Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I do just want to note how pleased I am to be here in this committee and to make a reacquaintance with my good colleague Mr. Lukiwski, who was an excellent chair of the government operations committee. I think we did tremendous work together in the last Parliament, and I so respect his words of guidance and wisdom. I hope that what I will be saying today will be germane and useful to the topic at hand.
It's true that I poured out my heart last week. I have to say that, as members, we don't often have an opportunity to participate in the proceedings of other committees, especially those of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which considers matters of parliamentary procedure.
I'm very interested in the history and development of things, and I like putting things in context. I'm far from being an expert in the field, but it helps me when I look at matters in context.
However, I must say it's really unfortunate that we're here debating Ms. Vecchio's motion, which is under consideration, and Mr. Turnbull's amendment, which is designed to rectify matters.
My opposition friends' attempt to make the WE Charity issue the focal point of several other committees was unsuccessful. I would have preferred that they stop that little shell game. I would remind people that I'm a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and that I've seen a few things.
It's unfortunate because, as parliamentarians, we should focus on issues that really count for Canadians. We're currently in the third wave of the COVID‑19 pandemic. A year ago, we hoped we could overcome the first wave and resume normal life, but that's not what happened. We're now in the third wave of the pandemic because some provinces unfortunately haven't managed to introduce adequate measures to ensure people's safety.
I say that with all due respect for the various levels of government because it's very difficult to put those measures in place. I was very pleased to see that all the levels of government in my riding of Châteauguay—Lacolle, in the Montérégie region, did a good job of cooperating. That was unfortunately not the case everywhere.
Canadians are rightly focusing on much more important issues, the millions of doses of vaccine in particular. The situation in Quebec is unfolding as it should, and we're very proud of the way vaccine distribution has been organized and of the booking system, which is very simple and accessible.
The government recently announced that we were able to vaccinate increasingly younger people, which is important, as young people are at risk as a result of the new variants. Large businesses are participating in this effort by offering vaccinations in their workplaces. Society stakeholders are showing the solidarity we expect of them and working together to combat COVID‑19.
We want to focus on an imminent economic recovery. It's coming. It will be one of the biggest in more than a generation. And that's truly the test of our generation, isn't it?
We often talk about how people lived through World War II and all the subsequent economic reconstruction and transformation in Europe. People from the generations of our grandparents and parents really did work to build a better world for us young people.
Our challenge today is to create a better world for our children and grandchildren. That's what we've done by developing the budget we introduced last week. It must be a good budget because the Conservative members, who form the official opposition and whose job it is to criticize the budget, found nothing to criticize in that budget, even though they voted against it.
They don't want Canadians to be aware of what's in the budget. On the contrary, we need everyone to talk about budget items, initiatives and investments in health, economic recovery, of course, and the environment, which is the next test we'll have to face.