Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciated my dear colleagues and their speeches, Mr. Simms' and Mr. Long's. I especially appreciated hearing Mr. Simms' expertise on the history of democracy.
I'm just so pleased to have our friend and colleague Mr. Turnbull back, and I'm glad to see he's doing well. I thank him again for his amendment and his important speech, talking not only about the health impacts of COVID-19 but also about the economic impacts.
We're here to debate why it's important to invite the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth to come to our committee and discuss why it was necessary for the government to prorogue to deal with a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic.
We still are in this pandemic. We're in a third wave and we've been in the toughest part.
I'm going to use my time today to focus on the most pressing issue we face as Canadians and explain why I believe my constituents of Etobicoke North and Canadians would like us to do the important work of bringing forward the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth. They can explain why it was necessary to prorogue and tackle this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. We can use this time to ask these ministers how the government is supporting Canadians and will continue to do so through this pandemic and afterwards.
We have been at this amendment for weeks. The whole point of negotiation is to find a way through that all parties find acceptable. We want to avoid arguing but agree to some sort of compromise. Our colleagues across the way put forward a motion. We came forward with an amendment.
Since early March, I have come to this committee and asked every week that we pay attention to what Canadians and our communities are talking about, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping themselves healthy and safe, and keeping their jobs and livelihoods.
Let me be clear. We prorogued because we were in a pandemic. We are still in a pandemic. Week after week, I have shared the number of Canadians sickened by COVID-19, the number of Canadians who have died of the coronavirus, how tired and exhausted our health care workers and front-line workers are, and how in Ontario our hospitals are overwhelmed.
I talk about how numbers of deaths are not just numbers. They're our families, our friends, our loved ones and what they meant to us, and they've left us.
However, even with hearing the COVID-19 evidence, we still have a partisan motion. We're in a pandemic. We were in a pandemic, and we are still in a pandemic and we should hear from the Deputy Prime Minister.
Front-line workers in communities like the one I serve expect us to put them first as they continue to go to work to keep the community and country going, yet instead we continue with a partisan motion.
Marginalized communities—