Mr. Speaker, I rise today to request an emergency debate on the current situation regarding the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically to the new threat posed by mutations, known as variants. The spread of the novel coronavirus variants is cause for grave concern, if not alarm. We believe it constitutes an emergency in which Parliament should engage.
The variants have been primarily identified as being from the U.K., which is known as B.1.1.7; from South Africa, known as B.1.351; and from Brazil and Japan, known as P.1. The evidence as to whether these variants are more deadly than the original COVID-19 appears to be divided. However, medical reports from around the world consistently point to the variants as being significantly more transmissible.
With COVID-19 spreading more rapidly due to the variants, there is risk of exponential growth in cases of COVID-19, which may overwhelm our health care systems. There is also the risk that increased spread will lead to more mutations, which may be more deadly or vaccine-resistant.
As a nation, Canada has struggled with establishing a coordinated response to the pandemic. Green MPs are concerned that there have been moves to ease restrictions precisely at a time when federal health officials have recommended that we maintain or even increase measures in response to these new variants. Canada should be able to identify the jurisdictions that have had the greatest success and use those examples to inform winning coordinated strategies across the country. We believe there is an urgent need to debate whether now is the time to shift gears from bending a curve to going to zero cases, or as close to zero as possible.
We are entering more dangerous territory. Should the government increase warnings about the changing nature and risks due to the variants? Should the federal government increase the coordination of efforts among the provinces? An emergency debate would assist in identifying those options.