Madam Speaker, I will begin by informing you that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
We are here to debate the address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. Perhaps we should first ask ourselves why there was a Speech from the Throne.
The government had not even gotten through the first items on its legislative agenda from the previous throne speech, which was delivered barely a year ago. Then the government sidelined Parliament for months, preventing it from passing legislation and implementing this legislative agenda. Why did the government suddenly decide to prorogue Parliament and come back with another Speech from the Throne?
We need to look back at the context of the prorogation. What was happening then?
At the time, four parliamentary committees were studying the WE Charity scandal, the government did not know how to handle the matter, and the resignation of the finance minister had not taken the pressure off.
In a situation like that, what better way to take the pressure off than to completely shut down Parliament? They had already sidelined it for months, and then they decided to shut it down altogether. The committees that had started working on WE Charity were told, “Game over! Hit the showers!”
We figured that they were raising the stakes, that we would get a substantial throne speech announcing something new, because they had not even been able to carry out the legislative agenda from the previous throne speech that had been delivered only a few months earlier. We thought they would have something big for us, especially since they announced there would also be an address to the nation, which is an exceptional event, a very rare occurrence. We thought we should all sit down in front of the TV, because something absolutely spectacular was coming.
Let me point out to my colleagues that the opposition parties have been working with the government since the pandemic hit, because we felt it was the right thing to do. All but one party ended up regretting it. The government took advantage and started acting like a majority government, ignoring any positive input it might have received from Parliament.
The work of Parliament was suspended, in came a throne speech, and we were all glued to our screens, sitting on the edge of our seats, wondering what would be announced.
In the end, we got nothing but platitudes and recycled promises from last year. The government told us to wash our hands and maintain social distancing and announced what it had already been doing for months, namely being generous to everyone and their dog and throwing around money that it does not have to get Canada through the crisis.
Lord knows it has been tough to get through this crisis so far, in part because, as my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville said earlier, the government has utterly failed to do its job within its own jurisdiction.
When it came time to close the borders, the government once again sat on its hands, wasting weeks. In the meantime, the virus, which was not yet present in the community, made its way into the country. The government's reaction was so pathetic that the mayor of Montreal had to send teams to Dorval airport to warn travellers who were arriving in Canada. That went on for at least two weeks.
The government is continuing to hand out money, but the only people it has not been generous with are supply-managed farmers, despite a formal agreement to compensate them. The government is generous with everyone but supply-managed farmers.
The government has also not been generous with seniors. It is giving them peanuts. It is thanks to seniors that the government has so much flexibility and the privilege of a certain prosperity. The government owes that prosperity to seniors and it has forgotten them.
What is worse, the government has now created two classes of seniors, younger seniors and older seniors. It is as though there is a huge difference between the age of 74 and a few months and 75, as though a person somehow all of a sudden needs more help as soon as they turn 75.
Obviously, Quebec and the provinces have been neglected by the current government. Yesterday, I heard the Prime Minister, all happy and proud, say that, at the beginning of the crisis, the government gave the provinces nearly $1 billion to deal with the pandemic. That is nearly $1 billion to ensure that 10 provinces and three territories are able to deal with the pandemic. That is right: $1 billion. He was all proud and happy to tell us that.
This same government was prepared to give $1 billion to an organization that is close to the Trudeau family to manage a program that would pay people to volunteer. What is the thinking behind paying people to volunteer? The very definition of volunteering does not square with the idea of getting paid to do so. The government wanted to give this organization millions of dollars in fees to manage the program. This government thinks $1 billion for a Liberal-friendly organization is not too much, but then claims it is being generous by offering $1 billion to support Canada's health care system during a pandemic. That is amazing.
When we say that makes no sense, that more support needs to go to the provinces, which are struggling to meet intense demands with the resources they have, the government tells us with contempt and in a patronizing way that we are asking for a blank cheque, for money to be sent without any strings attached, no guidelines and no conditions.
The reality is that it was the provinces that gave the federal government a blank cheque when it proposed an agreement that would create a single health care system from coast to coast to coast. To get the provinces on board, the federal level proposed paying 50% of the bill. Now it assumes only 22% of the cost. We trusted the federal government and we were ripped off. Once again it failed to keep its promise, and now it is talking to us about blank cheques.
Just pay the provinces what you owe them. Give the provinces what is rightly theirs. It was the provinces that gave the federal government a blank cheque.
While the government lectures Quebec and the provinces about what happened in long-term care centres, the reality is that on top of paying 78% of Canada's health care costs, the governments of Quebec and the provinces assume 100% of the costs associated with seniors' needs and care. That is the reality.
The government wants to stomp all over us once again and is proposing an agreement with conditions attached if we want the money. We will never accept it.