Great. Thank you so much, Justin.
Once again, thank you Madam Chair for allowing we to speak again regarding the amendment that was brought forward by our friend and colleague Mr. Turnbull.
Before I continue with my comments, I would also like to take a moment to say welcome back to Stéphane Lauzon. We're happy to see you in good form and happy that you're recovering. PROC seems to be difficult on some of our members lately. Hopefully this isn't going to continue.
We're really happy, Stéphane, all kidding aside, to have you back.
I believe that last Thursday was the last time we were here in PROC. I'm not going to get into all of the comments I made last week, but to recap very quickly, I indicated at one point that when it came to the main motion, I made it very clear that I felt we were prepared to move forward with writing the report, because I feel that we've heard from a substantial number of witnesses. Again, though, I want to give consideration to Mr. Turnbull's amendment.
Once again I have to indicate that I was willing to be influenced by hearing the arguments that were brought forward. I truly believe, now more than ever, that welcoming our Deputy Prime Minister, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, to appear before committee in actual fact makes a whole lot of sense.
I have to take a few steps back, I guess, because not last weekend but the weekend before, when I was reflecting on this motion and on this amendment, it struck me that Minister Freeland in actual fact was the chair of the COVID cabinet committee for a number of months.
Again, I know that different parties have different points of view, perhaps, as to why a prorogation was called, but I truly and firmly believe that it is because of the pandemic that we had to readjust our agenda. In Ms. Freeland's case, we certainly recognize that Ms. Freeland's being in charge of that COVID cabinet committee, it would make a lot of sense to ask her to come forward and to explain to us the reasons behind it.
As I previously said, the pandemic forced us to review our priorities; the ones from 2019 had to be changed. I won't read the entire throne speech, but, broadly speaking, if you look at the key themes from 2019 and priorities for 2020, you'll see that many changes were made. As a result of the pandemic, many adjustments had to be made to meet the needs of all Canadians. If Ms. Freeland testified before the committee, we could ask her questions. Who would be in a better position than her to explain the government's priorities and the reason for the prorogation, especially now that she's Minister of Finance?
The fight against climate change was an absolute priority for the citizens of my riding during the election campaign. I assume that's also true of the people my colleagues represent.
We wanted to help people in the middle class and those working hard to enter it. That was one of our priorities, and some programs have in fact been established to assist them.
The Speech from the Throne also addressed reconciliation with indigenous peoples and issues related to improving the health of Canadians. I think those were the priorities in 2019. I'm not saying they're no longer priorities in 2020, but some adjustments had to be made as a result of the pandemic.
I repeat that Ms. Freeland would be in a very good position to discuss that with us. Mr. Turnbull has laid out his arguments, and I think his testimony was very helpful. We could also ask him some tough questions.
The programs we established obviously weren't perfect. We were honest in our efforts. We did our best to respond to Canadians' immediate needs. The priority in the 2020 Speech from the Throne was to protect Canadians during the second wave of the pandemic. Today we sometimes forget where we stood in 2020. The situation has vastly altered since then, and changes have to be made.
In August 2020, we suspected there might be a second wave. Many scientists and experts even told us to prepare for a third and possible fourth wave.
The long and short of it was this: no vaccines were available in August 2020. We had hoped vaccines would soon be available, but that wasn't yet the case. A lot of things changed quickly from August to the following May.
Minister Freeland could come and testify before the committee to explain the reasons why we opted for prorogation. I think she'd be able to answer some very specific questions.
Many programs have been established to assist Canadians, but I won't name them all. However, I would definitely like to ask Minister Freeland how her government went about introducing the financial assistance programs.