Debates of Oct. 22nd, 2020

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Health

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, all opposition parties, as far as I am aware, support this motion. It was the Liberal government that prorogued Parliament during the summer months. We could have been working then to address the concerns of our travel and tourism sector, for example—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I ask members to please avoid the dialogue. We are listening to the member for Niagara Falls answering a question.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Again, Madam Speaker, it was their government that prorogued Parliament. We could have been sitting then, working then, obtaining those documents and looking at the issues such as rapid testing.

Forty thousand people work in the tourism community in Niagara Falls, 4,000 just in the two casinos alone. They have not been back to work since March.

What is the avenue forward? How can we best address it to assist those people? They do not want the Canada recovery benefit; they want to go back to work.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I took a few notes while he was talking. In his introduction, he said that we need a plan so we can stop waiting and move forward. I agree with him on that.

Then he said we needed to do better without giving more money. The problem with the Canadian federation is what is called the “fiscal imbalance”. The report of the Séguin commission in Quebec showed that the government has long been posting endless surpluses on the backs of the provinces because it was not adequately funding health care. In 2011, the Harper government abolished the 6% escalator for health care subsidies.

My colleagues will say that is Mario, the little federalist from the regions, who is saying that, but it was not me. It was the Parliamentary Budget Officer who said that it would be disastrous if the government did not increase health care funding. Year after year, the provinces will run deficits. The answer to our problem is there.

Is his party willing to commit to increasing health care funding to 35%?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my remarks, I have been speaking with some of the tourism stakeholders in my riding. The health and safety of Canadians should be considered paramount, but the economic vitality and the jobs and the needed investments need not be mutually exclusive concepts. We need to move to a stage where we can get back and get people back to work. Our economy needs it, our people need it.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I particularly enjoyed the member's comments on how we need to support our tourism sector. As members know, Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the arts sector in Alberta.

I want to ask the member about his thoughts on long-term care. We saw our seniors in long-term care homes suffer deeply under the first wave of COVID-19 to the point where we had members of the military having to go in, military members who then suffered PTSD from what they had seen in these long-term care homes.

Would the member support the idea of having national binding standards for all federal funds that go out to the provinces for long-term care homes, to make sure our seniors can live in dignity?

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would love to talk with the member later on, or possibly at health committee, on the issue, as well on the whole notion of funding. Here, we are talking about the establishment of this committee and the need to look at issues such as rapid testing and the availability of rapid testing so—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak.

At a time when Canadians of all stripes should be joining together to fight COVID-19 in any way we can, I am endlessly frustrated to see the Liberals attempting to withhold and hide information on this. There is a pattern when it comes to the current government hiding information, whether it is to do with the documents related to COVID-19 or the WE Charity scandal, and that needs to end immediately. Canadians have a right to know what their government has done and is continuing to do to protect them through the pandemic, yet the Liberals refuse to be transparent with information to the public.

In the previous session of Parliament, which ended abruptly because of prorogation, I sat on the Standing Committee on Health. As a health care professional by trade, it was important to me that this committee received all possible evidence to ensure that the Government of Canada was doing exactly what it should be with respect to managing a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On January 28, I had a sit-down meeting in Ottawa with the Minister of Health to discuss the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in China and the potential spread to Canada. In that meeting, the minister repeatedly assured me that everything was being handled, that she was working closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada, that she was in close contact with her international counterparts and that she would keep parliamentarians and the public informed with respect to any developments. We now know that this was little more than the usual placations doled out by the Liberals whenever their feet are being held to the fire.

While I appreciate the minister speaking with me, nothing of value came from that meeting aside from empty reassurances. We now know that mismanagement occurred in a number of government departments, hence why we have had to present today's opposition day motion.

In the last session, the Standing Committee on Health held its first meeting discussing the COVID-19 pandemic on January 29, 2020, well before other committees. We heard from the then president of the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam. At the onset, when asked how many tests we had available, and after much pressure, we were finally told only 6,000 per day for Canada.

Right from the get-go, we were told that there were some complications when it came to data sharing among the federal and provincial levels of government and issues surrounding jurisdictional authority on data collection and management. This immediately raised a red flag for me. I know how essential it is to have as much detailed information as one can possibly get, especially as it relates to a potential epidemiological scenario. From my point of view as a health care practitioner, one does not make a diagnosis until one has completed a history, all the signs and symptoms, all the appropriate diagnostic lab and radiological tests, determined the differential diagnosis and then the diagnosis. This enables one to provide the appropriate treatment based upon the data and facts. However, in this situation, the data was not complete.

The lack of clarity with respect to data sharing eventually trickled down to affect the messaging by the Public Health Agency, PHAC. Senior government officials and public health spokespersons regularly flip-flopped on a number of key issues for months, such as the wearing of masks. One day we were told to wear a mask by the minister and the next we were told that they were almost ineffective by the chief public health officer. When asked for the new research on masks they were using to make these decisions, we were provided with an abstract review of the old research and not any new research. This went on far too long, and I feel that it contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among Canadians.

I must say that, by and large, Canadians are the kind of people who will try to do the right thing. They do, however, need clear guidance from the experts on what that is, and that is where this government failed miserably.

With respect to my time on the health committee, in the first month we learned about COVID-19 and how it was impacting Canada. We heard from a many great witnesses throughout the six months, and this collection of knowledge and testimony from these witnesses should be included as indicated in today's motion. The spirit of co-operation changed, however, when my Conservative colleague tabled a motion calling for the production of government documents related to the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Does that sound familiar? We are fighting that exact same thing yet again today.

Immediately the Liberal members of the committee went into protection mode with unreasonable and unnecessary attempts time and again to change the scope of the documents requested and the length of timelines for production, and were cagey about letting documents get into the hands of the opposition. When the documents were finally provided, they were so heavily redacted by department officials that they were all but useless. On that issue, a letter was sent by the parliamentary law clerk to the clerk of the committee stating, “As my Office has not been given the opportunity to see the unredacted information, we are not able to confirm or adopt those redactions.” Where have we heard that before?

This was another huge red flag and it is only growing. The fact that we on this side of the House still need to fight tooth and nail just to review how the government has responded to the pandemic raises a greater issue with respect to the Prime Minister's utter lack of transparency to Canadians. For months on end he spouted lots of warm, fluffy words, yet through his MPs on the health committee, he refused to disclose the information that would actually help Canada get through this pandemic.

There are so many questions that have been left unanswered by the government, and today's motion looks at getting some answers through the health committee. One of the major questions I still have, despite having asked it a number of times in a variety of ways, is about the mismanagement of the national emergency strategic stockpile. While this stockpile is meant to be readily available in the event of a national emergency, the Liberals allowed the supplies in this stockpile to expire. Instead of replenishing them immediately, they simply sent them to a landfill and left the shelves bare, closed down warehouses and sent supplies to China.

These shortages had serious negative impacts on front-line workers during the first wave of COVID-19. I have asked the minister multiple times if she can tell me when the NESS will be fully restocked, yet six months after the fact, she still did not have an answer and was clearly unwilling to share what she knew. One can assume that even as of today it is still not restocked. This is exactly why we have had to pursue motions like this one. Getting information from the government is like pulling teeth.

Another question I have has to do with the shuttering of the global public health intelligence network. This system was meant to warn Canadians of any potential epidemiological scenario occurring around the world so that our Public Health Agency would have adequate time to prepare and respond. For some unknown reason, GPHIN was shut down just months before COVID-19, slowing the response of Canadian agencies to the pandemic. This early warning system would have identified human-to-human transmission earlier, as Taiwan's system did in December. This cost some Canadians their lives and has cost hundreds of thousands their jobs.

I would like to point out that there are countries that have had great success in their response to COVID-19. Speaking of Taiwan, it took immediate action to protect its citizens by enforcing the use of PPE and being very strict about its borders. It immediately recognized the importance of data and incorporated it into its decision-making, and the statistics clearly show that it worked, with 544 total cases and seven deaths overall. I can only wonder how the statistics for Canada might look if the Liberals had taken swift, aggressive action on measures to stop the spreading of the virus rather than flip-flopping daily on the advice they gave to Canadians.

I truly and sincerely hope that Canadians can see through the facade that the Prime Minister continues to project.

We are now in the second wave of COVID-19. We need solutions to keep Canadians safe while also keeping our economy open. The shuttering of Parliament through prorogation purely to hide from the WE scandal resulted in lost time that could have been used to develop plans for accessing critical tools and supplies like rapid testing. Conservatives are committed to taking the time and doing whatever it takes to improve Canada's response, but we cannot do that when the Liberals constantly shut down every attempt to get the data needed.

The Prime Minister needs to stop trying to cover up his scandals and start focusing on the health and well-being of Canadians. COVID-19 is the number one concern facing our country right now and while the Prime Minister—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

You may conclude some of your remarks, hon. member, while answering questions. It is now time for questions and comments.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, Canadians want to know that their government and public servants are focusing 100% of their efforts on keeping them safe during this pandemic. They want to know that we are making every effort to strategically secure PPE, that we are working hard to make sure that when a vaccine is ready, every Canadian will have access to it, and that we are helping the provinces keep kids safe at school.

I can tell colleagues and all Canadians that this government and Canada's public servants are working around the clock to keep them safe.

I ask the hon. member, whom I sat with on the health committee the last session, if he would rather public servants remain focused on protecting his constituents and on protecting all Canadians from COVID-19, or would he rather have public servants stop what they are doing and spend hours and hours, and days and days, sifting through emails in the middle of this pandemic?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour and I worked together on the committee for six months. I appreciated having him there.

Ultimately, what we are looking at here is the issue of public servants working as hard as they can, and doing so with different restrictions and abilities throughout since being sent home from their offices. It is a big challenge for them. I admit that. I know they are able to step up to it and will step up to it, because they can deal with any challenge that they are given, just like other Canadians can.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I think he spoke about transparency.

I would like to repeat a Danish word I used this week: samfundssind. It is the lack of transparency that is at the heart of today's motion.

In some countries where the health crisis was better managed, nothing was considered more important than putting the best interests of the people before one's personal interests and even before the interests of friends and associates, through cronyism and all the rest. There really is a need to build a bond to bolster trust in institutions. That is the case for vaccines, for example.

Twenty-three cases of potential conflicts of interest were declared. When we hear about these situations that raise serious doubt, how can we convince Canadians to support our measures to deal with this health crisis and consequently better manage the number of cases, in other words, achieve a better public health outcome?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member touches on a very important point, and that is the issue of transparency. We have a Prime Minister who stood up in 2014, before the 2015 election, and talked completely about transparency and how he was never going to hide or keep documents and information from the Canadian public.

As we saw in yesterday's motion, the same issue of keeping transparency was not evident. He redacted information such that it was unacceptable, and the same thing happened when we received the information that was requested on looking into the issues of COVID-19. It is extremely upsetting when we have a Prime Minister who promises to be transparent throughout. This, then, brings to question other things, such as vaccines or vaccinations—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Hamilton Centre.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have had the honour of getting to know the hon. member who just spoke. I know him to be a very learned health practitioner with national leadership experience.

He talked about some of the red flags. Today, we have heard about the potential for Liberal self-dealing related to the $200 million for defibrillators. In September, when Dr. Gary Kobinger, who worked for the Winnipeg team that developed the successful Ebola vaccine, resigned from the federal government's COVID-19 vaccine task force, he was pleading for more transparency.

Does the hon. member agree with Dr. Kobinger that the task force's potential for conflicts of interest should be fully disclosed, and that the deliberations and advice should be available to the entire Canadian public?

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Hamilton Centre for the point he has identified. We look at the great work that we have done throughout this country in places like Winnipeg and at the University of Saskatchewan on developing vaccinations, etc., and we see other aspects throughout the country where people are stepping up. Every one of those individuals, as they step forward, needs to fully disclose what they have worked on and where they have worked, to make certain that everything is legitimate and is followed appropriately and that we can get the answers we need without having to question anyone's credibility.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Before resuming debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Public Safety.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my talented and esteemed colleague from Manicouagan. She is the deputy whip, which means she helps me with my duties as whip.

Madam Speaker, I am always pleased to see you, someone who lives in my region of Montérégie, in the chair. I hope that one day you will sit in the chair as the Speaker. I think we are ready to see a woman Speaker manage the House of Commons. Perhaps that will be the case in the next Parliament.

I am pleased to speak to the motion that was moved in the Standing Committee on Health on October 9. I must say that the motion did not come completely out of the blue. Ever since it was first moved, the Liberals have been filibustering. For those watching at home, filibustering means that they were preventing debate and discussion by burning up time. Some call it filibustering while others call it stubbornness and a waste of time. It is a major waste of time in the exercise of democracy.

There is a parallel here with the WE Charity situation. I used the English name, WE Charity, because the French name, “organisme UNIS”, means nothing in Quebec. We have been using the English name for weeks.

The government is taking parliamentarians hostage to stop them from asking important questions. The government has given up on being transparent about its management of government business.

The Conservative motion we are debating today is not perfect. This study would take a long time, but it is an important one. We need to get to the bottom of this. The Standing Committee on Health needs to debate other issues as well. One example is a study on drug costs, which was proposed by the Bloc Québécois. Obviously, the time wasted on filibustering is time we no longer have to debate the motion, to get to the bottom of things and to study other important aspects of this pandemic.

Essentially everyone agrees that we are managing one of the most serious pandemics in history. There have been others, but the members of the House unanimously agree that this is an exceptional pandemic. We have been somewhat overwhelmed by the situation and that is why we want to further study how the government managed the crisis.

The motion contains several elements. It proposes to study access to rapid testing. It is up to Health Canada to study the tests and decide if they meet Canadian standards and it is up to the federal government to approve them. What we have come to realize and know is that it took the government a long time to receive and accept the rapid tests proposed by Health Canada. The second wave arrived, but the rapid tests were not ready. These tests quickly provide results to people who believe they have COVID-19 symptoms. Not only does this prevent them from spreading the virus to others, but they also do not lose out on hours of work, especially in the case of PSWs working in hospitals. It is very important that we obtain these rapid tests.

The government has been very critical of the provinces and their management of the pandemic. It has had many criticisms, especially about how Quebec managed the pandemic. Unfortunately, there have been many deaths in our long term care facilities. Seniors were hit hard and directly affected by the virus. It is up to the government to quickly provide the provinces and Quebec with these rapid tests. It is dragging its feet a bit. If we had the tests at the start of the second wave, management of the pandemic would have been completely different.

I will provide a much more specific example. In my riding, there are three regional county municipalities, Vaudreuil-Soulanges, Haut-Saint-Laurent and Beauharnois-Salaberry and three women's shelters for victims of domestic violence. These shelters are not designed to allow the women to maintain enough distance to avoid getting infected. These community organizations offer essential support to these women, and if we had rapid testing, that would certainly help them provide faster, more responsive service.

I have another example. In Quebec, the government decided to leave schools open and created bubble classes. If a teacher is infected, the entire bubble ends up in isolation. Access to rapid testing would help determine within hours of the onset of symptoms whether it is necessary to have the teachers and students isolate at home. Access to these tests is very important and it is the federal government's responsibility to procure them for us.

The government is quick to tell us that we are not doing our job properly and goes so far as to come tell us how to run our long-term care facilities. However, testing is the government's responsibility and it has not been up to the task.

Let's not forget that 20% of our caregivers who contracted COVID-19 were guardian angels. If a rapid test had been available, personal support workers caring for seniors and social workers working with seniors could likely have taken the test the moment symptoms appeared.

It is already October 22, and it is very important for the government to explain to us why the provinces still do not have access to rapid tests.

We have been talking about seniors a lot, and with reason, but we need to remember that, before the pandemic, many people were already suffering because of a lack of health care services. That includes people with mental health and addiction issues, people experiencing homelessness and children on the autism spectrum. All of those people were suffering before COVID-19, but the pandemic made it clear that Quebec's health care system is stretched thin. It has not been easy: Managers and workers are doing a lot with less, they are optimizing resources, they are coming up with quality indicators and abiding by the strictest possible standards so they can provide quality service to the majority of those who need it. The fact remains that the health care system does not have the means and resources it needs.

The motion therefore proposes to examine the need to transfer money that belongs to Quebeckers to Quebec so that it can invest in its health care system. The provinces and Quebec have asked the federal government several times to give them the funding they need to do what they are in the best position to do, which is to help and care for people. However, it is obvious that Ottawa does not want to do that. The federal government wants to maintain control. It is resisting and opposing that request, and it is even being arrogant toward Quebec and the provinces in that regard.

Can the government and the Liberal Party do something constructive and quickly propose clear amendments that will enable us to move forward with this study and prevent the Standing Committee on Health, which is so important, particularly during a pandemic, from being paralyzed? It is up to the federal government to make the next move. We are appealing to its good faith and, as they say, the ball is now in their court.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, please excuse me. I would have liked to practise my French, but I am going to ask my question in English.

I appreciate some of the points my colleague has made about whether we are on the right track when it comes to how we have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. The argument we are hearing from the Liberal government is that we do not want to look back; we want to look forward. However, we still have not heard a strategy on dealing with accessing vaccines, rapid testing and how they are going to be distributed.

Does my colleague not think this study and supporting the motion is important? To put it in a health perspective, when we are treating a patient, we need to ensure the treatment we are giving is working before we continue on.

It is important for this committee to look at what has been done to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the money that has been spent and the decisions that have been made before we move on.

Does she feel that it is an important part of the motion, to look back, to see where we are how we got here and then to look to strategies moving forward?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I want to reassure him that I think his French is very good. I encourage him to continue to work on it and commend him for that.

Before I became an MP, I managed a public network in Quebec. I managed housing resources in the field of health, and I can say one thing: In order to improve, one always needs to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of one's work. That is a basic concept that is taught in all management courses.

I therefore really encourage the government to demonstrate goodwill, make these amendments to the motion and let us get to the bottom of things so that we can ensure that, from now on, the response to the pandemic is stronger and more responsive.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, members of the Bloc need to realize what the content of the motion asks. It is very extensive and thorough, much like what we saw in the health committee, and would require a great deal of effort. However, to put it into a 14-day time frame is completely unreasonable.

The member made reference to her health care background. Surely to goodness if she reads through the motion, she will recognize that it is too much to ask for in that time frame. We are in the middle of a second wave, when we need health care professionals to do what they can to coordinate, whether it is with provinces, territories, indigenous communities or the many programs out there.

Would the member not agree that this is an overreach and it would have been better left at the health committee and allow it to negotiate its own agenda, as it has done in the past?

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I always appreciate the parliamentary secretary's questions.

However, I would like to remind him of one thing. The federal government is not at all involved in coordinating health care services in Quebec or the provinces. Officials at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada are not coordinating or managing any public services in Quebec or the provinces. The parliamentary secretary needs to remember that. Perhaps he might like for that to happen, but that is not currently the case.

I agree with him that the motion is extensive, but we are in the midst of a historic pandemic. We need to take note of what this government has done to protect the public and our constituents, starting with its own activities. I therefore look forward to hearing why the rapid tests were not made available to the provinces sooner, for example.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke eloquently about the challenges of rapid testing and the tragedy in long-term care, and about the need to look at these issues and the need for goodwill. Transparency is needed. It is a critical component of our pandemic response.

I am curious to hear the member's thoughts on the Liberals' suggestion that somehow transparency will hamper the government's response.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I would like to inform the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît that she has 10 seconds remaining.