I'd like to thank Ms. Normandin for having raised her point of order. It allows me to explain just how important it is to move forward and establish a committee like ours to develop procedures. If we were to adopt Mr. Turnbull's amendment, we could do that and establish post-disaster procedures. That's how this ties in.
It's a situation that I experienced on a small scale, of course, because it only affected a few hundred houses, farms and businesses in barely nine municipalities. Nevertheless, I feel that events like these are comparable, even though they did not occur at exactly the same time. I'm not talking about 1944 or World War II, but rather the situation today and what happened in 2019.
Not long after the flooding was over we went into a pandemic. The committee must do everything in its power to move forward and adopt Mr. Turnbull's amendment, because it's a situation that deserves our attention. We need to identify the failings in the system and determine how we can do better if ever another pandemic or any other disaster were to occur. We need to be prepared to deal with it.
One possible solution might be to create pharmaceutical centres across Canada to ensure that we are independent and have our own vaccine production capacity. That could be one solution. As it happens, we are in a good position to discuss this.
I'll now finish my comparison with the floods. The first thing the small communities did when the 2019 floods occurred was to get out the emergency flooding manual that had been prepared the previous year and began reading at page 1. The answers to just about all their questions about to how to deal with the 2019 floods were there.
In 2019, crisis management went extremely well. We didn't have to send in helicopters to rescue people or deal with emergencies, and didn't need long lines of workers to pile up sandbags because we knew what to do. We weren't short of sandbags, workers or volunteers. We managed the volunteers and the meals. Everything was in place. Why? Because procedures had been established.
When a pandemic like the one we are living through at the moment occurs, it's clear just how a committee like ours is essential to finding solutions and demonstrating that it is doing important work.
I have a great deal of respect for all the work that was done by the committee. I also have tremendous respect for the witnesses who came to testify in connection with the various matters the committee has dealt with from the beginning of this Parliament. I'm sorry to have to say it, but if we are to be a genuinely responsible committee, we have to set all kinds of things aside, whether partisanship, emotions, or even the motion and amendment before us, and combine our efforts to deal as quickly as possible with the COVID‑19 crisis. We have to begin thinking right now about what's coming.
To begin with, we know that elections are coming. We don't know when, but we know it's coming. However, as we now have Mr. Turnbull's amendment before us, no one here on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs needs to ask any questions about how Elections Canada will proceed during the next general election, or what health measures need to be taken in such a context. But I think the committee should be making these decisions and determining how we can do better after a pandemic.
Using the committee's time to make the most effective possible use of our energy can only be beneficial to Canadians.
It's been claimed that the reason for the long delay between the prorogation and the September throne speech was because of the WE Charity affair. However, this is no longer an issue and we've moved on to other things.
On another front, the former Conservative Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in the fall of 2008. I know that Ms. Gladu doesn't like me to delve too far back into the past to discuss events, but it's important to point out that there was a prorogation in 2008 and that the government took weeks before returning to the House. I find it ironic that some Conservative members who were part of that government at the time, and who are still here today, are now saying that there is no longer any reason ever to prorogue. That's trying to have it both ways. They say that at the time, there were good reasons and the government did not have to justify itself. Now they say that the pandemic was not a good reason to prorogue, even though the Prime Minister has explained why he did so. If the pandemic doesn't justify a prorogation, then I don't know what would qualify.
