Debates of Jan. 26th, 2021

Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to speak quickly.

I am proud to support Bill C-224, which would authorize Quebeckers to file a single tax return.

Some people may be wondering what I am talking about. Quebeckers have to file two tax returns a year, as though filing a single tax return were not already hard enough for many Canadians. Quebec is the only province with a confusing system that requires two tax returns.

Conservatives are proud to support Quebec's desire to require only one tax return to be filed by Quebeckers. It is a reality in other parts of Canada that people only have to file one tax return, and for a lot of people, I think filing one tax return is quite enough.

The government member who spoke before me, in a desperate effort to justify the government's opposition to this concept, trotted out this old Liberal trope that centralization means efficiency, that the more the federal government does, the more efficient it is going to be and, by the way, let us also worry that there will be less work for federal employees, not seeming to notice the inherent contradiction in those arguments.

On the Conservative side, we believe there are many worthwhile things that we could have employees at Revenue Canada do. Perhaps the government could finally support a Conservative idea, which is to give CRA a duty of care when it comes to serving Canadians and maybe redeploy those employees just to have the additional time and flexibility to provide greater service and response and care to people who have questions and issues.

Really, it is just fundamentally, philosophically wrong that the Liberals always think that centralization is efficiency. On the Conservative side, we understand the value of subsidiarity, of having services delivered at the level closest to the people, that it is practical to do so. We believe in empowering provincial governments and municipal governments; respecting the role of families, of communities and of individuals; respecting individual rights and not thinking that the federal government taking more and more power for itself away from individuals, away from families and away from provincial and municipal governments is the way to go. Government is not always the solution, and bigger government, national government, is not always the solution when provincial governments and municipal governments are closer and more responsive to people.

I had many other comments to make, but I will simply say that I am proud to support this bill at this stage.

I look forward to the study that is going to take place at committee as we further work to refine it and to operationalize these principles of subsidiarity and respect for provincial governments that are a key part of what Conservatives stand for.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I am pleased to give the hon. member for Joliette his right of reply.

The hon. member has the floor for five minutes.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to wish you a happy new year and hope that we will turn the page on this pandemic.

I listened carefully and with interest to my colleagues' interventions on establishing a single tax return administered by Quebec. I will start by thanking my colleague from Montarville for his eloquent speech, and also my colleague from La Prairie. I also acknowledge the speeches made by my Conservative colleagues, who seem to be receptive to this bill. I thank them.

The same goes for my NDP colleagues. I listened carefully to the interventions of the members for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and New Westminster—Burnaby. I see that the NDP is open to the principle, but has concerns about protecting jobs. That is my concern as well, and I know that we will be able to improve this bill in committee to address this very legitimate concern. The bill was actually drafted with this issue in mind.

I was very disappointed to hear the Liberal Party members voicing their opposition to this bill, mostly because their arguments are not at all valid. For example, their contention that they plan to vote against the bill in order to save money because it would cost more to administer a single tax return than it would to administer two does not make any sense.

What I understand from their spurious arguments is that the government and the Liberal Party are against the bill but for reasons that they do not want to discuss. That much is clear.

If we were not in the midst of a pandemic, I would try to have an informal discussion with the Minister of Finance to find out the real reasons why the Liberals are opposing this bill. I would like to remind members that this bill on a single tax return administered by Quebec is widely supported.

What is more, this is not a major undertaking but rather a simple improvement to our way of doing things intended to make life easier for individuals and businesses in Quebec. Under this bill, they would have to file only one tax return instead of two and answer to only one agency instead of two. The bill would also eliminate the duplication of effort. That is all.

I would like to point out once again that there is consensus in Quebec on this legislation. The National Assembly has expressed its unanimous support for it. Premier Legault has formally requested it from the Prime Minister of this federal government. An overwhelming majority of Quebeckers support this bill. All of corporate Quebec supports this idea, including chambers of commerce, the Conseil du patronat du Québec, independent business owners, the Quebec CPA Order and many unions.

The bill is good for Quebeckers. According to the IRAI, it will save $425 million a year. Individuals will save $39 million, businesses will save $99 million, and $287 million would be saved by eliminating bureaucratic duplication. This bill will allow Quebec to crack down on tax havens more effectively on its own, rather than relying on Ottawa, which is asleep at the wheel.

This is a pretty simple bill. There is nothing revolutionary about it. It respects the Quebec nation and saves everyone time and money.

I would also remind the House that, 20 years ago, after years of negotiations, Quebec City managed to come to an agreement with Ottawa on the collection of sales tax from businesses. Rather than Ottawa collecting the GST and Quebec collecting the QST, Revenu Québec collects both the GST and the QST at the same time. This means far less paperwork for businesses and generates significant savings. Revenu Québec is present in every region of Quebec, and this system works well. It has been successful, and no one complains about it.

I would therefore ask my colleagues to support this bill for a single tax return administered by Quebec, to finish what was started 20 years ago.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion.

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

The hon. member for Joliette.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded vote.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to order made Monday, January 25, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, January 27, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

COVID-19 Vaccine

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The House will now proceed to the consideration of a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the COVID-19 vaccine.

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

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I will be dividing my time with the shadow minister for health, the MP for Calgary Nose Hill.

This is an emergency debate so that Parliament can be seized with the lack of vaccines and the lack of an effective and consistent rollout of vaccines in a pandemic.

Today, the Prime Minister described the situation as things being in “good shape”, which is his quote, for vaccine deliveries in Canada. He thinks we are in good shape while COVID cases are setting record numbers in a week that Canada is receiving zero vaccines. He thinks we are in good shape when Canadians will only receive 8% of the vaccines his government promised Canadians just last month, 8%.

If this is what the Prime Minister considers “good shape”, what does he consider terrible shape, 3%? Canadians need a prime minister who understands that things are not okay, that Canadians are not okay.

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the first presumptive COVID-19 case in Canada, and since then, almost 20,000 Canadian families have had to face the loss of a loved one due to COVID-19

Today the Prime Minister is telling us that everything is fine, but I refuse to bury my head in the sand like him. We have to be honest with Canadians: Everything is not fine.

Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of Canada's first presumed case of COVID-19. Since then, 10% of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs, and thousands of businesses have closed their doors.

We must secure vaccines; we must secure jobs and we must act now to secure our future.

What has the Liberal government done to improve its slow and confused approach? We want to see the government succeed in securing vaccines for Canada because vaccines let us turn the corner on COVID-19, but in reality, time and time again the government lets Canadians down.

Last spring, we saw countries hoarding PPE when faced with a global crisis. Planes full of supplies were diverted or never arrived. We saw countries stop the export of PPE from their countries. The Deputy Prime Minister called trying to secure medical supplies during the first wave the “wild west”, so are we really surprised to see the same thing happening with vaccines? It seems that time and time again the Prime Minister and the Liberal government never learned a single lesson from the first wave of this pandemic.

There is no plan B because there was never an effective plan A for the distribution and securing of vaccines for Canadians. Now we are learning the European Union is stopping vaccines before they leave its borders. All of our present vaccine supply comes from Europe, so where does that leave Canadians?

This week, in the midst of a raging pandemic, we are receiving zero vaccines. Is that an indication of where we are going in the next few weeks? The health and prosperity of Canadians is at stake. The bottom line is we need vaccines to secure our future, rebuild our economy and get Canadians back to work.

While Canada's Conservatives are committed to protecting jobs, the Liberals appear to be holding meetings to save their own. With the return of the House, our team will relentlessly focus on the COVID-19 recovery, jobs, rising wages and getting Canada's economy and finances back on track.

The Liberals, by contrast, view this pandemic as an opportunity to experiment on risky, ideologically driven and unproven schemes involving the Canadian economy. They want to reimagine the economy, which means they will decide which Canadians get jobs and what sectors they target for recovery.

This Liberal "Ottawa knows best" approach is a distraction from getting vaccines into the arms of Canadians and getting Canadians back to work in every sector and in every region of this country.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Liberals decided to send some of our medical equipment to China. We ended up having to buy that same equipment at exorbitant prices.

Now the Prime Minister wants to play with our economy instead of finding a stable solution for vaccines. This is not the time to experiment with our economy. This is not the time to push an ideology. The only goal should be acquiring vaccines so we can get our economy up and running again. The government needs to work with the opposition parties to improve distribution.

Canadians are also feeling a range of pandemic side effects. We are all seeing this in our ridings. Some two-fifths of Canadian workers are worried about the mental health and wellness of one of their colleagues. Hundreds of thousands of surgeries across this country have been delayed. Millions of people have lost their jobs. Millions of people have not been able to see their family members, in some cases for months.

The pandemic is having numerous side effects. Mental health problems are growing every day. Families are being left to educate their children at home.

The ability to get our country to rebuild the economy and get Canadians back to work in every sector, in every part of the country, so that we can pull together and bounce back from COVID, hinges on a smooth and stable rollout of vaccines. As I have said several times this week, the opposition Conservatives want the government to succeed. We want to see these vaccines. Our nation literally depends upon it for turning the corner in this pandemic.

In October, the opposition passed a sweeping motion to direct the health committee to study the COVID-19 pandemic. That included information about the government's vaccine rollout and key related documents. It became clear then, with each week and with more documents, that the government had no real plan to speak of. It was late to the game on vaccine procurement.

The Liberals then took a victory lap when they announced deals with Pfizer and a few other companies. They boasted about their portfolio of vaccines over the next several years. However, Canadians do not have several years to wait. They need vaccines now, just as other countries are getting. At the very least, Canadians need the knowledge of when they can anticipate receiving a vaccine and life starting to return to normal.

Even the government's own MPs are confused. Last night the member for Hull—Aylmer said the government was counting on vaccines yet to be approved to reach its own numbers. If Liberal MPs do not know what the plan is, how are Canadians supposed to know what the plan is?

The key to getting our country back on track is vaccines. We need a reliable government. The truth is that there is now a shortage of vaccines. The Prime Minister talks a good game, but the reality is that we will not receive any Pfizer vaccines this week.

Premiers report they are running out of vaccines. This week Canadians know we are receiving zero vaccines. Next week, according to a revised schedule, Canada will receive less than a third of what the government said we would have just a month ago. The following week, the schedule uses the term “unknown”. Unknown is proof there is no plan.

Between now and the middle of February, Canada was supposed to receive a million vaccines. Instead, we will be getting 8% of that. Perhaps the Prime Minister thinks that 8% is acceptable. The Conservatives do not.

We need to secure our future. We need better from a slow and always confused government, and a Prime Minister who chose to partner with a Chinese firm to develop a vaccine. It was a reckless partnership that broke down and resulted in us being months behind our peer countries.

The Liberals did not move quickly. They partnered with the wrong country. They lost the chance to manufacture the vaccine here at home. Again, the Liberals learned nothing from the first wave of the pandemic. The Prime Minister and his deputy rode us back into the Wild West, where vaccines can be withheld and Canada is falling behind. We need to do better.

We want our government to succeed, but the Prime Minister is letting us down.

We need to work together.

It is imperative we work together to get the vaccines we need to get this country moving and get people working to secure our future. Canadians deserve leadership. They deserve a plan tonight. We will work together to push for just that.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for the last 10 minutes I have heard the Leader of the Opposition go on and on about everything that this government has done wrong. Meanwhile, he brings forward a motion to have this debate tonight and keeps repeating the phrase, “We want them to succeed.” He concludes his speech by saying he is here to work with us, but he offered absolutely nothing in the 10 minutes he spoke, other than to trash-talk this government.

If I can use his words, maybe it is time that we work collaboratively. Let us get to work.

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

Mr. Speaker, when the pandemic started, I stopped my leadership campaign. I spoke directly to three top ministers of the Crown and volunteered to work in a union cabinet to get this country moving to save our country. My experience in the military and the private sector working on the approval of health care products would have meant that we would have had the regulatory process to approve the mRNA vaccine. We were eight months behind the developed world. The member for Kingston and the Islands, which has Queen's University, an incredible medical school, should go and tour it and learn some more about the capacity of our own country.

This year marks 100 years since insulin was discovered by Banting and Best. We can be the best, but 8% is unacceptable. It is failure. The government was late on the border, late on tests, late on vaccines and opaque on any details about the pandemic. We can and must do better, so we can turn the corner and secure our future. We will give that to Canadians.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill for requesting this emergency debate. I also welcome the speech of the Leader of the Opposition with whom I share many of the ideas that have been mentioned.

The Liberals have obviously set the table for an election. In this context, the major element that will determine whether there will be an election or not, the crux of the matter, is the vaccine. The vaccine is produced neither in Quebec nor in Canada, and yet, just 15 years ago, the pharmaceutical industry was one of the flagships of Quebec's economy. This is no longer the case since a Paul Martin government suspended technology partnerships Canada, the risk-sharing investment program, and Stephen Harper's Conservatives abolished it.

Should there be an election this year, will the Leader of the Opposition commit to re-creating this program so that the pharmaceutical industry can once again become one of Quebec's flagships and ensure domestic vaccine production?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question.

We are in the middle of a pandemic and there is no plan for vaccines and no plan for rapid testing. We do not have the necessary information to ensure the well-being of Canadians. It is a shame, because the government is getting ready for an election, but not for distributing vaccines. We must have vaccines to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to get the economy up and running after the pandemic. I am proud of our researchers in Quebec. I have had meetings with people from Medicago, an extraordinary company from the greater Quebec City area. We have so many opportunities here at home to develop a plan to produce vaccines and rapid tests.

Unfortunately, we have a government that is dragging its heels and has no plan. Canadians and Quebeckers deserve better.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the leader of the official opposition for moving this motion for an emergency debate. As he knows, I did as well, and it is, I think, a very timely and important debate.

The hon. member speaks about a plan. One of the biggest deficiencies Canada is facing right now is that we do not have the ability to manufacture a single vaccine. The Liberal government failed to negotiate with a single one of the seven vaccine manufacturers the right for Canada to manufacture vaccines domestically.

As the Prime Minister himself has acknowledged, obviously a country that has the ability to manufacture will prioritize its own citizens. We are seeing that now with the EU and the United States prioritizing their citizens. Unfortunately, it was a Conservative government under Brian Mulroney that sold off Connaught Labs, which was a Crown corporation owned by the federal government.

My question for my hon. colleague is this: Does he agree that the federal government should establish a public drug manufacturer to ensure that Canada is never again caught without the capacity to manufacture critical vaccines and medicines for Canadians right here at home?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for working with my colleague and our team on this debate tonight, and for pushing for better. I think all parties here tonight, other than the government, and I note that there is no one here from the government side right now, deserve better in a pandemic. We want better results, as 8% is not sufficient.

It is clear the government did not negotiate the ability to manufacture a vaccine in Canada. Why did it make the decision to partner with a Chinese, state-owned pharmaceutical, CanSino? That partnership fell apart within months. In fact, within days of the Prime Minister making the announcement, it knew it had failed. Recent documents have shown that. That is one of several reasons why we are five months behind in proper negotiations with other companies.

We have talked about bringing in and securing innovation in Canada. We have a proud history of that. We do not believe it should be done by government. There is less innovation in government. However, we have to have the environment to secure PPE, essential medicines and the tools needed to open our economy.

That has to be our goal, to get Canadians working. The vaccines will be the first step in rounding the corner to a stronger future. That is why we brought this debate tonight. That is why we are demanding better from the government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his leadership in bringing forward a debate that concerns all Canadians. All Canadians watching tonight are unified and should be unified in their concern about the topic we are looking at. For those who are watching, I want to break down exactly what the problem we are facing is and what the Prime Minister and the Liberals need to do to fix it.

Tonight we are trying to get answers on the COVID-19 vaccine. Canada has a huge vaccine shortage. This week, Canada got zero doses of vaccine, none, while countries around the world like Romania, the Czech Republic, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and virtually every other country that had a contract got doses of the vaccine this week. That is great for their citizens, but what about Canadians?

The Leader of the Opposition did a great job empathizing with every Canadian watching this debate tonight. Those who are watching are probably sitting at home feeling the mental health effects of not seeing loved ones, losing a job or losing somebody to COVID. It has been a year so far and we need to move on. I am sure nobody watching this tonight wants to keep hearing about more lockdowns and more removals of civil liberties. People who are watching this debate want us to get it right. They want to see solutions from the government.

A year into this worldwide crisis, things have been developed to get us out of the crisis, such as rapid tests, therapeutics and vaccines. The problem with Canada is that, as a democracy, a G7 country and a leader in the world, we have not been provided with those tools by the government. Therefore, it is incumbent upon every person in this place to ask why and to get those answers. We should not be sitting in lockdown and talking about more curfews and more restrictions. We should not be asking Canadians to sacrifice more. We should be asking our government to do better. That is what the Leader of the Opposition did tonight.

I want to break down exactly what the problem is, how we got here and what we need to do to move forward.

This is my suspicion. About a year ago when all of this started, I really do not think the federal Liberals or the Prime Minister took the pandemic seriously. We saw that because they did not lock down the Canadian borders. They did not want to cancel flights from China. They said there was no person-to-person transmission of COVID. They were relying on data that was not coming from Canadian sources. They were doing a lot of things to downplay this issue. Let us talk about what that means in the context of a vaccine.

We know that the federal Liberals at that time when they did not think it was a big deal, and here we should remember that Canada did not close our borders until middle to late March last year, signed a deal with a company called CanSino. This company has ties with the Chinese government. They put all of our eggs, all of Canada's hopes that we are now relying on to get out of lockdown, in that basket. I do not know why. We do not have a lot of clarity on that. The Leader of the Opposition, I, and all of my colleagues have been fighting for answers on that. I think they were working on scientific diplomacy with this company, and not actually getting Canadians vaccines.

What does this mean? Because they were working with this company, and I do not have any evidence to the contrary because we have not been provided with contract details to refute this, we wanted the government to succeed, but because it put all of its eggs in this one basket, it failed. The Chinese government would not roll the dice.

We did not come to the table. The Prime Minister and his cabinet did not get Canada to the party. We were late to the vaccine negotiating party with the companies that were producing vaccines that would work, like Pfizer and Moderna. We are seeing these plane loads of vaccines coming in, giving hope to countries like Brazil and the United States, but not here. That is because our government did not come to the table.

What have we been trying to do to address this issue? We have been trying to get information, because with information we can create solutions. If we do not have information, if the Canadian public, those who are watching, do not have information, we cannot create solutions. Therefore, we need to know why the government started negotiating those contracts so late. Why? What did it actually negotiate?

Pfizer, within a year, created this amazing product that could stop the pandemic in its tracks. Why is it that other countries this week are getting vaccines, but we are not here in Canada? We need to know that. Why is that? There have to be reasons and those reasons lie in those contracts.

Because Conservatives have been trying to drive to solutions, want Canada to get vaccines and want the government to be successful, we tried to pass a motion in the House for the government to release some of those details and be transparent with Canadians. What did it do? It put forward a minister who said that we are not going to get any vaccines if those details are released. It is politics at its worst at a time when we need to come together. Information means answers, information means solutions, information means vaccines, information means an end to lockdowns.

What has disappointed me is that in the last few weeks we have seen the government do something that no government should do in a situation like this, which is point fingers. The federal government said that it is the provincial governments' fault, but provincial governments cannot deliver vaccines they do not have and it is the Prime Minister's job to get us those vaccines. The federal government even said that it was the drug manufacturing company's fault. Maybe it is, but we do not know because the government will not release the details of those contracts. Even a lot of media today are asking why it is not releasing those details.

Countries around the world that are facing production delays are starting to put forward the details of their contracts, saying that they are going to fight for the remedies they have in those contracts, the recourse they have when things go awry with companies, so that their citizens have a tool to move forward, but the federal Liberals and the Prime Minister have not been doing that. We do not know.

To move forward, the first thing the government needs to do is make those details public so that provincial governments of all political stripe can start planning for the delivery of these vaccines, so that when provincial governments talk about ending lockdowns and ask about the variants, they have some hope or some information on these variants. That is what the Conservatives are fighting for: we are fighting for that information, to start. We are doing that at committee meetings by compelling ministers to appear, and this is happening with all of the opposition parties. We are working together on this because we understand that this is not about politics; this is about getting answers.

Tonight, this debate is about holding the federal government's feet to the fire and telling it to come clean so we can move forward. There are so many other things. Last night, I was on national television with a senior Liberal MP, who was put forward by the Prime Minister's Office to talk about vaccines and these issues. He started talking about how a lot of the federal government's plans were banking on vaccines that had not been approved by the government yet. Information means vaccines, information means a way out of lockdowns, it means hope and the government could not tell us what the approval process was for these vaccines or how many doses it ordered. That needs to stop; it really does. We need to have those answers. We need to understand what happened so that we can move forward.

For those watching tonight, I do not care if they vote Conservative or not. We are all Canadians and we need every Canadian to help us demand answers on this. That is the only way we are going to move forward and what my party wants. There are a lot of stories. I encourage people watching to ask themselves this one real question: When could I get a vaccine if I wanted one? Right now, the Prime Minister cannot answer that question. That is a big problem because it means that we do not have hope as a country while other countries do. We need to do better. It starts with that information and with demanding more.

As the Leader of the Opposition said, it is about doing better to provide hope and compassion for all Canadians. On this side of the aisle, that is what we are fighting for.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill for moving this motion this evening. I would also like to thank her for her fighting spirit.

The problem we have today is that we cannot get vaccines. I also think that the problem is that we cannot produce vaccines. Currently in Canada, we are not producing any.

What are the hon. member's thoughts on how we got into this situation today? What could we do to ensure that Canadian industries end up in a strong domestic economy? How can we ensure that Quebec or the rest of Canada can produce vaccines like we used to and have a pharmaceutical industry that makes us self-sufficient and independent from what is being produced elsewhere in the world?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague because this is a great show of what the Canadian Parliament can do. We have opposition parties working together to get answers and I know my colleague has been working hard on the industry committee to get answers on that very topic. I know that in coming days at the industry committee, we are going to be having the Minister of Health to answer that very question.

Why did the federal Liberal government not do more to allow Canadians to have hope from manufacturing vaccines here at home? Why is that the case after spending $400 billion. That is a lot money: they could have built a gold-plated rocket ship to the moon with that, yet they did not really do anything on the vaccine manufacturing front. Those Liberals are going to face some tough questions from members of all parties next week.

I thank the member for his work and look forward to fighting hard with him next week to get vaccines for Canadians from coast to coast.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is really quite a privilege to work with my hon. colleague at the health committee. Given that the current disruption in supply will further delay vaccinations of Canada's highest-risk populations, does the member opposite agree with me and my New Democrat colleagues that additional public health measures such as paid sick days, national standards for long-term care, frequent rapid testing at high-risk workplaces, stricter travel restrictions and quarantine requirements are needed now to interrupt the rapid growth of COVID-19 and the spread of the highly contagious variants that are now appearing in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing this to light. If I could summarize what he just talked about, it is the fact that COVID has really created and exacerbated inequalities in the Canadian system. Not everybody can afford to take two weeks off of work when their kid is sick and has the sniffles to wait for 10 days for test results. It is just something that people cannot afford.

People who have loved ones abroad cannot afford two weeks in a COVID detention centre. The government has been so far behind on these issues, and yet we have the tools to address these things. There are things like rapid testing and the vaccines that Canada is not getting right now, and better therapeutics. My colleague has been at the forefront of addressing some of these issues. It has been very frustrating not be getting answers from the federal government on these fronts, but absolutely, we need to be fighting the inequalities and injustices that have been created by COVID through techniques that we have known and talked about since March last year. We need leadership from the government and if it is not going to give it to us, the opposition parties will.

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

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated the speech by the member for Calgary Nose Hill, and also that of the leader of the official opposition.

Let us remember that, last fall, on this side of the House, we bombarded and hounded the government with 126 questions about the importance of vaccination. We even commended and applauded the appointment of Major-General Fortin to coordinate the various activities.

However, last December, here in the House, we also watched the Prime Minister rise and tell us that they deliver. Today, we have no vaccines.

Could the member tell us why, in her view, the Prime Minister ensured that he would have vaccines for a big Christmas gift, but did not ensure that we would have anything after that?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague not only for his leadership but also for being such a strong, authentic voice for the people of Quebec. I hear over and over again about how Quebeckers right now are struggling with the curfews and their mental health, and this is because their provincial government and their premier do not have the tools they need to get through it, such as rapid tests and vaccines. I feel for the provincial government. I really want to thank my colleague, the House leader, our chief quarterback here as the opposition in the House of Commons, for championing these issues on behalf of the people of Quebec, getting the vaccine, getting hope, getting a way out, and that is what we need to do. That is why we are having the debate tonight.

I thank my colleague and I certainly hope he keeps his efforts up.

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have endured so much since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Extended families have been separated, unable to see each other or travel because of the stringent restrictions that we need to follow to curb the spread of the virus. Many are feeling isolated and alone.

While we have seen some positive signs over the last few days that the spread is slowing, these past few months have been hard ones as we have experienced a resurgence of the virus. The pandemic continues to take a toll on all aspects of our lives, including our economic well-being and our mental and physical health. Many are unable to work, and of course many of our small business owners have had to close their doors while we grapple with bringing case numbers under control.

Our government has taken numerous measures to ensure that Canadians are supported in their time of need, and with that support we are laying the foundations for an economic recovery, one that will have Canada bounce back stronger than ever. I know that members agree that we need to do everything we can to get our economy back on track, and we all want that recovery to happen as soon as possible.

However, most importantly, we need to keep Canadians safe now. Since the first case was reported in Canada, nearly 20,000 Canadians have died from the virus. That number is a stark reminder of what is at stake here as we hold this emergency debate. Each one of those deaths represents a grieving family that has lost a loved one, be it a grandparent, a parent, a sibling or even a child, in so many cases not even having the opportunity to say goodbye. It is true that Canadians are tired of restrictions and limiting their contacts, but most are doing their part because they know the cost. They have been doing their part since day one, and our government has been doing everything it can to get us all through this unprecedented crisis.

Since the beginning, my department of Public Services and Procurement Canada has worked diligently to procure the necessary supplies to support our front-line health care workers. We worked non-stop to procure vital PPE and other medical supplies for front-line health care workers. This work was not easy. Global demand meant that early and urgent supplies largely came from overseas. However, Canadian industries stepped up, building domestic capacity so that many of our procurements are now Canadian-based. With over 2.5 billion individual pieces of PPE and medical equipment secured, we are increasingly returning to competitive procurements wherever feasible.

In this same competitive environment, we have also made great strides in purchasing much-needed COVID tests, including rapid testing, an important element for Canada's ongoing response. To date, we have delivered more than 15 million rapid tests for use by our provincial and territorial partners. Ultimately, though, we know that the only way out of this pandemic is by getting vaccines to Canadians as quickly as possible.

Our approach to procuring vaccines has been deliberate, strategic and comprehensive. At the outset of the pandemic, when pharmaceutical companies took on the challenge, none of us knew if it was even possible to develop a vaccine against COVID-19.

Once vaccine candidates began to show promise, we knew that we would be dealing with a highly complex and competitive global market. Scientists, manufacturers and regulators around the globe would be working under intense pressure to develop, produce and carefully assess safe and effective vaccines. Not unlike our experience in procuring medical supplies and equipment, we knew that we would be operating in a highly competitive marketplace. To say the least, the risks were high and the unknowns were many. For that very reason, starting last summer, we pursued a diversified vaccine procurement approach, one that allowed us to secure doses as early as possible by signing agreements in principle while the details for the final purchase agreement were being negotiated.

At the same time, we were proactive in acquiring critical goods and services such as needles, syringes and more in order to support the provinces and territories when it came time to administer the vaccines.

As a government, our decisions and our response to the pandemic have always been based on the best and most recent scientific understanding of the virus. Our work here was guided by our COVID-19 vaccine task force, the creation of which was a key element of our government's vaccine strategy early on. The task force is composed of experts and industry leaders, providing scientific and technical advice.

On the advice of this task force, we began signing agreements with potential suppliers as early as last July on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada. In all, our government managed to gain access to nearly 400 million doses of potential vaccines from seven different manufacturers, resulting in one of the most robust and diverse portfolios of COVID-19 vaccines in the world. Our goal was to solidify early access to a highly diversified portfolio so that Canada would be well positioned to receive doses quickly once they were deemed safe and effective.

In December, our approach began to pay off when Health Canada was close to authorizing the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. We were similarly able to negotiate the arrival of doses earlier than scheduled. Similarly, Canada was successful in negotiating the delivery of the Moderna vaccine beginning in December, which proved important for distribution to indigenous and remote communities, given Moderna's less stringent refrigeration requirements.

Through our agreements with Pfizer and Moderna, we were guaranteed 20 million doses of each vaccine, with options to purchase more. Soon afterward, the vaccines began to roll in and, thanks to the flexibility of those agreements, we were able to exercise options for 20 million more doses of each. Because we laid the groundwork, because we took action as early a possible and because we took a strategic approach, one that would ensure the best outcome for Canadians, we have secured 80 million doses of authorized vaccines under contract to be delivered this year. I would add that when candidates from the five remaining manufacturers we have under agreement receive Health Canada approval, we will take a similar course of action, with a view to getting vaccines into this country as soon as possible.

As for timing, the shipments of Moderna and Pfizer we have secured are already bringing relief to communities across Canada, with vulnerable people in long-term care homes and health care workers being vaccinated. So far, we have received and distributed a total of 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to the provinces and territories. It has been truly a team Canada approach; thanks to the work of the provinces and territories, vaccines are now getting into the arms of Canadians.

Just as I have committed to being transparent and up front with Canadians about our progress on vaccines, I am also committed to being up front with Canadians when issues arise. As I have said, we have always known that we would be operating in a highly complex and intensely competitive environment. We knew that vaccine manufacturers would need to ramp up production at unprecedented speeds as they fielded orders from around the world. That is why we pursued a number of agreements early on in the pandemic when the vaccines began to show promise so that Canada would have more security through a diversified portfolio.

When Pfizer informed us that there would be a temporary delay in its shipments, starting this week, I was disappointed and frustrated, to say the least. My team has been in direct communication with Pfizer, as have I, to make sure that Pfizer meets its commitments.

I can also assure the House that I have personally been in contact with Pfizer almost daily to firmly reiterate the importance, for Canada, of returning to our regular delivery schedule as soon as possible. It is important to note that the temporary delay in deliveries is so that Pfizer can increase its production capacity. We can expect a ramp-up of deliveries of the vaccine following this disruption.

It is also important to note that Canada is far from the only country impacted by the disruption. All countries supplied by Pfizer's European facility have had their shipments impacted. Pfizer has confirmed that while the next few weeks will be challenging when it comes to deliveries, hundreds of thousands of doses will be delivered the week of February 15 and in the weeks that follow. It has also confirmed that we will receive all four million doses owed to us in the first quarter of this year, on time, before March 31.

Between Moderna and Pfizer, we still anticipate receiving six million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by the end of March. After that, we can expect a significant acceleration in the delivery of authorized vaccines. From April to June, we expect that at least 20 million doses of vaccines will be available to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Between Pfizer and Moderna alone, we remain on track to have enough vaccines by the end of September for everyone in Canada who is eligible and wants to be vaccinated. We also continue to follow developments concerning vaccine candidates from the five other manufacturers with whom we have agreements: Sanofi-GSK, Medicago, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. I can tell Canadians that we will continue to pursue even more doses through these agreements as more vaccine candidates are deemed safe and effective, with a view to getting them into Canada as quickly as possible.

The toll that COVID-19 has taken on our citizens and our economy has been devastating. I have to reiterate that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We are on our way to getting through this. The vaccines are here and more will arrive very soon. In working with the provinces and territories, we have established supply chains to get vaccines into the arms of Canadians as soon as possible.

The immunization effort will be one of the greatest undertakings in this country's history, but it will not happen overnight and there will be bumps along the way. I will always be transparent and upfront with Canadians about the status of our efforts, and while the global market is complex and can be unstable at times, the fact is that now we can see a way out of this pandemic.

We are in the final stretch, with vaccines being rolled out. As the Prime Minister reported to Canadians on Friday, Canada is now approaching three-quarters of a million vaccine doses administered across the country. The average number of doses administered daily is now almost four times what it was just three weeks ago.

There is more work to do, and we must remain vigilant. For Canadians, that means continuing to follow guidelines from our local health officials, doing everything we can to limit our contacts and once again flatten the curve. It will not be easy, but our actions quite literally will be saving lives over these winter months. For our government and for all members of the House, it means continuing to support Canadians in their time of need. As we returned to the House yesterday, it marked one year since the first recorded case of COVID-19 in Canada.

Not many of us here could have anticipated what the past year would look like, but we found a way to come together in the face of such adversity. Our work is by no means done. Yes, the vaccines are arriving and Canadians are doing their part to flatten the curve until we can inoculate everyone who wants a vaccine.

Thanks to our efforts so far, through our collaboration in the House, working with provinces and territories and because of our team Canada approach, we are making progress. By this time next year, my sincere hope is that the pandemic will be behind us once and for all.

While I appreciate the fact that this emergency debate is addressing the most pressing issue facing our nation, now is not the time for scoring political points. The fact is that we are getting the job done when it comes to vaccines, and despite bumps in the road we are on track to meet our goal of inoculations being available to every eligible Canadian who wants one by September. I know that if we can keep working for Canadians together, we will get through this and we will make our hopes a reality.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have a big problem in Canada. We did not get any vaccines from Pfizer this week. Italy is pondering suing Pfizer related to production delays, which means that it has some sort of recourse negotiated in its contract and that the government of Italy would have negotiated some sort of clause that allowed it to do this.

I am wondering why the federal government has been so quiet. If it negotiated this, why has it not been out on it? What recourse did the federal government negotiate with Pfizer, and why has it not decided to pursue it?

[Anita Anand, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I should add that, as a matter of contract law, any contractual party can sue another party if there is a breach of contract, but the reality is that we believe that the most effective course of action is to continue to negotiate with our suppliers to ensure that they are obliging and abiding by their contractual commitments. That is exactly what we have been able to secure from Pfizer: a commitment that it will deliver its contractual commitment of four million vaccine doses prior to the end of Q1. That has proved to be an effective strategy thus far.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister mentioned that decisions had to be made quickly and at the last minute.

Speaking of last minute, on January 19 we learned that Pfizer was going to upgrade its Belgian facility, thus giving rise to the current situation. Upgrades are planned: There are materials and technology to be purchased. Why were we not made aware of this upgrade until January 19? When did the government learn about it?