Madam Speaker, I thank all those who have spoken today, including my esteemed colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis, the chair of our caucus. I thank him very much for his comments. As the member for Gatineau, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois.
We are in the midst of a unique pandemic. For months, our government, our businesses, our essential front-line workers and our families have worked tirelessly to address the health and economic challenges caused by COVID-19. We have seen an unprecedented engagement of our governments, the health sector, our research community and the private sector. In responding to this crisis, Canadians have taken up this issue with a single-minded focus, understanding that we cannot afford to be distracted by the usual political jousting.
On this side of the House, we remain concerned about what Canadians are experiencing, and we continue our efforts. Our government remains focused on supporting Canadians and Quebeckers during these difficult times. That is why we on this side of the House—and obviously this seems to be the case for some opposition members as well—are finding it difficult to understand why the Bloc is using one of its rare opposition days, not to propose concrete solutions, whether for Quebec or for all of Canada, to fight the pandemic, to help our seniors, our families and the most vulnerable, or to get us out of this crisis, but rather to offer Quebeckers a truncated and sanitized vision of our history; to show only a small part of history, a version that seems to forget the victims of the October crisis, a version that is their own and that forgets the real victims.
It is important to remember our history, but it is also important to do so comprehensively, without forgetting parts of it and always keeping in mind the goal of uniting Quebeckers rather than dividing them.
My colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent has put us back into the context of the time a little, as did my colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis. The memory of the October crisis is extremely difficult for a number of Quebec families, especially the family of Pierre Laporte. But also for the family of Jeanne d'Arc Saint-Germain, from Vanier, who was killed by a bomb at the Department of Defence. Let me quote from the afternoon edition of Le Droit, the Saint-Jean-Baptise Day edition, June 24, 1970. The headline on the front page is “Bomb explodes in Ottawa”. Here is how it reads:
Mme Jeanne-d'Arc St-Germain was sitting at her desk in the Department of Defence communications centre on Lisgar Street. She expected to finish her shift at 7:30 this morning. But Mme St-Germain did not have the opportunity to finish her shift. At 6:26, she was killed by the explosion of a powerful bomb that had been placed in the southeast corner of the temporary building.
First responders found the lifeless body of the 51-year-old widow near her desk. Shards of glass had severed her jugular vein. Mme St-Germain, of 321 Shakespeare Street, Vanier, had been a communications clerk at the Department of Defence for about 15 years. Two members of the military, who were in the communications centre when the explosion took place, were slightly wounded by shards of glass.
That also gives us a context, as my fellow residents of Gatineau, and of the entire national capital region, would understand full well.
It is because of that, and because of many other attacks and many other bombs, that politicians of all stripes, the premier of Quebec and the mayor of Montreal, asked the Government of Canada to provide emergency powers in Quebec and the authority needed to arrest and detain people.
That obviously resulted in many victims, and the Bloc Québécois has named a few of them. We can easily see that over 500 people were detained, most of them without cause, for an average period of about a week, as my colleague said.
That is a stain on our history, but it was also the product of the context of fear, of the climate of terror at the time that made our fellow citizens, our friends and our neighbours live in fear.
I am now going to project 50 years into the future. We are gathered in the House of Commons on this sad anniversary of the October crisis, but we cannot talk about collective duty, let alone responsibility for our seniors, without talking about our duty to manage the pandemic and protect the most vulnerable.
We are facing the greatest health crisis of our time. This is our October crisis. Canadians and Quebeckers are worried about how we will get through the crisis. They are worried about their safety and the safety of their loved ones. They are worried about paying their bills and about the safety of the personal protective equipment of our guardian angels. They are worried because they do not know if they will be able to see their family at Christmas or if their child will catch the virus at school.
As the member for Gatineau and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, I have the enormous privilege and responsibility to work with my government colleagues to get the equipment we need, including the future vaccine. The same thing goes for treatments, equipment and ventilators.
I cannot ignore my disappointment with the Bloc Québécois. Last week, it voted in favour of a motion that is dangerous for Canadians' health. I am not the one saying this, it is people involved in research, people in the manufacturing sector and from our small businesses. The Bloc Québécois will have to be judged by future generations. In 50 years, people may be talking about the sad anniversary of the October 2020 crisis, that is, the pandemic.
Their opposition jeopardizes our current and future capacity to negotiate contracts for PPE, ventilators and vaccines. What I can say is that all of Quebec has answered the call in terms of procurement. For example, the famed company Bauer is making face shields for our health professionals. Others who come to mind are Joseph Ribkoff, Logistik Unicorp and Yoga Jeans, in Montreal, Beauce and Dorval, who are adapting their factories to produce millions of hospital scrubs, much like Calko Group in Montreal. ADM Medicom, based in Pointe-Claire, has signed an agreement to produce millions of masks. We are also thinking of bioMérieux in Saint-Laurent, which has agreed to deliver thousands of diagnostic tests to ensure the safety of Quebeckers and all Canadians. Lastly, we are thinking of Precision ADM, which will be making swabs in my riding, Gatineau.
That is what we should have been talking about today, but sadly the Bloc Québécois chose another subject for debate on opposition day. However, I would like to reassure those who are watching that the Government of Canada is aiming for the right thing, the right October crisis, in today's deliberations.