That's good, because there are a few more things I want to get on.
I think the Prime Minister stated clearly why he needed to prorogue and the reasons for it. I have clearly shown how the hockey leagues, which I obviously know and love, prorogue, if you will, to get a new mandate, to reset their schedules, to reset travel dates and a president's cup and things like that. It's normal. We needed to do it. It was the proper thing for us to do.
The fact that we need to study it and hear from the Prime Minister.... Let's call a spade a spade. That's what it's about. It's about hearing from the Prime Minister when the Prime Minister has already clearly stated the reasons for prorogation. Anybody who thinks they're going to hear anything different from what the Prime Minister has already stated is, I think, missing the mark, to be perfectly blunt.
He has already said it. Why would he say anything different from what he has already said? I just don't understand that.
Again, we're here. We should be seized—every one of us, every minute of our day—with looking after our constituents, with doing the work we've been elected to do by our constituents, which is representing them, standing up for them in Parliament, advocating, challenging, pushing and debating. Those are the things we should be doing.
I think this PROC committee has done great work. I think there has been a lot of collaboration and a lot of good effort, in a bipartisan way across the aisle and what have you. We all have so many common interests, all of us, but instead of being seized with vaccines and, as I said earlier, fighting vaccine hesitancy and promoting the fact that we're getting vaccines.... More and more are coming. Our procurement has been outstanding. We have millions more vaccines coming. Within the G7, our number of vaccines administered per 100 people is rising.
We should be proud of that. We should be proud that we are starting to lessen curves. I'm certainly not going to understate the challenges that some of my colleagues in Ontario and Alberta and Quebec are obviously facing, but those are the things we should be doing. We should be trying to look forward. We should be trying to focus on Canadians and on making sure we're there for Canadians.
Also, each and every one of us in every party should be focused on recovery, getting ready for the recovery, making sure that our ridings receive proper investments in infrastructure, investments in housing and so on. These are the things I am working on. As I said, I have one eye on the pandemic, making sure that the residents and the constituents of Saint John—Rothesay are being looked after, but I also have one eye on the future and on making sure that Saint John—Rothesay is poised and set for success once we get past this.
I've dealt with Conservatives, in my riding even, who say we were too generous with the CEBA and with the CERB, that the wage subsidy shouldn't have been as long as it was and the ratio shouldn't have been as generous. To be perfectly blunt, I don't know where we would be as a country if we, as a government, didn't provide the support that was needed.
I appeal to you, my friends and colleagues on the committee. I want everybody to please step back and do your own proroguing. Step back, reconsider, reset and come to the next meeting, or later in this meeting, with a new attitude and a new way to get this done. There's a way out of this.
This is the last thing I'll say, for now. I'll quote, very quickly, MP Turnbull's amendment. It says to replace paragraph (b)—and I won't read MP Vecchio's paragraph (b)—with “renew the invitations issued to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance”—which is obviously Minister Freeland—“and the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, each to appear separately before the committee for at least 90 minutes”.
MP Turnbull is basically saying that the Deputy Prime Minister will come before this committee for 90 minutes, yet that's not good enough. We need the Prime Minister to come, when he has already stated why we prorogued and why we had to reset. No, that's not good enough.
Madam Chair, I thank you for allowing me to speak again today. I certainly do have a lot more I'd like to say, but I see that five of my wonderful friends' and colleagues' hands are up who also would like the floor. I don't want to take too much time.
Hopefully I'll be able to come back sooner than later and speak some more. Thank you very much.