Thank you.
During the committee meeting on December 10, we spoke about this motion, which was introduced in the wake of the prorogation. Mr. Turnbull opened the door to debate by saying that, if a pandemic didn't warrant a prorogation, he didn't know what it would take to warrant one. As I told you before, that's why we'll be part of history.
Did we foresee these events a year ago? We had all been elected for a few months and we were full of enthusiasm, in every committee. In the House, we were together. There was life on the Hill and in the lobbies of Parliament. We never missed an opportunity to give each other a good handshake or a hug. Now we almost exclusively meet virtually. A small minority of us are in the House. We can see the committee room, but it's empty. Only the staff are there. Right now, we all meet virtually. We're having experiences that no one could have predicted.
At this point, I think that our committee is more relevant than ever. We have a list of issues that we should consider significant. That said, the list must be modified, because the priorities are different from what they used to be. We've had the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of the procedures that we must implement.
Our committee should be one of the most active, after the Standing Committee on Health, of course, given that we're talking about a health crisis. It should be one of the most engaged and dynamic committees. We should be showing the public that our procedures are effective, and we should know how we can do better in a government during a pandemic.
However, nothing in the motion reflects this. The prorogation is being used as a symbol and the motion is being used as a way to prove that a prorogation wasn't necessary. Basically, this is undermining our fine government and parliamentary machinery and preventing us from moving forward on certain issues.
The members of the opposition parties tried to show that the WE Charity caused the issue, despite the many nuances provided by several witnesses. Some witnesses disagreed. They felt that it was necessary to prorogue Parliament in order to move forward with decisions on the pandemic and to give the government an opportunity to refocus on priorities that serve the interests of Canadians.
It's important to remember that we were the first government to propose a report after the prorogation. That public report was well received. We explained why, in this unprecedented situation, the prorogation was warranted.
I want to quote from the evidence given by Kathy L. Brock, a political studies professor at Queen's University. She said the following about the reasons for the prorogation last August:
First, yes, to reset, but also to emphasize what the government priorities are in a changed circumstance ...
Second, if you look at 2020, this was a government that was tired. This was a government that was under a lot of pressure. This is when a government makes very serious mistakes, and they are exposed to the public as failures of government, malfeasance or misdemeanours of some type, when in fact they're due to errors of exhaustion. This gave the government and the public sector time to regain their energy.
I want to talk to you about this.
This may sound trite, but I wasn't fortunate enough to receive a high level of education in my youth. However, I enjoyed being a welder for 21 years, a good part of my life. Afterwards, I went back to university to become a teacher.
I want to talk to you about the most important issue, which is the psychological fatigue and human fatigue tied to the work environment. We experience psychological fatigue on a daily basis. Every day, we contact people, we work in committees and we meet with witnesses.
During a pandemic, almost nothing positive happens. We're all teleworking and staying at home. I think that this is extremely difficult on a psychological level. Together, we need to show the public that we're human, that we're here, that we're listening to our constituents and that we're strong, despite all the deaths.
Personally, this has affected me directly, since I'm the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors. During the pandemic, I was the one in office, and I still am. It hurts me a great deal when someone takes the opportunity to make political hay on the backs of seniors. It hurts me tremendously to hear someone say that the deaths are related to politics.
This pressure has been mounting for ages, and it just concerns the psychological aspect. I could go on and on. Our committees will need to do more work on social isolation and the psychological damage experienced during a crisis. As you can see, we're all very comfortable. Some people are working from their kitchens or the great outdoors, while others are working in offices or nice spaces. However, this isn't how things really are.
I've attended Zoom meetings. Sometimes, the presidents of certain associations had to move into a closet or a small room because their three children were running around the house. They had to seclude themselves in places where they could access the Internet. This doesn't even take into account family pressure.
I'll address the importance of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. At the last meeting, we opened a door, and it got me thinking. I wrote about anything that would support work-life balance and teleworking. I made a distinction between the two, but I'll save that for later. I really want to tell you how much talking to the members of the new committee made me think.
I now want to talk about my job as a welder.
When we felt psychological fatigue, it affected our work. We wondered whether we were in the right place and we called our work into question. It also affected our colleagues, our performance and our sleep. As members of Parliament, we're no different from anyone else. We sometimes have sleep issues, which affect our health. Lack of sleep can be linked to high blood pressure or diabetes, for example. We all have small hidden health issues. Experiencing stress, a pandemic and psychological distress isn't good for our health.
Queen's University professor Kathy L. Brock often said that this enabled us to regain our energy somewhat. Was the timing right or not? We discussed the matter. We'll have a chance to talk about it again a little later. I think that the timing was right.
Mr. Turnbull clearly explained the process after the first wave and the importance of preparing for the second wave.
I'll talk about fatigue. We just spoke about psychological distress. The professor was right on the money. However, she also talked about exhaustion caused by long working hours.
As members of Parliament, we're always meeting, always talking, and we're still being asked a lot about vaccines. I understand that we're in politics and that I also chose to get into politics.
There has never been such a great opportunity for us to work together. We shouldn't be using this opportunity to play politics. Sometimes, I find it really distasteful when a journalist's words, for example, are used in public or in the House to score points in the middle of a pandemic. Whether we like it or not, we must deal with this pandemic and we shouldn't use it to play politics.
We can politicize many other issues. Many issues are on the table. The House is continuing to sit as a result of the many support programs established during the pandemic.
I want to tell the opposition members that we looked everywhere for ideas and that there's no better consultation. For example, for the new horizons for seniors program, we worked with all the parties to ensure that seniors in every constituency in Canada could benefit from the program. The program criteria weren't established based on merit alone. They were established on a constituency-by-constituency basis, with a minimum requirement for each constituency. Several constituencies represented by opposition members benefited more from the program.
In the past, some constituencies didn't even apply for the new horizons for seniors program. These communities now have several projects. We're getting emails from members of the opposition parties thanking us for our work. This was the result of taking a step back.
With the minister's help, we consulted with all the parties so that we could invest an additional $20 million for seniors during the pandemic. These projects are being created to break isolation, to purchase new iPads, to provide Internet training or to teach seniors how to connect through Zoom or FaceTime. These are small, basic training sessions.
I've seen some great projects. I saw that people were offering online yoga classes for seniors. One teacher was doing yoga online to get seniors moving in their rooms, when they were isolated for the past four or five months with a bed, a chair and a sink. The physical distress that these seniors experienced is the same distress that Queen's University professor Kathy L. Brock described.
Exhaustion has been experienced everywhere. Young people have never watched so many television shows or played so many video games. As part of my family values, I like my children to move around, meet with friends and socialize.
You know that we all, as members of Parliament, have an active social life. Several of my activities take place on the weekends. My children are used to following me around or doing other activities where they meet people. Now they're cooped up in their rooms playing video games. This is psychologically unhealthy, but what else can we do?
No matter how much we introduce them to painting and music and try to innovate, we're also helping to isolate them. Psychological distress often goes hand in hand with physical distress. Everything is linked.
The prorogation gave the government a chance to take a step back and set new priorities.
Of course, for Canadians, the fight against COVID-19 is important. However, the economic recovery is also important. Mr. Turnbull talked about this. A great deal has been done.
It takes many measures to spend $300 billion. Is this perfect? No, nothing is perfect in this world. Nothing is perfect in a crisis where we must rush to make decisions. We're still debating the decision on the Canada recovery sickness benefit. None of the 338 members of the House of Commons anticipated that a worker returning from a trip down south would be eligible for these benefits while in quarantine. We didn't even think about travel at that point. We didn't think that the provincial governments would allow people to travel or that agencies would offer cheap trips down south, which created a difficult situation when people returned home. Everyone voted for this measure, but no one thought about this possibility, because we were making decisions quickly.
We often need to take a step back in order to move forward. Psychological and physical exhaustion can lead to mistakes. In politics, there isn't much room for error. I don't know how many questions we've received in the House about travellers returning to Canada. I don't know how many emails I've received about the fact that workers returning from trips would obtain $1,000 in compensation for lost earnings during their quarantine. We made this decision together and we must take responsibility for it. However, the opposition took this opportunity to try to show that we were making bad decisions.
Now we're discussing a prorogation that some people say shouldn't have taken place. However, the opposition members' questions clearly show that they had already decided why we prorogued Parliament. Several opposition members said that the prorogation should have taken place at the start, before we even knew the ins and outs of the situation, before we even knew that there would be a second wave and variants, and before we even knew how the vaccine development and negotiations would proceed.
At the time, we said only that we were working with seven different vaccine suppliers and that this would give Canada the largest range of vaccines in the world. Yet we heard only that we weren't doing anything about vaccines and that we were unable to govern because we were caught off guard by the $1,000 sent to travellers, even though this money stemmed from a measure that everyone supported. We missed a great opportunity to show Canadians that we were working together to fight the pandemic.
Queen's University professor Kathy L. Brock spoke about the reasons for the August prorogation. She said that the prorogation gave the government a chance to step back and set new priorities for Canadians, including the fight against COVID-19, but also the economic recovery. That's where my colleague Mr. Turnbull set the stage. We needed a fresh start, because we knew that there would be a tremendous impact on our economy, and therefore on our businesses. In constituencies like mine, in rural areas, micro-businesses are the largest employers.
When we have a factory with 40 employees, that's wonderful. In a rural area, we don't have office towers, we don't build more than three stories, and we don't have public transportation. However, 60% of the population doesn't have affordable high-speed Internet access. This sums up how isolated we are and shows the importance of working together in a rural area during a pandemic like COVID-19. We needed to take a step back and look at the big picture and to really refocus on the priorities in order to deal with the pandemic.
Speaking of decisions and taking a step back, do you think that we've been twiddling our thumbs? No. We've never done so many consultations. We've never talked so much. We've never prepared so thoroughly for after the pandemic. We're currently in the midst of the pandemic. However, we need to talk about what will happen afterwards, about the economic recovery. This recovery will depend on our decisions. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs really has a role to play in all this. We have many other things to do besides trying to play politics and undermine the government with this type of motion. We can talk about this later.
At the start, a move to vote was made because we had had a six-hour debate. No debate will be long enough to ensure that we can keep working together without undermining the government. The prorogation study launched in December involved a dozen witnesses. Since then, the vaccines have arrived, we're in the midst of distributing the vaccines to the provinces and territories and we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I believe in this, and I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time. However, nothing will go back to normal, because many procedures must change now. Life won't go back to the way that it was before.
I don't know how long it will be until I can meet with my colleagues or give them a good, heartfelt handshake. To me, a handshake is the best sign of agreement and acknowledgement possible. With a good handshake or a “high five,” life is good and we move on. However, this will no longer exist. No one will dare to shake our hands in the coming years. We aren't talking about months, but years. Our way of doing things will change, and so will our closeness. Fear is here to stay. I'm very sorry to say this, but fear will linger.
We met with witnesses who started by telling us that the prorogation shouldn't have taken place and that it was a way to get out of a situation. They were right. We were getting out of a situation. We were getting out of a pandemic. However, their mind was made up for the wrong reasons. The witnesses aren't experiencing what we're going through on the ground. No one else has the opportunity to experience this apart from a member of Parliament who is getting involved in their community, speaking to their people and making calls to their constituents during the week and on the weekends.
For example, if you call someone in the Toronto Centre area or the National Capital Region, where a large portion of the population consists of public servants who are teleworking, who have never been subject to a salary penalty, who have adapted to working from home with government equipment, who haven't had to spend money and who no longer need to commute, you certainly won't see as much distress and people won't be as affected.
There are two main ways to cause someone distress: hit their family or hit their wallet. The pandemic has affected not only people's wallets and families, but people themselves. The situation is extremely difficult for people who have lost their jobs, for business owners who have had to close and reopen repeatedly, and for restaurant owners who have had to close their dining rooms.
In my constituency, producers have had to throw away tons of edible produce. We have a program in place to assist with produce donations to food banks. However, it wasn't possible to donate 20 tons of potatoes to a community centre. A community centre doesn't have the capacity to handle six truckloads of potatoes or to deliver the potatoes to food banks. The system wasn't designed to deal with a pandemic.
In addition, 10,000 hens had to be buried. I learned that some hens were bound for restaurants and some were bound for grocery stores. When hens are a certain size, they can't be sold at grocery stores. These hens are then bound for restaurants. Since the restaurants were closed, the hens had to be slaughtered and buried. This happened in my constituency. These decisions were extremely difficult to make. Nothing was perfect.
Furthermore, the ferries have been forgotten.
Last year, when the pandemic began, Quebec was affected by flooding. In my constituency, seven municipalities were affected by flooding. At the start of the pandemic, I was at the water's edge with my long boots, alongside my constituents. We helped people get equipment out and save animals. Since a dam was showing signs of weakness and was in danger of collapsing, army helicopters were brought in as backup to quickly evacuate families from their homes and take them to a community centre. We had to leave animals, horses and dogs behind. I experienced these things in my constituency.
Now we're being hit by this pandemic. Not everyone hit by this crisis last year was eligible for the programs. We try to provide the best programs possible, but nothing is perfect and we can't serve everyone. It's extremely important to step back, reflect on the situation, and provide data to decision-makers so that we can do better. In fact, that's what we did during the pandemic.
Despite all the evidence to that effect, at the December 10, January 28, February 16 and February 18 meetings, opposition members continued to say that the prorogation occurred only because of the WE Charity scandal. They had their minds made up from the start, even before the committee began its study on the reasons for the August 2020 prorogation. So why go any further? We have everything needed to prepare a report. The reasons for the prorogation have already been established. Several experts have said that the pandemic was reason enough to prorogue Parliament.
We're talking about an unprecedented health and economic crisis that has significantly affected the lives of all Canadians. It has taken the lives of thousands of people in our country. Since this is a global crisis, we'll need to help other countries in the aftermath of the pandemic. We don't want the crisis to return or to take another form.
In Canada and Quebec, we're lucky to have our system. This crisis showed us how fragile our system was and how such a big and strong system could be broken.
Yesterday was International Women's Day. I had a special thought for women. I decided to dedicate this day specifically to the women on the front lines who are serving Canadians and who have been working hard since the start of the pandemic. This unprecedented health and humanitarian crisis has strained the system. These women have felt the pressure of the broken system.
No matter how many times members of the opposition parties hear this, it seems that nothing will change what they've been thinking since this study began. I've realized this. Even though I'm a new committee member, I understood that, no matter what we say, their minds are made up. Their mind was made up even before the start of the committee meetings.
As a new committee member, I had to read the full documents and analyze the information to get up to speed. I can tell you that this unprecedented crisis has opened the door to possibilities. The prorogation had a purpose. However, the opposition used this opportunity to confuse Canadians with regard to the reasons for the prorogation.
Since the opposition members had preconceived notions, the template for the questions was already prepared. I had the chance to read the questions for the various witnesses who appeared. I felt very strongly that the opposition members' minds were already made up. I want to reiterate that the reasons for the prorogation were outlined in the report on this topic. Questions were often twisted around in an attempt to get answers that opposed the prerogative of prorogation.
These are basically the thoughts that drive me and that I want to share with you today.
I'll talk a bit about the report tabled in Parliament regarding the August 2020 prorogation. This document, which consists of 42 pages and includes appendices, already addresses the prorogation that took place last August. We have many other things to worry about.
I'm thinking of some of the questions that you asked certain professors about the technological processes that we're currently using and that we'll be using in the future. I've seen many great things. I'm really excited to come up with new ideas for things such as parliamentary protection and teleworking. I want to address the importance of teleworking and emphasize the difference between work-life balance and teleworking. Work-life balance is about obligations. Teleworking is about accommodation. This distinction is extremely important. I want to have the chance to discuss this matter further in the committee.
I have many ideas for you. As soon as we can put this motion behind us, move forward and prepare a report, we'll be able to roll up our sleeves and work together. This motion doesn't serve any purpose in a time of crisis.
I, for one, did my homework. I don't want to offend anyone. However, some of the points raised lead me to believe that certain committee members only skimmed over the report, without really reading it. The report clearly outlines the reasons for the prorogation that took place in August 2020. The report is clear and well written. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the staff who helped prepare the report and who organized all the questions asked by committee members and the responses provided to the committee since December.
I'll briefly address this report. I want to talk about the report because I think that it shows the irrelevance of the motion before us today. We're always coming back to this motion.
In the introduction to the report, the first page notes that our government changed the Standing Orders to ensure that the current government and future governments remain transparent: “Pursuant to Standing Order 32(7), this report shall set out the reasons for the recent prorogation of Parliament.”
At the outset, I spoke about the report. Our government was the first to table this type of report after a prorogation.
I'll continue reading the report:
In 2015, our government committed to changing the Standing Orders to ensure that ours and future federal governments remain transparent with Canadians in all aspects of governance, including the use of prorogation. This report is intended to provide parliamentarians, and all Canadians, with greater clarity about why our government prorogued Parliament in August 2020.
This is in keeping with our commitment to Canadians.
During the 10 years of Stephen Harper's government, there were prorogations. However, the reasons for the prorogations were never explained. In fact, no Prime Minister has ever publicly explained the reasons for a prorogation. Why are we tabling a report? The goal is to keep people informed and to ensure that we remain transparent.
During previous prorogations, journalists and many other people could make their own assumptions about the reasons for the prorogation. Some people brought up the economic recovery, and other people thought that it was in preparation for a cabinet shuffle, for example. In short, everyone came up with a number of reasons for the prorogation.
It was important for us to set the record straight right after the prorogation and to clearly explain the reasons for the prorogation. That's why our government submitted a report explaining the reasons for the prorogation, period.
The prorogation was done properly. The Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament. He submitted the request to the Governor General and she agreed. We then recalled Parliament to set things straight and to work on the next steps in the pandemic.
In the first half of 2020, it became clear that the 2019 Speech from the Throne, when our government won the confidence of the members of the House of Commons, no longer reflected the circumstances in which we were governing. As I said, things change very quickly. In fact, certain things may happen this week that will require us to make adjustments starting next week.
For example, we need to make adjustments each time Health Canada approves a new vaccine, since the storage or use conditions are different from one vaccine to another. There are all kinds of logistics involved in freezing vaccines. When we talk about 500,000 doses of vaccines, we aren't just talking about 500,000 arms to vaccinate. Far from it. We need to coordinate deliveries with the provinces and territories, not to mention preparations for the deliveries. Organizations were evicted from their host community centres so that refrigerators could be set up to store thousands of doses of vaccines. All this has affected the economy, the public, the organizations and the people who will be vaccinated. In addition, each province and territory has its own vaccination system, which complicates the logistics somewhat.
All this shows that our decisions this week may need to be changed or adapted next week. Under these circumstances, clearly the priorities set out in the Speech from the Throne were already different in the wake of the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, of course.
This pandemic is not only a global health crisis, it's also a global economic crisis.
The report outlines the challenges faced by the government. The need to help Canadians was paramount, as the following quote shows:
In March alone, Canada's Gross Domestic Product contracted by 7.2 per cent and more than a million jobs were lost. In April, there was a further drop of 11.6 per cent, with 1.99 million jobs lost. Millions of Canadians now faced dire financial straits, in addition to concerns about their health and that of their loved ones.
We set up programs to try to help family caregivers, people who had lost their jobs, businesses, communities and seniors. We helped as many people as we could.
Again, the pandemic is causing these job losses. I don't blame the provinces and territories for having to impose restrictions and create systems of zones—red, yellow and green. However, once an area becomes a red zone, jobs are lost and restaurants are closed. Sugar shacks in Quebec are struggling. Some of them, in my constituency, have managed to continue their activities by offering to deliver their products. Some sugar shacks in my area have even managed to maintain their sales by reinventing themselves. However, some businesses have suffered tremendous losses.
We need to step in and do more for businesses. We must respond and act quickly to help these companies deal with the crisis.
Are these jobs lost forever? Will the labour market return to normal after the pandemic? Will the tourism and food service industries return to their former levels? We hope so.
All the provinces have implemented the tightest restrictions possible to fight the pandemic together. Yet opposition members stand in the House and hold the Canadian government responsible for job losses, even though drastic decisions are being made to fight the pandemic. We're being blamed for job losses and we're being accused of not responding quickly enough. I know that I'm in politics to receive this criticism from the opposition, and I accept it.
However, we now have the chance to show Canadians that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has a role to play and that it has everything it needs to make the best possible recommendations on a number of issues that we consider extremely important.
As a new committee member, I sincerely hope that we'll all pull together to continue working. I want to work together. I also want to represent francophones. Although this committee is predominantly anglophone, I want to represent francophones in order to improve the system and move forward. To do so, we must drop this motion, prepare the report and make progress on the many other issues.
In the wake of the job losses, we responded. The prorogation gave us the chance to step back and determine how we could improve the jobs and economic situation. Out of that came the pandemic economic recovery plan. A number of measures will be taken.
Our best move was to help small businesses through CFDCs and BDCs in the regions. For people who are unfamiliar with BDCs and CFDCs, I'll explain their role.
These organizations help companies through grants and support services. They help companies develop business plans, for instance. During the pandemic, the organizations have been supporting SMEs by giving them the opportunity to reinvent themselves. For example, they can help SMEs create websites. These organizations provide the funding needed for companies to keep running and to reinvent themselves. The organizations provide innovation support and help companies purchase modern equipment to increase productivity and create jobs.
In short, CFDCs and BDCs will play a crucial role in the post-pandemic economic recovery.
Our government has ensured that the relevant ministers are working together, despite the pandemic. We have also been working with BDCs and CFDCs to make more funding available to invest in communities and in creating future jobs.
Now we're no longer just talking about creating jobs, but about maintaining jobs. It's all very well and good to innovate and create new jobs. However, what matters is that we keep the jobs that we have. We mustn't lose our services either. In rural areas, closing a small corner store has the same effect as closing a Walmart in downtown Toronto. We value our post offices and all our small businesses that provide personalized service. We want our workers to look forward to opening the doors of their small businesses in the morning in order to serve the public. We want them to feel excited about coming to work.
Again, as the economy recovers, it's difficult to meet the needs of all types of businesses. We know that some businesses won't make it through the crisis and will close. Some businesses were already in a precarious position before the pandemic. This could be the result of supply chain or corporate structure issues, competing businesses moving in nearby, or a shrinking market caused by changing needs or a declining interest in a product.
The government will be there to help small businesses reinvent themselves. That's one of the reasons why Parliament was prorogued. We thought about how we would help small and medium-sized businesses.
We know that major food chains have been hit hard, especially when it comes to the storage of some of the less-consumed products during the pandemic. A large plant in my constituency had to close for a few weeks because the warehouses were already full. This is part of the economic crisis related to the pandemic.
We took swift and concrete action to support health care systems across Canada. On March 11, 2020, the Prime Minister announced $500 million for the provinces and territories to support the health care systems that are so critical and to make testing available. We knew that health care services were precarious and that there was a significant need for equipment. That's why we made this decision on March 11, 2020. The purpose of all this equipment was to fight the virus. The tests and rapid tests that we sent to the provinces and territories gave us the ability to track the progress of the virus.
It's wrong to say that the government has done nothing for health care. Since the start of the pandemic, we've been fully co-operating. We've transferred all the necessary equipment to provincial and territorial health care systems to fight the pandemic.
It's also important to remember that we sent the army and the Red Cross as backup in two Canadian provinces where the health care system was broken. Two provinces, Quebec and Ontario, had alarming statistics. We had to get more involved in the system. We should be proud that our government could provide medical services through the military and its officials. They could provide support in places where the system was broken.
We've implemented a number of programs and measures. There's nothing better than a prorogation to give us time to sit down and think about how we can best deal with the crisis and support all health care systems in Canada. Our measures to help Canadians during this crisis were identified in working meetings or reflection sessions that we held every day. As members of Parliament, we were the eyes and ears of Canadians.
We've listened to all the questions asked in the House of Commons by opposition members. We've also received many emails from members. I've personally met with members from across the province and they've mostly spoken to me about seniors. I showed the same concern for everyone who spoke to me, no matter who they were or where they came from. I opened my door wide to people who came to talk to me about seniors and about how to improve the system, just as I'm used to doing and as I've been taught to do. In my area, the door was open to almost anyone who needed help. Now, as a member of Parliament, my door is always open to suggestions for how to improve the lives of seniors. I've had constructive meetings with members from all parties, including members of the Bloc Québécois. I was open to suggestions.
We worked hard to improve before the second wave arrived. We all knew that a second wave was coming. We knew this based on the statistics at the height of the pandemic.
In some provinces and territories, we were seeing a loss of control, weakened health care systems, a lack of available beds and staff fatigue.
I want to quote a paragraph from page 5 of the report. When I read the paragraph, I thought that it was a key paragraph to share with you. I wasn't yet a committee member at the time of this statement:
Due to this unprecedented national effort, Canadians had effectively flattened the curve by the summer months. But the battle against COVID-19 was and remains far from over. On August 17, the day before prorogation, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, Dr. Theresa Tam, noted: Our efforts indicate that we are keeping COVID-19 spread under manageable control but the virus is still circulating in Canada and we must not let down our guard. The shape of our national epidemic curve over time, including what impact COVID-19 might have this fall, will be influenced by our collective commitment and actions to keep infection rates low.
Despite what Dr. Tam was saying, despite our situation at the time and our semblance of control, something else happened. It's funny, but it happened in August, at the same time as the prorogation. We knew that there would be some respite over the summer, because of the good weather. We knew that there would be gatherings. We knew that there would be no more activities or family parties. We knew that, as members of Parliament, we would receive fewer invitations to celebrations and festivals of all kinds in our constituencies. We knew that these would disappear. However, we didn't have a crystal ball. Then the prorogation of Parliament was announced.
Is it perfect timing?
In August, Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, said that we needed to be careful and to send clear messages to the public because we were between the first and second waves. Nothing was more relevant than Dr. Tam's warnings to show us that we needed to take a step back.
If we had taken that step back at the start, we wouldn't have been able to say that the curve of the first wave was flattening out. Flattening the curve of the first wave may have gotten us through the crisis, but you know very well how Canadian systems work. Our systems are very regulated, especially with respect to vaccine approval. That's a very good thing. At the time, we also knew that the solution—
