Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has ably outlined the necessity of the motion, in terms of what it means to deliver a plan for Canadians, for us to see a way out of the COVID-19 crisis.
What I want to do with my time is to talk for a minute about why it is so important to support the motion. The Leader of the Opposition has outlined the gaps in the government's response, the panic that we have seen in the government and the need for certainty. He has done a wonderful job of that.
However, I need to explain to members of the government what is happening. There is a story that came out today, and a quote from a man named Doug Manuel, a physician epidemiologist at the Ottawa Hospital. Here in Ottawa, we are actually seeing lower numbers of COVID-19, and I give credit to public health officials and to people, but Doug Manuel says that this is because of the high number of government employees who can afford to work from home.
What I worry about is that here in Ottawa there are a lot of people making decisions and a lot of people who are scrambling around who might not feel the urgency that is being felt in other parts of this country. There are millions of Canadians right now who had stable incomes, who had businesses, who had hope 11 months ago and who do not have that hope now.
I am not saying that there is anything wrong with public sector employees. I thank them for their work. However, the reality is that there are people suffering. When the Prime Minister comes out of his cottage and says that businesses will be better off with extended lockdowns, that is a comment from somebody who is so privileged that he cannot understand the stress that millions of Canadians have been going through this year because of the lockdowns, because of the lack of certainty and because of the flailing that we have seen from the government.
This is why the motion is in front of the House today. It is compelling the government, in good faith, to give Canadians a way out, to give them a plan, to give them certainty.
I asked Canadians, about a week ago, to send me stories of their experience. This is one stack. Hundreds and thousands of stories have poured into my office. I want to read one email.
It says, “I returned to my full-time job from maternity leave at the end of March, during a time when I had no access to consistent child care and had three children at home, two requiring online schooling. My family struggled until our child care reopened. Life has not stopped because of COVID-19, all of the challenges that families usually face have only become more difficult to juggle. In addition to raising three children and working a demanding full-time job remotely from home and navigating the never-ending, shifting messages and restrictions and reopenings and closings that came between spring and fall this year, I also got the additional hit of having to navigate a legal custody battle in a confusing virtual setting that threw all the checks and balances of the old system out the window, all of which have led to a massive increase in my stress and anxiety for my family. I can say with certainty that my health and well-being, and that of my family, have been impacted by government lockdowns.”
She continues, “Here is a quick summary of how we have been affected: loss of child care, loss of income from companies making staff forced to take pay cuts due to the energy sector downturn and COVID, massive increase in anxiety related to school reopening, guidelines changing literally by the day, causing stress and anxiety for my children, loss of charter rights, freedom of association, limits placed on visitors in our own homes, loss of freedom of peaceable assembly, limits placed on gatherings, loss of freedom of mobility, loss of travel plans and cancellation of much-needed trips and meetings, increase in stress and anxiety, inability to see friends and family who need my help and are isolated due to travel restrictions, loss of ability to participate in our faith community.”
This is what is actually happening. This is what is at stake here, not to mention the fact that we have seen thousands of Canadians die from COVID. We are seeing dire situations in our nursing homes. That is what is at stake here when the government cannot tell us basic information about how we are moving forward.
Then, at the same time, when these Canadians are writing to my office, they are seeing the United States deliver their vaccines. People are going to be getting the vaccine in New York state within hours or days. The United Kingdom has been deploying it today. Where is our plan? The current government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars, has shuttered Parliament and has abrogated our democratic institutions, all under the guise of stopping the spread of COVID but it has not stopped the spread of COVID. It is worse than it was when we started. We cannot stay on this course. We cannot.
Person after person has written to me with medical conditions that they have not been able to get treatment for because of the lockdown. People have written to me with severe mental health issues. People are desperate. We sit in here fiddling while Rome burns. The fiscal economic statement, the quasi-budget, that the government put forward last week had no plan. It was a bunch of guesswork, saying we are going to spend our way out of a virus. We need to have a plan on things like basic public health information, rapid testing and vaccines. That is why the motion is here in front of the House today.
Why does it take the opposition party to push the government to do what is right? Frankly, I think it is an issue of competence at this point in time. We have seen flailing from the health minister on masks and closing the border. She said it does not transmit person to person but then maybe it does, and that we shut down our early warning system for the pandemic but do not worry we have the data, but we are not sure if it is three-ply or two-ply masks.
It is enough. People cannot get their kids to school. They cannot access mental health support. They are separated from their families. I sit here in a position of privilege, pushing for these things. I have not seen my kids in over six months. Do members know what that is like? Do they know what it is like to go home to an empty condo every day, knowing I cannot see my kids?
I sit in a position of privilege. I have a paycheque. I want to know these things on behalf of millions of Canadians. When can I see my mother-in-law, who has stage four breast cancer? My story is not unique. I am privileged. When the government stands up and says maybe it will be September or maybe January and that the opposition is playing games, the government is playing games. It is enough.
All we are asking for today is some basic information. When can we possibly hope to receive this vaccine? How many days after receipt is it going to be deployed into the provinces? What is the federal government doing to deploy it? The government needs to be held to account. It has failed.
The motion today is very simple. It would compel the government to give Canadians a plan with clear direction before Christmas, given that countries around the world have already done what is in here. They have been working on this for months. This is not asking for something that is unreasonable. This is asking for something that is vital to the lives of every single Canadian, millions from coast to coast and across party lines.
The government has to get it together, and we are going to make it happen.