Debates of Oct. 22nd, 2020

A message from Her Excellency the Governor General transmitting supplementary estimates (B) for the financial year ending March 31, 2021, was presented by the President of the Treasury Board and read by the Speaker to the House.

Supplementary Estimates (B), 2020-21

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I also have the honour to table, in both official languages, supplementary estimates (B), 2020-21.

Citizenship Act

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Minister of Immigration]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's call to action number 94).

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, two reports of the delegation of the Canadian Branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie.

The first is respecting its participation at the bureau meeting of the APF, held in Dakar, Senegal, from January 28 to 30, 2020.

The second is respecting its participation at the 45th annual session of the APF, held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, from July 4 to 9, 2019.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee advises that, pursuant to Standing Order 91.1(2), the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business met to consider the items added to the order of precedence on Thursday, February 27, 2020, and recommended that the items listed herein, which it has determined should not be designated non-votable, be considered by the House.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to Standing Order 91.1(2), the report is deemed adopted.

Foreign Affairs

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(6), it is my pleasure to present a petition signed by 577 individuals, citizens of Quebec and Canada.

The petition states the following: Whereas the blockade of Cuba has lasted 60 years, and Canada is opposed to it; the United States's threat of military intervention against Venezuela persists today, and the Lima Group, of which Canada is a member, is opposed to such intervention; President Trump prohibited exports of medical supplies to South America from the United States; the United States's position poses a serious threat to the residents of these countries, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic; and Cuba sent doctors to several countries around the world to help fight the pandemic; the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to reiterate to the United States, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, its opposition to any military intervention in Venezuela, in accordance with its position in the Lima Group, and to call for the lifting of the blockade of Cuba and the restrictions on shipments of medical supplies from the United States to South America, as it did for itself.

Sex Selection

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on behalf of citizens who have indicated they are concerned with sex-selective abortion, as it is legal in Canada because there are no restrictions

Sex-selective abortion is antithetical to our commitment to equality between men and women, and a 2019 DART and Mare/Blue poll conducted for the National Post shows that 84% of Canadians believe it should be illegal to have an abortion if the family does not want the child to be a certain sex. International organizations such as the World Health Organization, United Nations Women and the United Nations Children's Fund have identified unequal sex ratios at birth as a growing problem internationally, and Canada's health care professionals have indicated that it is a growing problem here.

Therefore, the undersigned citizens of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to pass a Criminal Code prohibition on sex-selective abortion.

Human Rights

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House petition e-2672, which was initiated by a constituent of mine, Maxwell Parr. It received 1,891 signatures. It calls on the Government of Canada to end the militarization of police forces, actively combat systemic and institutional racism, continue to recognize Canada's own role in carrying out violence against people of colour and actively encourage other nations to do the same.

COVID-19 Vaccine

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present petition 2845 on behalf of the advocacy group 1Day Sooner. It has been signed by over 500 people. It calls on the Canadian government to publicly announce a plan for COVID-19 human challenge testing.

Questions on the Order Paper

[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]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to the opposition day motion that is being debated today. If the motion passes, the government will do everything it can to respond. However, I would like to point out that the 15-day timeline outlined in the motion will be physically impossible for the government to meet, and I want to make the House aware of that fact at this time.

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Health

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

moved:

That the Standing Committee on Health be instructed to undertake a study on the emergency situation facing Canadians in light of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this study evaluate, review and examine any issues relevant to this situation, such as, but not limited to:

(a) rapid and at-home testing approvals and procurement process and schedule, and protocol for distribution;

(b) vaccine development and approvals process, procurement schedules, and protocol for distribution;

(c) federal public health guidelines and the data being used to inform them for greater clarity on efficacy;

(d) current long-term care facility COVID-19 protocols as they pertain solely to federal jurisdiction;

(e) the availability of therapeutics and treatment devices for Canadians diagnosed with COVID-19;

(f) the early warning system, Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN);

(g) the government’s progress in evaluating pre- and post-arrival rapid testing for travellers;

(h) the availability of paid sick leave for those in need, including quarantine and voluntary isolation;

(i) the adequacy of health transfer payments to the provinces, in light of the COVID-19 crisis;

(j) the impact of the government’s use of World Heath Organization (WHO) advice in early 2020 to delay the closure of borders and delay in the recommendation of wearing of masks on the spread of COVID-19 in Canada;

(k) the Public Health Agency of Canada’s communication strategy regarding COVID-19;

(l) the development, efficacy and use of data related to the government’s COVID Alert application;

(m) Canada’s level of preparedness to respond to another pandemic;

(n) the availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) in Canada and a review of Canada’s emergency stockpile of PPE between 2015 and present;

(o) the government’s contact tracing protocol, including options considered, technology, timelines and resources;

(p) the government’s consideration of and decision not to invoke the federal Emergencies Act;

provided that,

(q) this study begin no later than seven days following the adoption of this motion;

(r) the committee present its findings to the House upon completion and, notwithstanding Standing Order 109, that the government provide a comprehensive response to these findings within 30 days;

(s) evidence and documentation received by the committee during its study of the Canadian response to the outbreak of the coronavirus, commenced during the first session of the 43rd Parliament, be taken into consideration by the committee in the current study;

(t) that each party represented on the committee be entitled to select one witness per one-hour witness panel, and two witnesses per two-hour witness panel;

(u) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, emails, documents, notes or other records from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, the office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the office of the Minister of Health, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, concerning options, plans and preparations for the GPHIN since January 1, 2018;

(v) an order of the House do issue for a record of all communications between the government and the WHO in respect of options, plans or preparations for any future operation, or absence thereof, of the GPHIN, since January 1, 2018;

(w) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, emails, documents, notes and other records from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, the office of the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, the office of the Minister of Health, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, concerning plans, preparations, approvals and purchasing of COVID-19 testing products including tests, reagents, swabs, laboratory equipment and other material related to tests and testing applications used in the diagnosis of COVID-19, since March 19, 2020;

(x) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, emails, documents, notes and other records from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office, the office of the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, the office of the Minister of Health, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada concerning plans, preparations and purchasing of PPE, including gowns, gloves, masks, respirators, ventilators, visors and face shields, since March 19, 2020;

(y) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, e-mails, documents, notes and other records relating to the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force and its subcommittees;

(z) an order of the House do issue for all memoranda, e-mails, documents, notes and other records relating to the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution and monitoring strategy, including, but not limited to anticipated timelines for the distribution of an approved COVID-19 vaccine across Canada and the prioritization of population groups for vaccination;

(aa) all documents issued pursuant to this order (i) be organized by department and be provided to the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within 15 days of the adoption of this order, (ii) be vetted for matters of personal privacy information, and national security, and, with respect to paragraph (y) only, be additionally vetted for information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to interfere with contractual or other negotiations between the Government of Canada and a third party, by the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel within seven days of the receipt of the documents, (iii) be laid upon the table by the Speaker, at the next earliest opportunity, once vetted, and permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Health; and

(bb) within seven days after all documents have been tabled pursuant to paragraph (aa), the Minister of Health, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry be ordered to appear separately as witnesses before the Standing Committee on Health, for at least three hours each.

Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House today is probably the most important thing that Parliament could be dealing with right now and that is how we as a country collectively move forward to address the COVID-19 crisis. We are in the middle of a time when we are seeing increases in cases across the country. Provinces, workplaces, schools; everybody is concerned with this. We are seeing restrictions come back in cities across the country, people losing their jobs and people being separated from their loved ones.

We need to figure out how to move forward, given the uncertainty of a vaccine as we do not know when it is coming. We need a better plan forward than just an economic shutdown, endless quarantines and endless isolation. That is what this motion is designed to do. It was put forward at the health committee nearly two weeks ago today. Liberal members filibustered that motion.

I will be splitting my time with the Leader of the Opposition.

This motion is before the House. The motion is very simple. It outlines all of the areas that Parliament should be tasked with reviewing. We are trying to find out what is working and what is not, so that we can move forward so that Canadians can have certainty.

I had a whole speech prepared today, but then I got a call from a very close friend in Montreal last night telling me that her mother, Antonietta Ferri, had passed away from COVID-19. The circumstances in which she passed away could have been prevented if we had a better plan. My friend's elderly mother and elderly father did everything right. They completely isolated, but were infected by somebody who helped to care for them. They had the best of intentions but did not have access to testing and did not know who infected them. They ended up being separated during their hospitalizations. Can colleagues imagine being married for decades and then being separated while struggling and suffering? Now the family cannot be with the father because of the lack of access to tests.

When Barb told me about that last night, I thought, “This is why we need this motion.” This is what we all need to be working on right now. There is nothing in this motion that is partisan. It is just saying what is working, what is not working, what have we done, what have we not done, what is the best practice around the world and how do we move forward.

I have been very disappointed reading the media coverage of the Liberals on this last night and this morning. I want to go through the talking points that they are going to use today as I want to debunk them.

First of all, they are going to say that this is unfair to the civil service. I have great respect for Canada's public service. They are working so hard right now and I cannot believe that any single one of them would want to be unfair to Canadians and not provide this information to Parliament. We need to scrutinize this information. We have not had a budget in nearly two years and our committees have not sat because of prorogation. It is past due that every person in this place of any political stripe has access to this information, so that we can understand how we can best move forward.

Second, they have said that this motion would paralyze government. I saw that in a CP article today. Let us be clear. The only people who have paralyzed government are from the Liberal Party of Canada. They shuttered Parliament during the pandemic, they prorogued Parliament and now they are filibustering the health committee on this motion. If they actually wanted to study the pandemic or deal with the pandemic, as the Prime Minister said in his motion earlier this week, they will pass this motion. They will vote in favour of it.

The point of order that the parliamentary secretary raised earlier today about it being impossible to produce these documents is a matter for debate. If the Liberals think that is impossible, they need to explain and debate why that is so, and then propose a motion to be debated in this place to remind them that that is the function of this place. The function of this place is to figure things out and move forward, not just say that it is inconvenient for the Prime Minister to answer questions.

I remind them that this place has a role and it is completely right to ask questions like the one that the Canadian Press did not get an answer to yesterday. A simple question: Who gets the rapid test when, using what criteria? The Public Health Agency of Canada and the health minister did not even bother returning the phone call, so we need these documents. We need to do the job. We need certainty. That is why we are compelling this today. There is no partisan language in here.

It is simply saying the health committee should be studying the pandemic in the middle of the pandemic. To do that, we need information so we understand what witnesses to call and where to dig. For months, we have not had the scrutiny and there has been paralysis in getting rapid tests. We do not know where $1 billion worth of PPE went because Liberals have been obstructing. We need clarity. We need to do this so we can plan to move forward. If we do not know what is working and what is not and we cannot get answers to basic questions, then we cannot have a plan going forward, and that is the role of government.

Yesterday the Prime Minister asked whether the Conservatives had confidence in government. This was a confidence motion. How can we know if we have confidence in the government's response to the pandemic if we cannot scrutinize its actions? That is what has happened over the last several months: the shuttering of Parliament, the prorogation of Parliament, committees not sitting and the filibustering of committees, especially the health committee. How do Canadians know if they should have confidence in the Liberal government?

Of course, the Liberals want everyone to have confidence, to think it is great, that everything is working, but there are basic questions that have not been answered. The fact is that Canada does not have widely available rapid testing. Those watching today should try to get a COVID test and get the results in 15 minutes. I challenge anyone watching this. They are not going to be able to do it.

It was only when Parliament started asking questions about this that we saw some acknowledgement that this was an issue. That is why Parliament matters and that is why this motion matters. It matters to people like my friend Barb and her mom Antonietta, who lost her life. We need to be asking these questions. She needs justice. We need to make sure that situation is not repeating itself time and time again across this country.

Nobody of any political stripe can accept that a committee cannot be looking into basic information around the pandemic. The documents that we are requesting are completely reasonable for the Canadian public to understand. For example, we are trying to understand why the government shut down the early pandemic warning system, what impact it had on the spread of COVID-19 and whether that led the government to rely on World Health Organization data as opposed to stuff that has already come in from the country.

Liberals are saying everything is fine, but their advice keeps changing. They have not said what best practice is, they are not saying who they are listening to. How can any Canadian take the advice of the government if the government is not clear on who it is listening to and why? The Leader of the Opposition was asked a similar question in the press conference this morning. He was asked who he is listening to. Who is the government listening to? I would like to know. I would like those documents so I can review them.

What else is in the motion? We want to know what the government's procurement processes have been around things like PPE. We want to know information about the procurement for vaccines, how the government is going to distribute them and what is happening with all of these things. We want to know about the government's COVID-19 vaccine task force.

To anybody who is watching this and has heard to the Prime Minister, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader or the government House leader say that this is unreasonable, the only reason they will say this is unreasonable is because they have something to hide. The time for hiding stuff is over. They have had months of shuttering this place. It is time for Parliament to reign. If they are confident that everything is going well, there will be nothing in here other than accolades for them.

The goal of this information is not to do anything nefarious. It is simply to show Canadians that Parliament cares about figuring out the best way forward. By no standards right now can we say everything is fine. It is not an indictment of anyone. The number of COVID cases are rising, things are shutting down and we need Parliament to do its job, to scrutinize the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been spent on this and find out whether that investment is working. It is not enough for the Liberals to say we should just take their word for it. No, it is our job to scrutinize that. That is why Canadians pay us.

When the government talks about moving forward with a team Canada approach, I say giddy-up, let us do it. Let us get these documents, let us get this committee study going and let us get down to business.

[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]

Mr. Speaker, part of the motion says, “all memoranda, emails, documents, notes or other records from the Office of the Prime Minister, the Privy Council Office, the office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, the office of the Minister of Health, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, concerning options, plans and preparations for the GPHIN since January 1, 2018.” That is just one small aspect of this motion that is being proposed by members of the official opposition and they are saying they want this information within the next 15 days.

Can the member can reflect on what she is asking civil servants to do? How many hundreds of hours does she want civil servants to be spending on this request?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we are asking for all of that. I want to know. That is my job. It is my right as a parliamentarian. It is my right to stand up for Canadians to find out that information.

If one listens to the member's response, all one hears is “blah, blah, blah, cannot do, cannot do.” Come on, it has been months and we need this information. If he thinks it is unreasonable, he should tell us why. All I heard was “blah, blah, blah.”. Enough.

If it is not reasonable, what is the reasonable date? I am not accepting “next year” after we have seen hundreds of thousands of more cases. Enough of that. Let us get down to business.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome the member for Calgary Nose Hill. She takes her role as official opposition critic very seriously.

The motion moved by the opposition today is almost identical to the motion discussed in committee on October 9, when the government representatives decided to filibuster. They told us that they needed time to present another alternative. Today, on October 21, I still have not seen any other alternatives.

Can the member, who has a great deal of experience, explain that situation to me?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank my colleague, who I am very pleased to serve on the Standing Committee on Health with, for his remarkable patience in dealing with the Liberal government. I know the member has been working collaboratively with myself and other members to come up with a motion that is non-partisan and can move us forward. He has been a wonderful resource on that. I could feel his frustration in the committee meeting because the Liberals were just filibustering. He is right, there were no alternatives put forward, and all we heard was “no, no, no, we cannot do this”. There were no answers, and Canadians are done with that. It does not get Antonietta's life back. It does not get those rapid tests.

This is the most important thing we should be dealing with. There is no reason the government should be looking at anything other than passing this motion. The excuses, the blocking, the shuttering of Parliament and the prorogation are over; they are done. Let us pass this motion. Let us get down to business.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when the pandemic hit, all of us were deeply uncertain. We had no idea what we were going into. There was a moment where I thought Parliament really rose to the occasion when it moved to committee of the whole and members were able to ask thorough questions of ministers to get a better sense in order to reassure people. We came through that first wave.

The second wave now is much worse than the first: the insecurity with small business and the crisis we are facing. I am sensing from government members that they have just gone back to the old ways of saying they do not want to deal with Parliament and we are on our own, but then they want us to back them up.

I want to ask my hon. colleague about the importance of Parliament working together at this time to be reassuring Canadians that getting them through the worst economic and medical catastrophe in a century is job one for all parliamentarians. It does not matter what party or part of the country we are in; we are in this together. That is not the sense we are getting from the government right now.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

“Amen Brother”, Mr. Speaker, absolutely.

My colleague's caucus colleague from Vancouver Kingsway, who serves with me on the health committee, has also been extremely collaborative. I want to give him credit for helping think through this motion, asking what we need to know and how we word it so it is not partisan or accusatory and is just about information gathering so Parliament can do its job and move forward.

The purpose of a parliamentary committee it is to look at these issues and come up with recommendations on the best path forward. We need this information, it is a no-brainer, and this is something that should pull Parliament together. It will be unacceptable to Canadians for the government to give weak sauce excuses that a committee, the health committee, cannot study the pandemic during the pandemic.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, now that rapid tests have been ordered, my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill, the shadow minister for health, has in fact been the de facto minister of health because that should have been done months ago and was not until the opposition started pressuring. I would like to congratulate her on that.

The House of Commons did not sit for six months. The Prime Minister then prorogued Parliament. There has been no budget for almost two years. Liberals are suppressing questions at committee. What are we here to ask for today? The health committee would simply like to examine the biggest health crisis in our nation's history.

How shocking. We have reasonable questions about the health and well-being of Canadians.

They will not even let us speak about the most significant crisis our country has faced. They are saying that is going to involve printing a lot of documents.

My family has had a personal experience with this, and thankfully Rebecca and I have recovered. We received good advice from public health supports here in Ottawa. Our children were fortunate, through distancing, not to become infected. They had several tests and are now back at school.

We also experienced the uncertainty of the direction of the government, which has changed its mind several times on fundamental advice to the public. We were in line for hours, like Canadians across the country have been, because of the failure to follow through on the Prime Minister's statements about rapid testing and tracing in March. The government was slow to close the border, which meant we had more transmission and community-spread cases. We have to learn our lesson.

My family and I waited in line for a long time to get tested. We dealt with the stress of getting contradictory information and we experienced first-hand the health effects of COVID-19. Fortunately, we made a quick recovery. We were lucky.

However, I am thinking of the thousands of Canadians who have lost a loved one, and of all those who would still be with us if we had been better prepared. Those families are what motivates me to hold the government to account, and small business owners who are struggling are what encourages me to find better solutions.

As I have said, Parliament did not sit through the worst of the pandemic, but Parliament is sitting now and has a responsibility to ensure that Canada learns the lessons from the first wave of the pandemic. We are in a second wave in some parts of the province, and it is clear the government has not learned. We are simply asking that the health committee of Parliament, Canadians of all party stripes, be able to examine this to make sure Canada strives to be the best in its response, not a laggard.

As I said, the government seems to take comfort in comparing itself to our friends from the south and comparing to the worst response. We should be comparing to the best. That is what I strive for in my life. It is what I know my colleagues do. The government has been out of touch, late, slow and confused in every single aspect of the response. That is why it does not want to answer questions.

Just like yesterday, when the Liberals did not want to answer questions on sending millions of dollars to insiders and friends of the Prime Minister and an elite few in the Liberal Party, now they do not want to answer questions about the well-being of Canadians. That should concern Canadians. That should concern the health minister, whose duty it is to report to Parliament and be held to account. Only the arrogance of the Liberals would lead them to think they are beyond questioning, and that we could not possibly do anything better because the Liberal Party is in charge. It is that entitlement and arrogance Canadians are tiring of.

During my time in the Canadian Armed Forces, we had something called lessons learned: the after-action report. In the private sector, there is process improvement. There are even systems like Six Sigma and others. Every serious organization in the world learns from experience and makes sure to get it better next time. In the military, it is literally life or death. In a pandemic, it is life or death too.

That is the reason for today's debate. We have to learn from the first wave of this pandemic. That is why we will continue to ask reasonable questions for the health and well-being of Canadians. That is our role.

This will be a good review for the health minister. I am glad she is here. In January, five departments of the federal government were aware of the risks of the pandemic: The Canadian Armed Forces, Foreign Affairs, Public Works, the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's Office were all aware of the risks. They did nothing. We would have been even better prepared if, the year before, the Liberals had not killed the intelligence warning system. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network was a world leader until they stopped it and substituted data from China for data from our experts. We were ill prepared when it hit. When the first warnings came in, the Liberals ignored them. In fact, they were warned, and I know from talking to suppliers that China was hoarding PPE in late January and early February.

What did the government do? It sent PPE to China, which was probably the most boneheaded decision in history of a government during a pandemic.

Then the Liberals were late on the border, as I said this morning in my press conference. Since the Middle Ages, closing the border has been used to stop the spread of pandemics. The minister should read some history. When there is uncertainty about transmission, the government should put the public health of Canadians first instead of tripping along, relying on friends from Beijing. The minister said there was no person-to-person spread, no risk of closing the border and, on some occasions, accused reporters and opposition parliamentarians of being intolerant for even asking those questions. Again, it was the arrogance of the government.

We all remember the flip-flopping on mask usage. Many people were asking about mask usage in Europe. Facebook told them that they should change their minds on mask usage. People were sharing information and best practices that the government was not providing them.

Then, of course, there are the provinces. They were the front lines. Because we were two months late with the border, the community spread in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver largely originated on flights from China, Iran and Italy. The slow movement by the federal government led to more community spread. That same slow movement on rapid tests, until my friend from Calgary Nose Hill started pushing, has our airports less equipped than most of our OECD allies'. Italy has rapid tests in some of its airports. I would like to see the government not striving for the bottom, but striving for the best when it comes to the health and well-being of Canadians. That is what an opposition does: It holds the government to account, asks questions and demands a better response.

This motion will look at the adequacy of the current levels of federal health transfers to the provinces. It is not right that the federal government is not helping the provinces more in the middle of a pandemic.

The committee will also have to look at the COVID Alert app to ensure that the messages are being sent in both official languages. That is what Quebeckers, Canadians and francophone communities expect from coast to coast to coast.

I would like to thank my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill for making the government strive to be better and not be satisfied with bad results in comparison to the worst student in the class. Let us strive to be the best. That is what we all tell our children, and the Liberals do not even want us to ask questions.

Once again, I am asking Canadians. The Prime Minister, who admitted he did not consult Dr. Tam before threatening an election, is willing to be cavalier with the health of Canadians for his own political skin. We, as parliamentarians, are sent to Ottawa by our constituencies to ask questions. The modest proposal we have today is that the health committee analyze our response to the biggest health crisis in our country. Is that so unreasonable?

I am proud of this team, the government in waiting, that is going to push for better. Better is always possible, and we will make sure of that today.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the official opposition for his speech. I can see that he is concerned about credit as opposed to results.

I know that the member has practised law on Bay Street, and I know that he has some basic understanding of commercial law. I wonder whether he has had a chat with the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing in Ontario, and whether they agree that 3M should release the terms of its contract and the terms and conditions of that particular contract. That is exactly what the motion would ask for.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would invite the member to actually read the motion, because there are exceptions, just as he pointed out.

Since the member is an Ontario MP, at least for the next few months, Ontario just posted the largest single one-day increase in new COVID cases: 841. It is too bad that we do not have rapid tests. It is too bad that we are not prepared for the second wave of the pandemic.

This is about striving for better, and that member is not serving his constituents if all he expects is for us to do better than the U.S. I want Canada to be the best in the world at everything we do, particularly the health and well-being of our citizens.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, based on the opposition leader's speech I am trying to understand the Conservative Party's position on health transfers to the coalition of provinces and Quebec.

Since the Speech from the Throne and the resumption of our work, I have yet to understand the Conservative Party's position on the provincial united front. They are demanding that health transfers go from 22% to 35%. The Conservatives are the ones who cut the health transfer escalator from 6% to 3%.

Every expert who testified at committee said that underfunding health care systems causes weak links in the chain to crack when unforeseen events, like the pandemic we are going through, occur.

Is the Leader of the Opposition saying today that he agrees with the demands of Quebec, the provinces and the united front on providing long-term and not just one-time support?