Debates of Oct. 5th, 2020

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the opportunity to live in the great riding of Northumberland—Peterborough South, and I have talked to my constituents as much as I can during COVID days. What they tell me, whether they are farmers, workers or single moms, is that they cannot afford life to be more expensive. With the clean fuel standard, for that single mom trying to get to work, trying to feed her family, trying to pay her mortgage desperately and trying to achieve that uniquely Canadian dream, it will be put out of reach. That is why we have some reservations about the clean fuel standard.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech and it was very interesting, except that I felt he talked about Conservative ideologies more than the context of his riding.

We have made investments. In the throne speech, we indicated that for seniors, in the new horizons program, there is $7.3 million just in my riding and about $2.4 billion across the country. We have invested in CERB and the wage subsidy. Those are big investments, and we are actually borrowing money at the lowest interest rate ever and saving $3 billion a year on our debt.

What would the member and his party cut, as we move forward, if his party were in power?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question. It is an important question and greatly appreciated.

First of all, I would go back and say there were certain ways to make this less expensive, such as putting that wage subsidy in place quicker, which would have gotten our economy back on track. If the Liberal government had not bungled the rent subsidy program, we would have more businesses. The more taxpayers we have, the more prosperous they are, the more revenue we have and the better our social safety network will be.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating the people of Mégantic—L'Érable on their extraordinary resilience in response to the situation we have been dealing with since March.

Quebec has to pull back in several regions, once again closing bars and restaurants, suspending cultural and sports activities, and strictly enforcing rules in schools because of a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases. Clearly, we are not done sacrificing and will have to cope with this virus much longer than we would have liked.

As we kick off Mental Illness Awareness Week, we must keep in mind that every decision made by Parliament, by the government, by all levels of government and by public health authorities will impact not only the fight against COVID-19 but also the economy and the well-being or loss thereof of people across the country.

The virus did not make bullying or racism go away. It exacerbated domestic violence, and loneliness has become an even heavier burden for the most vulnerable members of society to bear. Our masks must not prevent us from speaking up and sharing our problems. Our ears and our hearts must remain open to those who need to be listened to and heard.

I would now like to come back to the subject we are discussing today. The Liberal government's throne speech was followed, that same evening, by a free national advertisement for the Liberal Prime Minister. I would remind members that the throne speech was needed because of the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue Parliament in the midst of a pandemic. At a time when millions of Canadians are depending on their elected officials to make sure they are safe, from a health and economic standpoint, the Prime Minister deliberately chose to shut down Parliament and put us in a position where we could no longer act quickly.

The throne speech was supposed to refocus the government's efforts on helping Canadians deal with and recover from the COVID-19 crisis, or at least that is what the Prime Minister, his ministers and Liberal members claimed. In the end, we got an interminable speech read by the Governor General that basically reiterated the unkept promises of the Liberals under the direction of the Prime Minister. As everyone knows, the Prime Minister does not like to share the stage, so he thought it would be a good idea to make all the media outlets give him some free air time. That gave him a few minutes to summarize the long list of Liberal failures and unkept promises while clearly demonstrating that he had no plan to get the country through the pandemic and that he had learned absolutely nothing from the first wave of COVID-19.

Everyone knew the deal: The prorogation of Parliament, the Speech from the Throne and the PM's televised speech later that evening had but one objective, and it was not to help Canadians. I will paraphrase a journalist from La Presse who, like us, saw right through the Liberals' smoke and mirrors. He basically said that what the Prime Minister presented was more like a preview of his election platform than a Speech from the Throne.

The best was yet to come in that article. He went on to talk about how, in the middle of the speech he thought to himself, “quick, someone snap your fingers, he's trying to hypnotize us. We are going to forget how we got here. The Prime Minister prorogued Parliament last month to put an end to the inquiries into the WE Charity scandal. That is what led to the Speech from the Throne.”

Feedback on the throne speech from across the country was not any more flattering. I would like to share some reactions. “It was a disappointing speech that offered no reassurance.” “[The Prime Minister] lives on another planet. He needs to go.” “The Speech from the Throne can be summed up in three words: spending, interference, arrogance. Nothing new from this government”. “I'm very worried. All of this spending shows that [the Prime Minister] has never made a budget in his life.” Many similar comments can be found in the media and on social media.

Parliament was prorogued by a Prime Minister who promised never to prorogue Parliament to avoid scrutiny. I remind members that he made this promise himself. All of this came just as thousands of redacted documents were being handed over to the opposition. The throne speech enabled the government to sweep the finance minister's resignation under the rug. The throne speech did nothing to address the problems with the work-sharing program for businesses in Mégantic—L'Érable. It did not address the extremely long waiting periods for citizens dealing with immigration issues.

He offered nothing to small businesses, which were left out of the assistance measures even though they are integral to the very vitality of our regions. He did not allow Canadians to have access to rapid tests, which would have helped my region and countless others escape such an aggressive second wave. This Speech from the Throne was a purely partisan exercise to protect just one person: the Prime Minister himself.

However, I am known to be an optimist. I always try to see the good in everything. I told myself that surely something good would come out of the Speech from the Throne. My colleagues may find it hard to believe, but I found something positive, very positive even. What did I find in the Speech from the Throne that was so good?

You seem skeptical, Mr. Speaker. I will end the suspense. The only positive thing about the Speech from the Throne was the response in reply by the new leader of the official opposition, the hon. member for Durham. What a great reply worthy of a head of state.

Allow me to thank him for the trust he placed in me by giving me the role of Treasury Board critic. I am proud to serve on his team in the official opposition, the team of the government in waiting.

The Conservative leader's reply to the Speech from the Throne laid bare the major difference between the leaders of the two main parties in Canada. One is there to be served by Canadians. The other is there to serve Canadians. Although that may not seem like a big difference, in the context of the current crisis, it is vitally important.

The Leader of the Opposition has shown that putting Canadians, all Canadians, at the centre of a future Conservative government is the only thing to do. I look forward to Quebeckers and Canadians getting to know him for who he is: a hard worker, born in Montreal, a navigator in the Canadian Armed Forces, a lawyer and a father. His career path is like that of many of us who were not born with a silver spoon in our mouths.

I will quote part of the opposition leader's speech.

Who is going to make sure Canada is better prepared next time? Who is going to make sure that Canada learns the lessons from the first wave and fixes the gaps and some of the problems that have put our citizens at risk? Who is going to make sure that working Canadian families stop getting left behind by the government?

Who? Let me continue.

We are a government in waiting, and we do not accept the poor response and the lack of lessons learned by the current government in a time of crisis. Canadians will also get to know that I have tried to spend my entire life standing up for this country. I was not born with a sense of entitlement to lead the country, but I have worked hard for my entire life to serve Canada and its people, to earn the chance to lead. That is what we need in public life when we face a national unity crisis, a pandemic, economic rebuilding and uncertainty on the global stage: someone who will fight to ensure that no Canadian family gets left behind; someone who understands the importance of service and community.

That is an attitude befitting a future prime minister. That is what we need in a time of crisis: a leader who understands the importance of work, who loves his country, and who will always place his country's interests above his own.

His agenda for Quebec is clear. I clearly remember his promise to Quebec during the party leadership race: He will not interfere in Quebec's internal affairs and, under his leadership, the Conservative Party will be more open than ever before. He said, “As long as I am your leader, Quebec nationalists, like Conservatives from all walks of life, will be welcome in our party.”

Unlike the current Prime Minister, whose words are rarely followed by action except when it comes to shutting down ethics inquiries, the Conservative leader walks the talk.

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent was appointed opposition House leader. He is the first Quebecker to hold this position in the Conservative Party of Canada. The Conservative leader's inner circle is made up of many Quebeckers, including the former member for Beauport—Limoilou, who I look forward to seeing again with us here in the House.

Our new leader's first meeting with a provincial premier was with Quebec Premier, François Legault. During that meeting, he was very clear about his intention to increase health care funding to the provinces in a stable, predictable and unconditional manner, as a matter of respect.

The leader of the Conservative Party and the official opposition is a leader who worked hard to get where he is and who will deliver on his commitments, unlike the leader of the Liberal Party.

In closing, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to take these few minutes to introduce our leader to Quebeckers because, unlike the Bloc Québécois, which will never be able to keep its promises and will always be an armchair quarterback, we will be able to keep our promises and get to the bottom of things.

It is time we had something besides an armchair critic. It is time we had a real player on the ice, someone like a Guy Lafleur, Mario Lemieux or Phillip Danault. We want a party leader who can score goals, not someone who is going to watch from the sidelines.

[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 have listened to the throne speech, I have also listened to the leader of the Conservative party. I suggest that if we were to take both speeches and present them to a focus group, or any group of Canadians, I suspect we would find far more support for the government's throne speech, which provides all sorts of details as to what the government has been working on and goes well into the future, giving a greater sense of unity and Canadians coming together to make a difference in combatting COVID-19 and supporting the economy in all regions of our country.

I wonder if the member has actually read through the throne speech. If he has, would he not agree that there is far more detail and far more of a vision within that document than there was in the speech that was presented by the leader of the official opposition?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not complicated. The Liberals simply assembled a collection of their broken promises since 2015, since their leader was elected Prime Minister of Canada, turned it into a throne speech and said to Canadians, “Here is our plan”.

This is the third time he has promised the same things. We got a little bit the first time and a little more the second time. There was quite a bit the third time, but at the end of the day, nothing is really being done. There is nothing concrete in what the Prime Minister has presented to us.

There was nothing concrete in the Speech from the Throne. That is why Canadians did not fall for it. The Prime Minister felt obligated to give a short televised address that evening to try to summarize all of his broken promises. Nobody fell for it. Nobody believed the Prime Minister.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one thing to come out of the lockdown was a temporary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming, however, increased.

My distinguished colleague spoke a lot about his party leader, but is his leader prepared to step up and look for solutions to the climate crisis?

His leader also said that he was prepared to introduce a bill to force all of the provinces to accept pipelines.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of the leadership race, the beginning of this Parliament, people have thought the Conservative Party is not worried about the environment. They think that the Conservatives are not worried about climate change. That is not true. In fact, it is quite the opposite. We think Canadian solutions can improve the environment for the whole planet. That is the truth of the matter. Projects that could benefit the entire world tend to get blocked for ideological reasons.

Is the Bloc Québécois in favour of the GNL Québec project or not? Will it support this much-awaited project in the Saguenay region, a region where there are many Bloc Québécois MPs?

This project will bring prosperity, foster economic development and improve greenhouse gas emission outcomes around the world. It will leverage Canadian knowledge to improve conditions, improve our environment and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the throne speech almost two weeks ago, and I made copious notes. In fact, I have them here, pages and pages of notes on the promises that were in that throne speech. It went on and on. I had to think back to see that I had heard this before, and I had heard that before. It was like the 2015 election campaign of the Liberals. They had all these ideas from right across Canada and had put them all in a great big jar and said they were the Liberal election promises for 2015.

Here we are in 2020 with the third throne speech from the same government. It was like they reached into that same jar and pulled out an idea and saw that they had not lived up to that promise yet, so they put it back in the throne speech. I think they emptied that whole jar of recycled ideas.

Why did they do that? I would like to hear from the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable why they had to prorogue and create another throne speech just so they could rehash all of the same ideas that they put out in 2015, which they had not lived up to.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question.

The Liberals did not have to prorogue Parliament. They just had to hide the ethics scandal of the Prime Minister. This is why they prorogued Parliament, not just for throwing away those promises again and again. They had a scandal to hide and they did their best to hide it.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Etobicoke North.

I am proud to speak to the Speech from the Throne. A Speech from the Throne gives us an opportunity to reset our clock, to say that the things we talked about before the election are not valid anymore, because this thing called COVID-19, this pandemic, began to take us off track. All of the old economic and social systems, etc. that we had are not working anymore. We are in a new world and we have to do something about it. I think we expected that COVID-19 would not last and we would be out of it now. We now are braced for a second tsunami of COVID-19, which we hear globally that it will be worse than the first.

With this Speech from the Throne, we reset new systems because the old ones left a lot of people very vulnerable as well as let a lot of people down.

The first thing in the Speech from the Throne was that this government decided that if we did not do something to contain the spread of COVID-19, whatever we did for businesses, individuals or jobs would not be sustainable and could not be permanent because COVID would be there. COVID-19 does not give a fig about jobs. It does not care about boundaries. It does not care what province or territory people are in. It is a global pandemic.

We decided to talk about how we would help Canadians, workers, individuals, families and business owners through the second wave. Because we have a AAA rating, being the only country in the world besides Germany to have that, we can borrow from ourselves at 0.25%, so Canadians and business owners do not have to borrow from the banks at 5%, or use their credit cards at 19%, or even remortgage their homes so they can carry on during this pandemic.

We talked about how we expanded. We brought back new support systems. CERB has now been taken over by a new CRB. People will be moved into EI seamlessly so they can be supported. Interestingly enough, individuals who are self-employed or in the gig economy were not covered by EI before but now they will be.

We looked at how we would support seniors who had fallen between the cracks in the old system. A lot of the system is about innovation and WiFi and many seniors are too poor to afford that, at least they are in my riding. We have looked at how we can help them get more financial stability during this difficult time because they were afraid they would be kicked out of the places where they live.

We looked at people who were very vulnerable, the homeless and people who have substance use disorders, and how we could help them. We brought in an emergency rapid response fund. Homelessness increases our susceptibility to COVID, so we want to get rapid money for those who have no place to live to get them into shelters and other places to live. This is the kind of thing we are doing.

It is not a rehash of what was happening. If anybody understood what was going on, they would realize that this is about helping to protect people and looking at how we diminish the spread of COVID. We have put money into protective equipment. We have millions for testing and tracking. We have given $2.2 billion to provinces to make it okay for kids to go to school and be safe.

That is all provincial jurisdiction that we are putting money into: housing, homelessness, schools. We do not care. We are the Government of Canada. We want to help all Canadians. We are not discriminating against what province they come from. That is what we are doing in this Speech from the Throne.

We are there. We have vaccines now lined up, millions of vaccines so every Canadian, no matter how poor, no matter how rich, no matter what they do will be able to have access to a vaccine. We have upgraded the tracking and testing mechanisms and sent more money to the provinces so they will be able to test and track quicker and to move forward. We have now just got a new test that is for quick testing. We are always guided by science as we look at how to protect people against COVID, against the spread and against spreading it to each other, etc.

People complain about it, but we are looking at a national standard for long-term care homes. The COVID does not care if we live in one province or another. The provinces think it is okay for the federal government to contribute 87¢ on every dollar to provinces to help them make decisions in their jurisdictions.

This is not about interfering with the provinces. This is about recognizing the reality of a pandemic and a virus that does not care. We have moved forward on all of that. Then we talked about how, in the interim, we were going to try to support businesses. We have extended the Canadian wage subsidy and we have expanded it until next summer. We are working on the details of some of the things businesses told us did not work for them. We are trying to deal with that.

We are looking at how to help the tourism industry, which is stranded. The industry used the CEWS, and that is there for them until next summer so businesses can at least be sustained and look at how they can transform into the new economy through innovation. They are going to have to do business differently now. The government is here to help them with all the things they need in terms of innovating for business, in terms of Wi-Fi, looking at schools and how we are able to do things differently to keep citizens safe. This is part of a plan. This is not business as usual.

This is the worst crisis we have had since the Second World War. In fact, all of the things we put in place after the Second World War to sustain Canadians economically, socially and culturally have not been upgraded for 50 years. They are not valid anymore. They are not working anymore.

We now have to look at how to reinvent the wheel by looking at what other countries are doing. We are putting money into innovation so we can have far more companies shift from what they were doing to new, innovative jobs. We are going to be helping young people connect with their first jobs, because some of them cannot find jobs in this new environment. We are looking at how we rescale and train people for the current economy.

This is a forward-thinking document. The economy is always something we have to keep resilient and sustainable. We are saying that we have to do it differently, because the old ways do not work anymore. COVID-19 has exposed all of the cracks in our system. We needed a Speech from the Throne to make sure that we did not just cover those cracks, but filled them in so people would not fall into them anymore.

This is saying that yes, people need to get jobs. Yes, we have to look at the economy. Yes, we need to protect people from illness. Yes, we have to strengthen the health system, which we talked about. We have to look at how mental health fits into the Canada Health Act, and how people access pharmaceuticals when they need them. We are working on all of those tranches at once, so that people do not fall between the cracks.

What is also important to remember, when we start talking about provincial jurisdiction and what we have not been doing, is that we are dealing with a pandemic. All over the world people are suffering. We have also decided it is time for us to step up and help countries around the world so they can develop health care systems, access vaccines and have the equipment needed to test and track.

We are sharing and building alliances with like-minded countries because we can no longer talk about our country alone. We have to talk about how we work with other countries to strengthen the global economy. We have to look at how we fight a pandemic together, and how we shift and change. This is not the first pandemic. Speaking as a physician, it is not going to be the last. If we do not want to have more pandemics, we need to make sure that when diseases start around the world, they remain as epidemics and that countries are able to cope with them.

We need to look at how we trade differently. We need to look at human rights. We need to look at rising fascism around the world and right-wing extremist governments that are denying human rights to people. We have to look outward, as well as inward. COVID-19 does not really care what country one lives in, what borders are between provinces or whose jurisdiction it is. I do not know that COVID ever read the Constitution.

We are here as a federal government responsible for all Canadians and remembering that it is our duty to make sure nobody falls between the cracks, whether because of the health system, which needs to be there to support them, or because of the economy. We are focusing on job creation and new ways of building an economy. If one reads the Speech from the Throne, one would find out that is exactly what we are doing and what we need to do now.

It might be a time for us to sit down and stop talking about partisan politics. All of us need to do what countries around the world are doing. Countries around the world are saying, let us get together and look at how we work together to prevent this from happening. This is a global problem. We might want to say this is a Canadian problem. Let us all come together—

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

It is now time for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Provencher.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, the speech we just heard from the member for Vancouver Centre was, if anything, interesting. It gives a little picture for Canadians to see into the mindset of the Liberals: how they view money and how they look at finances.

We heard earlier from the Prime Minister that he believes budgets balance themselves. In this latest throne speech, we heard that it is better for the government to borrow money, because Canadians cannot afford to.

I have two questions for the member. First, whose money does she think it is? Second, does she really believe that Canadians do not understand when they are being bribed with their own money?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is such a cynical question. It is not about bribing Canadians. We can borrow from ourselves, and if the member read The Globe and Mail this weekend, the Governor of the Bank of Canada was saying that we cannot take half measures right now. Also, we are borrowing at 0.25%. We are one of only two countries in the world with an international AAA rating, and we have the credit to be able to help Canadians.

I would ask my hon. colleague, if we do not help Canadians, who will?

We are the government. We are responsible for assisting Canadians in a crisis and in a time of need, just as we did in World War II. This is that kind of crisis.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member, who is a doctor by training, if I am not mistaken.

She knows that when we talk about health and a pandemic or an epidemic, the question is how can we help ourselves. Does she not believe that prevention is just about the only way we can have lasting, sustainable solutions? When it comes to Canadian health transfers, that is exactly the question we are asking. The last great commission of inquiry in Canada was the Romanow commission in 2008. According to its report, the minimum contribution needed to be 25%. A few years later, if the government had assured Quebeckers and the people of the other provinces—

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

The hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think it is interesting to talk about prevention. I do not think anyone could have prevented COVID-19 from occurring, but what we could have done was prevent it from being a pandemic. It might have been contained within any one country. Now we know that we have to do that. Now we have to strengthen the World Health Organization so that we can be warned early when there are pandemics. Now we can prevent it by investing in poor countries so they can have health care systems and health care infrastructure, and so they can have access to vaccines and medications, so they can contain epidemics before they become pandemics. That is how we prevent it.

This government, since this pandemic, has been distributing money to every single province, as I said earlier on, 87¢ on the dollar to help provinces cope. Yet, what we have seen is a mishmash of each province having very different outcomes and very different protections. We need to look at—

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

The member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford has the floor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member for Vancouver Centre will know full well the ravages of the opioids crisis, given that both she and I are from the wonderful province of British Columbia, where this year already the opioids crisis has killed five times more people than COVID-19 has. In fact, in three out of the last four years over 1,000 people have died in British Columbia. Yet, what do we see? We see a passing reference to the crisis in the throne speech.

The Liberal government has still yet to declare a national public health emergency, and it continues to ignore organizations, like the chiefs of police, which are calling for decriminalization.

I have a simple question: Why?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member does not even understand the opioid crisis. It is a very complex issue. It is linked with mental health problems, homelessness, poverty and intergenerational trauma. We do not fix it with a silver bullet. This government has been working with provinces since we formed government. We have been helping them with the ability to have access to naloxone universally. We have been helping them with forming front-line workers to be able to work in the communities. We are now in our second year of making sure that there are safe supplies available, and this is because, after 10 years—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Etobicoke North has the floor.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Deputy House Leader of the Government]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the throne speech. However, first I would like to recognize the wonderful families of Etobicoke North and our caring, resilient and strong community.

Our families matter. They are good people and they work hard. What makes Etobicoke North such a special place to live, work and play is that we welcome the world. We are proudly one of the most diverse communities in the country. We learn from one another, and we learn each other's beautiful cultures, languages and religions. We look after one another and lift each other up.

I thank the tireless front-line health care workers of the William Osler Health System for their life-saving services, as well as the Rexdale Community Health Centre and Rexdale Community Hub and their partners for their important community care, including providing health services and legal services, delivering food and providing computers and Internet access. I thank all workers who provide essential services, such as those working in grocery stores, personal support workers, truck drivers and taxi drivers, and everyone who worked to keep our community and country going.

I also thank our tremendous community organizations for their work during COVID-19, organizations like Albion Neighbourhood Services, which found new ways to deliver programs to youth and deliver hundreds of meals weekly. The Sikh Spiritual Centre Toronto provided langar as individual packed meals to our community. The International Muslim Organization and the Lions Club joined forces to serve hundreds of families and provided food and essential supplies each month. Trust 15 kept in constant contact with families and continued inspiring and mentoring our amazing youth.

I wish I had time to thank all our organizations and volunteers. I see their life-changing work and am grateful for the work they do each and every day. As I said, we are a community that cares and we are there for one another.

Before I ever came to Parliament, my own research area was on pandemic influenza, particularly on the 1918 influenza, and preparing for pandemics. I helped businesses, non-governmental organizations and industry prepare for a pandemic. I ran pandemic exercises. My priority will always be protecting the health and safety of the people of Etobicoke North and all Canadians, in particular our most vulnerable.

The plan outlined in the throne speech is good for our Etobicoke North families and our community. We will take bold action on health, the economy, building back better and building a more inclusive Canada. The throne speech outlines our plan for continuing to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

In Etobicoke North, in July and August, parents and teachers told me their concerns about their children heading back to school. As an educator, I understand. Our government listened and invested $2 billion to help provinces protect the health and safety of our children, teachers and indeed our families as they returned to school. Our government also invested in and shipped personal protective equipment across the country. We sent the Canadian Forces into long-term care homes to help look after our loved ones. We will make sure Canadians will be able to get a vaccine once it is developed, tested and ready.

Our priority is to look out for all Canadians, especially our most vulnerable. Poverty, hunger, good health, well-being, gender equality and economic status play a role in who gets sick, who gets treated and who survives. We must keep taking COVID-19 seriously to stop the second wave. We must all make sure we do our part to slow the spread of the virus by limiting our contact bubble, physical distancing, handwashing and wearing a non-medical mask or face covering as needed. Ensuring Canadians are supported through this health crisis is the best thing we can do for the economy.

The second part of our plan for the future is to do whatever it takes to support Canadians and businesses through the pandemic. That is why our government invested more than $19 billion to help the provinces and territories restart their economies, ensuring increased testing and contract tracing, increased personal protective equipment and support for our most vulnerable in long-term care.

To rebuild from job losses and strengthen our economy, we will launch a campaign to create more than a million jobs. We will extend the Canada emergency wage subsidy to next summer, rebuild an EI system that works for all Canadians and introduce further support for industries that have been hit the hardest, including hospitality, and travel and tourism. Families in Etobicoke North should not have to choose between their health and their jobs.

The third part of our plan is to build back better to create a stronger, more resilient Canada. The last six months have been hard for many families and have shown fundamental gaps in our society and in societies around the world. We must do everything possible to address these gaps.

This means we will keep strengthening the middle class and helping people working hard to join it. We will continue to invest in our communities, public infrastructure and, importantly, affordable housing. Our government brought in Canada's first national housing strategy and, more recently, the rapid housing initiative, which will build or purchase 3,000 affordable homes across Canada.

We will also invest in health care and address gaps in our social systems. High-quality, affordable child care is not a luxury; it is a necessity. That is why we will build a Canada-wide child care system that meets the needs of all Canadians. For our seniors, we have committed to increasing the old age security benefit at 75 years of age and to boosting the CPP survivor benefit. We will also set new national standards for long-term care so that seniors get the best support possible.

We will also build long-term competitiveness through clean growth while fighting climate change. Throughout COVID-19, we have been reminded of just how important our natural world is and that we are not apart from nature but a part of it. We live in a finite world with no planet B. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to protect our environment.

The fourth part of our plan is to stand up for who we are as Canadians and defend our values. We will continue to walk our shared path of reconciliation and will continue to welcome newcomers and support family reunification. We embrace our two official languages and celebrate our communities' and country's diversity.

However, we know there is more work to do to achieve gender equality and address systemic racism. We know that anti-Black racism is real, we know that systemic racism is real and we know unconscious bias is real. They all happen here in Canada. Our community will always stand against racism, and our government will always stand with it. We will always work to build a better, more equitable country for all.

My Etobicoke North families should know that they matter to me. My office and I will always be there for them. We have worked tirelessly for them throughout the pandemic.

We must learn what we always learn following a pandemic, namely that science and public health matter, not just when we are in a crisis. We must share lessons, update and test pandemic plans, and ensure that we are doing everything possible to protect the most vulnerable.

Finally, we are one small planet with one human family. Disease knows no borders, and through the pandemic and beyond, we are truly in this together.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, there is a long list of issues in this empty shell of a throne speech that the members from the government's side have been talking about. It is also quite surprising that members talked about unity. Alberta was mentioned only once in the whole throne speech. Where is the unity?

Western alienation is at the highest level we have ever seen. We are on the ground. We know what is going on. The government seems to be 30,000 feet above our level, looking down and telling us in the throne speech that it is aiming for unity. Where is the unity, when Alberta was mentioned only once in the whole throne speech?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have been clear from the very beginning that we are all in this together. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs have worked very hard with the premiers of the provinces and territories. We have provided $19 billion to the provinces and territories so that we can safely restart the economy. The throne speech tackles the major crises we are seized with in our communities, our country and globally, namely COVID-19, the economic crisis and climate change. The throne speech also tackled how to build back better and ensure that everyone is included.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, the member's speech was rather redundant. We have heard the same thing many times.

The government talks about improvements and actions, but how does it plan to put an end to tax evasion by corporations that use tax havens? How does it suggest we force web giants to collect sales tax on their services and to pay a 3% levy on all of their activities in Canada to the arts and media sector, 40% of which would be for French-language content?

As the Bloc Québécois' critic for indigenous affairs, I want to point out that we need to implement a five-year plan to build 8,000 housing units for first nations in Quebec. Does the government have an update on that?

How about ensuring that all indigenous nations in Canada have immediate access to potable tap water and passing a law to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?

I would like an update on these files.