Thank you, Chair.
My understanding on how we got here to this day is that, in the summer of last year, the Liberal government prorogued Parliament, which delayed committees for some time, and then I remember the Liberal members on this committee filibustering programming motions that would have allowed us to study issues. What it meant is that it took several meetings and actually a House order to get the health committee onto an agenda.
Then we had to use additional procedure to get the agenda set for the last several meetings of the committee, which included studying the government's COVID response, including long-term care—I'll get to that in a second—and there were several meetings of filibuster as well with the Liberals here. My understanding is that Liberal members on this committee have utilized the tactic of filibuster to waste, I would say, several meetings when we could have been looking at other issues. Opposition members have actually had to use House motions to compel the committee to to do its work. It has a been a very frustrating year for me.
Where we were today, Chair, was that we had passed a programming motion for the last several meetings, as you are aware. The Liberals had an opportunity through their filibusters of that motion, as well as that motion, to amend and include other options. They did not raise the issue of long-term care at that point in time.
I'm a little puzzled as to why.... I'm not puzzled. I know why we're here today. I think actually it was my colleague Mr. Davies who put out a little statement that I want to read into the record very briefly, because I think it sums it up: “Liberals misusing the appalling conditions in long-term care as a political ploy is a slap in the face to all seniors in care. We don’t need more 'study'—the problems are crystal clear and families need action. Liberal rhetoric and refusal to act costs lives.”
Chair, my understanding is that we had this meeting set today. There was a notice of meeting that went out to have the law clerk and other commissioners come to the committee to look at the fact that there is a probable case of contempt in the government's refusing to provide unredacted documents, as ordered by the House of Commons, to this committee for review. We had the deputy minister of procurement come before committee and confirm that the government did not provide unredacted documents to the law clerk, and today's meeting was supposed to get clarity from the law clerk in that regard.
Of course, then, after the notice of meeting went out, you cancelled the meeting, Chair, and this meeting was put forward to discuss a study that could have been put forward by the Liberals some time ago.
I firmly believe that the government does need to act on long-term care. I believe Ms. Sidhu just made the following comment: that it was “irresponsible” to not make adjustments after the first wave. I agree with her. The appalling conditions we saw in many long-term care facilities happened in early 2020. That occurred before the government prorogued Parliament and before the government members on this committee filibustered motions to study. I'll also point out that many witnesses from the long-term care community actually testified in front of this committee after opposition members managed to pass this.
As Mr. Davies said in his statement—and members were reading what the government had put in the budget—the government has every impetus to act in this regard. I know that they have a panel of people, but they haven't acted on national standards of care, let's say, or anything yet. They haven't done that.
The other thing I want to talk about is the government's acting on recommendations. We were supposed to have a meeting today essentially to deal with the fact that the government did not act on recommendations. In fact, an order of this committee, which was to provide unredacted documents to the law clerk for review.... My faith in this government's ability to respond to recommendations from this committee is limited.
I share the concern of my colleague Mr. Davies that the government would use this issue as a filibuster to filibuster their own motion. If they really wanted this, there were number of ways they could have put this forward, but we had the parliamentary secretary speak for over a half an hour. It's clear we're in a filibuster of the Liberals' own motion.
Given that, I move:
That the Committee proceed to resume the agreed upon meetings in accordance with the motion passed on June 2, 2021.