Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for New Brunswick Southwest, the spokesperson on health for the Progressive Conservative caucus, for having joined with me in seeking this emergency debate today on this profoundly important question of the response or the absence of an effective response by the federal Liberal government to the outbreak of SARS.
It is sad that it was the two smallest parties in the House that had to take the leadership on this issue. This is leadership that has been shamefully lacking from the federal government from the beginning of this crisis.
I want to start out by extending condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of those 21 Canadians who have been victims of SARS so far. I wish to extend those condolences on behalf of the federal leader of the New Democratic Party, Jack Layton, and all of my caucus colleagues. We can only imagine the anguish and pain that their families are feeling at this time.
At the same time I want to join with members on all sides of the House in paying tribute to the extraordinary leadership, heroism, dedication, and tireless commitment of the front line workers across this country, but particularly in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and a number of other centres in the fight against SARS. I am speaking here of health care workers, researchers, public health professionals, and others who have worked tirelessly day in and day out to do whatever they could in an extraordinary and courageous effort to stop the spread of SARS.
It is particularly appropriate that we acknowledge and pay tribute to the workers on the front lines today because April 28 is also the national day of mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. The Canadian Labour Congress has reminded us that well over one-quarter of all the cases and suspected cases of SARS are in fact health workers. We should join in expressing our gratitude as Canadians for their dedication, competence and professionalism.
We should also acknowledge the tremendous obstacles that health care workers have had to face in recent years: cutbacks, downsizing, privatization, restructuring, and other attacks on our public medicare system. Unfortunately, we are seeing some of the implications of those in the total absence of any meaningful and significant leadership by the federal Liberal government in the response to this SARS crisis.
Many Canadians are asking themselves where has the leadership been of the federal Minister of Health and the Prime Minister who after all speaks on behalf of all Canadians? Why did it take the Minister of Health a month to convene a meeting with her provincial and territorial colleagues? It was only on April 13 that she finally moved. We as New Democrats say that that inaction was shameful. It is shameful and there is no doubt whatsoever that the lack of federal leadership may have led to a situation which ultimately resulted in the World Health Organization issuing its travel advisory.
Canadians share this sense of anger and outrage that their federal government has not been there on the front lines. We have not had the kind of national leadership that Canadians are looking for on a crisis such as this.
In fact, there was an Environics poll conducted last week on the evening of April 24, only a few days ago. When Canadians surveyed in the greater Toronto area were asked what the response was like of the different levels of government, 53% of them said that they thought the city of Toronto had done a good job. Certainly, when we look at the dedication of the chief medical health officer of the city of Toronto, that remarkable woman and others on the front lines in Toronto, we understand that kind of response. I will remain silent about the spectacle of Mayor Mel Lastman, but certainly with that notable exception we have seen significant leadership there.
Regarding the Ontario government, there was a lot of concern. Only 43% said it was doing a good job and 52% said it was doing a poor job. It is no wonder that my provincial colleague the Ontario New Democrat Leader, Howard Hampton, has continued to speak out strongly for a real economic relief plan from the provincial government. It took far too long for Ernie Eves to finally act on this important question.
Yesterday Howard Hampton called for Queen's Park to top up employment insurance for SARS affected workers to 100% of income and to fund retraining for hospitality workers so they can upgrade their skills during the period of reduced demand. Hampton also said that the Conservative government should be working cooperatively with Ottawa in the event we finally see a real federal assistance plan and supplement those federal dollars which hopefully will be coming with provincial dollars.
However, here is the most glaring statistic. Only 31% of the residents of greater Toronto said the federal government was doing a good job. Over twice as many, 65% said that the federal government was failing Canadians. That is a damning indictment of the failure of leadership and the failure of federal Liberal members of Parliament from across Canada, but particularly Liberal members of Parliament from the greater Toronto area. Where have they been as this crisis unfolded?
I see a member here from Toronto who actually asked his own government to do something in terms of a financial aid package for businesses. That member was just laughed at by his own Minister of Health, by his own finance minister and by his Prime Minister. That Liberal member was completely ignored. In fact, to date there has been absolutely no response at all to the cry of smaller businesses in the Toronto area who are desperately looking for some support from a federal government that is sitting on a surplus of $14.8 billion. Not a penny out of the federal government to support businesses and workers who are hurting in the greater Toronto area.
Jack Layton, the federal New Democrat leader, has called as recently as yesterday on the federal government to stop and end its shameful silence with respect to the importance of responding to businesses in the greater Toronto area. The Prime Minister said that there are ups and downs in business. What a pathetic response. What an abdication of leadership not only of this country but particularly of the greater Toronto area.
Where are the silent, invisible greater Toronto Liberal MPs? There is not a peep out of them and when they actually stand up and try to get some support from the federal government, they are just slapped right down by their own ministers. They tell them to forget it and ignore them completely. Those of us on this side of the House are saying it is time that the federal government did ante up.
We briefly heard from the Liberal leadership candidate, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who said this is a national epidemic and that we should pony up 90% of costs to assist in responding to this epidemic. There has not been a peep out of her since then nor any of her colleagues because the reality is that we know that she was speaking off the top of her head and not speaking on behalf of her government.
As Jack Layton said yesterday, Toronto does not need damage control from the Prime Minister. It needs damage assistance. Why has it taken over 40 days into the SARS epidemic before there is any relief package? There is still no relief package. It is all well and good to hold a cabinet meeting in Toronto but what the heck difference does that make to the businesses and to the workers who are suffering from this epidemic? There is no leadership, a shameful absence of any effective leadership.
Jack Layton and the federal New Democrat caucus have been calling for changes to EI eligibility and waiting periods to allow laid off workers, especially hospitality workers, to qualify for EI. We have been calling for an income support package for quarantined part time contracted and self-employed workers who are ineligible for EI benefits. We have also called on Ottawa to deliver a compensation package for Toronto's businesses, a package which could include a deferral of GST payments.
Jean Chrétien was golfing down in the Dominican Republic--