Debates of Dec. 3rd, 2020

(The House divided on the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #26

Criminal Code

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare Motion No. 2 defeated. I therefore declare Motion No. 3 defeated.

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in at report stage.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wants to request a recorded vote or request that the motion be passed on division, I invite them to rise and so indicate to the Chair.

[And one or more members having risen:]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #27

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

When shall the bill be read a third time? At the next sitting of the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I wish to inform the House that, because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 75 minutes.

Business of the House

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are very pleased to learn that this day will be extended by 75 minutes. It being Thursday, as per tradition, we would like to know what the legislative agenda will be for the days leading up to the Christmas break.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

Monday will be the last supply day for the financial cycle ending on December 10. At the end of that opposition day, we will proceed with the consideration of and votes on the main estimates and the supplementary estimates (B).

I would also like to mention that, on Monday, the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development will give a ministerial statement to mark the 50th anniversary of the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women.

With regard to legislation, tomorrow we will resume debate on Bill C-7 on medical assistance in dying. We are in this position because our Conservative friends continue to filibuster the passage of this important bill. I get the impression that they do not really care about the deadline imposed by the Quebec Superior Court, which I think is unfortunate.

If the Conservatives stop filibustering and allow a stand-up vote on Bill C-7—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, may I finish talking? We can debate afterward. I have the floor right now.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order. I would remind members that they must address the Chair and not speak directly to their colleagues.

The government House leader.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, if the Conservatives stop filibustering and allow a stand-up vote on Bill C-7, then next week the government expects to call the following bills: Bill C-8 on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's call to action number 94; Bill C-10, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act; Bill C-12, the net-zero legislation; and Bill C-13 on single-event sport betting.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you because December 5, two days from now, marks one year since the House elected you and placed its trust in you. You oversee House proceedings fairly, impartially and with dignity. Thank you on behalf of all members.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent on a point of order.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we applaud the government House leader's acknowledgement that you will soon be celebrating the first anniversary of your election as Speaker, and I echo his sentiments.

However, I vehemently disagree with what he said about our parliamentary work. With respect to Bill C-7, we have followed parliamentary rules. Our work has been rigorous and thorough. Parliamentarians never filibustered in any way, unlike Liberal MPs who filibustered systematically in every committee where they faced ethical questions related to WE Charity.

With respect to Bill C-7, if the government had not prorogued Parliament this summer, we could have immediately continued our work, since it was at second reading. If that had been done instead, we would have had at least 25 more sitting days than we have now.

If we are rushing to meet a court deadline, the Liberal government has no one but itself to blame.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. government House leader is rising on a point of order.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

There is a court order before the House. It is something that is extremely serious. I would have liked my colleagues to treat this issue as seriously as the government and the other opposition parties do. That could still happen. We have debated the bill at length, and we can continue to debate it. We offered to extend the sitting hours to satisfy the official opposition and debate the bill even longer. However, without continuing in this vein, it is valid to point out that the official opposition may be filibustering.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Before I continue, I would remind hon. members that the purpose of the weekly Thursday statement is to tell us what is happening next week, not to start a debate. If other hon. members want to rise on a point of order, I invite them to do so, but I wanted to remind hon. members what the purpose is.

Order.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ethics; the hon. member for Edmonton Riverbend, Natural Resources; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, The Environment.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Status Update on COVID-19 Vaccines

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Centre.

Today's debate touches on an issue that is extremely important to all Canadians. We truly understand the difficulties that the pandemic has caused so many Canadians, which have been made worse by the uncertainty of how long the crisis will last. However, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. We are no longer so far away.

Contrary to what some opposition members are saying, we know that our scientists are working very hard to develop a safe and effective vaccine. It is the only way that we will be able to begin overcoming the challenges that the pandemic has caused over the past months.

This has obviously been a very difficult time for Canadians. It is the challenge of a generation that we are facing, and yes, it is a marathon. It is a marathon that is not over yet. We are still in the second wave of the pandemic and now is not the time to let our guard down.

I know we have already given up so much time with our loved ones and our family. Some have lost their job, and others, their health. However, I am here today to reassure Canadians that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We are nearing the end of this marathon. There is a way out of the hard times we are currently in, and it is coming with the distribution of a vaccine. We have just a little further to go.

Let me be clear: All Canadians will have the opportunity to be vaccinated for free, but we must ensure that there is no political interference in the scientific process that is being undertaken by Health Canada researchers right now. We must ensure that all Canadians have the utmost faith in the vaccine that will ultimately become available.

That is why I very much take issue with the approach of opposition members, who are essentially demanding that politicians in this chamber decide on dates for the rollout of a vaccine. Perhaps the opposition is suggesting that we pressure Health Canada to move more quickly than it can in order to conduct its review, but I do not know. What I do know for sure is that for Canadians to have full confidence in the results, we need our independent scientists to do their work.

I could go on for hours about my deep respect for researchers and scientists. My father is a medical researcher at the University of Montreal. He has spent the last 45 years trying to find a cure for cancer and diabetes. I can tell the House that he would want politicians as far away from researchers as possible in order to allow the results of their work to be as sure as possible so we can be as confident as we can in the results of their research and work.

For the remainder of my time, I would like to describe the robust and very clear plan that our government has put in place to date so that Canadians can once again find hope in the coming months. Let me begin by discussing our approach to the acquisition of the vaccine.

We knew that the quickest way for Canadians to get access to a vaccine was for Canada to buy internationally from vaccine companies and secure quantities of those vaccines before other countries. That is exactly what we did. Our government has secured the best portfolio of vaccine candidates possible.

We have been hard at work developing a comprehensive vaccination plan, and we are working with seven different companies to make that happen. Here are the facts. Canada has agreements in place with seven of the world's leading vaccine candidates: Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Medicago, Novavax, Oxford and AstraZeneca. Those are the seven we have currently in our contract portfolio. This represents access to approximately 10 doses of the vaccine for each and every Canadian if all of these contract options are exercised. This is more than any other government around the world.

Our Health Canada scientists are currently evaluating four different vaccine candidates. Our Canadian Armed Forces are working right now and stand at the ready to distribute the vaccine as soon as one is approved.

None other than Major-General Dany Fortin, of the Canadian Armed Forces, a Quebecker who has the confidence of the entire country, was appointed to be in charge of the vaccine distribution effort, together with the Public Health Agency of Canada and, of course, provincial and territorial public health authorities. We have already purchased an enormous amount of the supplies we will need. For example, we have purchased 34 freezers, which brings the federal government's capacity to 33.5 million doses of ultra-frozen and frozen vaccines. That is on top of several tens of millions of syringes, needles, compresses and other supplies.

Now that I have gone through those facts and numbers, I will point out that the co-founder and chairman of Moderna recently stated that Canada is one of the very first countries to pre-order its vaccine, which has shown so much promise. We are guaranteed to receive a portion of the company's initial batch of vaccine doses, pending, of course, approvals by Health Canada.

The goal here is obviously to have as many options at hand as possible so that as soon as vaccines become available and are approved, Canadians will get safe, effective doses that will help us end this pandemic. We know, however, that biomanufacturing capacity has declined in Canada over the last number of years. That is why we have been rebuilding our capacity and our capability to produce new types of vaccines in the future right here at home.

This requires significant investments today. We have announced hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in, for example, the Quebec company Medicago, which has a potential Canadian vaccine candidate, and in the National Research Council's facilities in Montreal. This investment will ensure that we have a much more robust domestic biomanufacturing capacity in the future than exists at the moment.

When it comes to Canada's COVID-19 vaccine plan, we are ready with a diversified portfolio of vaccine candidates, which are undergoing regulatory review and approval processes as we speak. We have secured access to tens of millions of vaccine doses that, as we said earlier in this chamber and I will repeat again, should be arriving in early 2021. We are working with our partners in the provinces and territories and with our partners in first nations in order to ensure that those vaccines can be delivered to everybody in this country as quickly as possible.

The bottom line is that Canadians want a safe and reliable vaccine, and that is what the Government of Canada will secure. For this to work, we need to come together across party lines and all across our country to ensure that all Canadians have the utmost confidence to take the vaccine once it is ready. It is unity, not division, that we need now more than ever, as we enter the next critical phase of this exhausting marathon that is and has been the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Madam Speaker, what I find so frustrating from members of the government is that they use buzzwords like “secured access”, “should be arriving”, “robust portfolio” and “work together”. That is what we get for answers.

It is not complicated. We should not wrap ourselves in the approval process. The Liberals should say, “If the Moderna vaccine is approved on this date, we will have x number of doses delivered by this date.” These are not complicated questions. Their refusal to answer them tells us they do not have a plan.

Why can they not answer the simple question and say, “When this vaccine is approved, it will be rolled out on this date with this many doses”? It is not complicated.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I take issue with the word “buzzwords”. What I outlined in my speech were numerous facts and statistics on what our government has procured for Canadians. Once again, the member is accusing the government of saying that vaccines should be arriving in the first quarter of 2021, something we have repeated often. As I explained, it is our independent researchers who will decide when the vaccine is ready and when it will be safe for Canadians to receive.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. There is much to agree with in it, but when she says the goal of opposition members is to interfere with science, she is way off the mark.

What we are talking about is not interfering with science. We are talking about the government's decisions and its decision-making process to get the vaccines on order and get a distribution system in place. When I tell people in my riding that we are likely looking at having only 8% of Canadians vaccinated by April, they simply say that is not good enough.