around the world, including more than 45,000 in Canada. There were numerous failures on the part of the federal government, particularly in terms of quarantines, border management, the national emergency strategic stockpile and the Global Public Health Information Network. Certain other measures could also be called into question, such as vaccine passports for the entire federally regulated transportation system, vaccine mandates for federal employees and the denial of access to EI.

These questions are a bit more delicate. One can be for or against, but I think they should be examined in a non-partisan manner, hence the value of an independent inquiry.

Lastly, throughout the pandemic, agreements were signed with pharmaceutical companies to enhance Canada's vaccine production capacity. This also should be reviewed. We should know how this was done and which contracts were awarded to which companies so that we will be better prepared in the future.

According to the Constitution Act,1867, matters of quarantine are under federal jurisdiction. The federal government is responsible for quarantine issues. Everything else health related is under provincial jurisdiction, except, for example, health care for Indigenous Canadians, military hospitals and the approval of medications. In the case of COVID-19, the federal government was responsible for the quarantine system, and it failed dismally. I will get back to this later.

I mentioned the Global Public Health Intelligence Network. Most of us are familiar with it now. That may not have been the case prior to the pandemic. The network is an online early warning system that monitors media sources worldwide in nine languages in order to identify potential public health threats around the world. It identifies chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats to public health. In 2018, under the Liberals, the mandate of the global intelligence network was modified. In July 2020, thanks to an article in the Globe and Mail, we learned that the alerts had been stopped around 400 days before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was therefore this government that decided to stop the alerts that could have helped us prepare, but unfortunately did not.

The same applies to Canada's national emergency strategic stockpile, created in the 1950s during the Cold War. Its purpose is to store pharmaceutical products, supplies used by social services and during pandemics, medical equipment and supplies and so on. Since the Liberals came to power in 2015, they have neglected our emergency stockpile. Some personal protective equipment, such as N95 masks, were not only destroyed, but also not replaced. That had a considerable impact when the pandemic hit. They could have been more proactive. There is therefore a certain responsibility that lies with the federal government, a certain failure to take the necessary measures.

The same applies, as well, to border management and quarantine measures. As I said earlier, there was a point during the pandemic when the City of Montreal itself had to send staff members to the Montreal airport to ensure quarantine rules were being respected. During this time, the government was waiting and pondering the concept of borders, wondering whether that was acceptable in a postnational state, rather than protecting Canadians. The people and government of Quebec said that borders needed to be closed to non-essential travel, since that would have an impact on our constituents' health and safety. The federal government took its time.

The Auditor General produced a few reports with recommendations and harshly criticized the federal government for the way it handled quarantines. In her 2021 report, she said that the federal government was unable to tell whether 37% of people had complied with their quarantine orders or not. Fully 30% of test results were missing at the border. The federal government had no automated system to track whether people who had to quarantine in a hotel had done so or not. Priority follow-up was not provided for 59% of people who needed it, despite the referrals of such travellers to law enforcement. In addition, 14% of people who tested positive for COVID‑19 were not contacted by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The government really messed up in that respect.

There were clearly official languages concerns. Virtually every time a notification was sent out, it was in English, not French. People found it difficult to access services in French. The same thing happened with ArriveCAN. We have talked about it ad nauseam. It is clearly worth studying the whole issue of the use and creation of ArriveCAN, much like the issue of temporary workers and vaccine production capacity. In short, all this needs to be reviewed in an independent public inquiry. That is what we have been calling for all along.

Of course, this is unlikely to be the last time we will be faced with a pandemic, unfortunately. I think it is fair to say that it is likely to happen again in the next few years. The world and its ecosystem are changing, and I think the federal government has a duty to protect the safety of Canadians and our health. That is where the need for an independent public inquiry comes in.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

The question is on Motion No. 1.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that Motion No. 1 be carried on division.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

(Motion No. 1 agreed to)

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the motion be carried on division.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

Is it agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

(Motion agreed to)