Debates of Feb. 22nd, 2021

Public Services and Procurement

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, “For the next few months, we're not going to have a lot of people vaccinated. That's just a fact.” Who said that? Dr. Tam said it last Friday. That is because even if the Prime Minister's projections for April are reached, we will only have 8% of Canadians vaccinated.

Public health officers across the country are warning about a third wave, and new variants pose a new threat. Why has the Prime Minister's massive vaccine failure left Canadians so vulnerable to continued lockdowns and a third wave of COVID-19?

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

Mr. Speaker, our vaccine procurement strategy is on track for the delivery of six million vaccines prior to the end of March, a cumulative total of 29 million prior to the end of June and 84 million vaccines prior to the end of September of approved suppliers alone. We may have additional vaccines coming online, and all Canadians who wish to be vaccinated prior to the end of September will have access to a vaccine.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we are receiving 82,000 fewer does of Moderna than we expected to get this week. That is not a victory. That is 41,000 more Canadians who will be stuck waiting for a vaccine because of the Prime Minister's failure to make smart decisions early on when it came to the vaccine. We need to vaccinate 300,000 Canadians a day in order to meet the September deadline.

Now, as we speak, the U.S. is vaccinating 1.7 million people per day, so we know it can be done. Where is the Liberals' plan, one that does not change by the moment, to get 300,000 Canadians vaccinated each and every day?

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

Mr. Speaker, this plan does not change by the moment. This plan has been in place for many months.

I am happy to announce to the House of Commons today that we will be receiving half a million-plus vaccines in this country just this week alone. We are on a very steep ramp-up toward millions and millions of vaccines coming into this country, and I hope that all Canadians, including all members of the House, will work together to make sure we are executing a team Canada approach.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we really hope that happens, because as of this morning, Canada is 59th in the world in vaccine administration per capita. The United States has inoculated 63 million people and the U.K. 18 million. Israel has 83% of its population vaccinated, while the government has a measly target that is only going to see 8% of Canadians vaccinated by April.

If 8% and 59th is not good enough for the Israelis, the Brits or the Americans, why in the world does the Prime Minister think it is good enough for Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, I will mention again that we have a plan and we are executing that plan: six million vaccines prior to the end of March, 29 million vaccines prior to the end of June and 84 million vaccines of approved suppliers alone prior to the end of September.

As I said, additional vaccines, from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, may come online during this time with approval from Health Canada, and that will mean additional vaccines for this country.

Foreign Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, since 2014, the Uighur Muslim minority in China have been trapped in a nightmare.

Two million people have been sent to concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands of people have disappeared. Women are assaulted, raped and sterilized. Some twenty religious sites have been destroyed.

It is clear to us that this is a genocide. Less than an hour from now we will vote in the House on this issue.

Will the Prime Minister have the courage to act like a head of state, take a stand and vote on this issue?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, as we have said repeatedly, we are greatly concerned by the allegations and reports concerning the treatment of the Uighur people and other Turkic Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region.

We made that clear to the Chinese government, and we demanded that they allow experts in to survey the situation. We are taking the allegations of genocide very seriously, and we are working with our international partners on this extremely important issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately for Canadians, the government is missing in action again.

In this crucial situation, we cannot merely talk about allegations, we need to take a stand.

The United States took a stand. The two key people in the Biden administration took a stand. They are not afraid to use the word “genocide”.

I will say it again, we will be voting on this issue in less than an hour.

Will the Prime Minister of all Canadians act like a head of state, take a stand and denounce the genocide?

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for having asked essentially the same question again.

We have made our concerns about the reports and allegations regarding the treatment of the Uighur people and other minorities in the Xinjiang region very clear to the Chinese government.

We have also taken measures concerning the production of goods in the labour camps. The Government of Canada is taking these allegations very seriously. We will continue to work with our international partners on this issue.

Health

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the best way to avoid problems when returning from a trip is not to travel at all, but the government's hotel quarantine program plumbs new depths of incompetence. It is the Phoenix system all over again. People call a government call centre and are told the wait will be three hours. They wait and at the end of three hours the call is disconnected. Some people have had to wait 25 hours to get a room. It is a phone line.

What is the government doing?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, every step of the way, we have protected Canadians from the importation of COVID-19 at the borders. Adding the additional layer of testing at the borders, with quarantine, while we wait to receive the results of those tests is an additional step to understand the role of variants of concern and how the virus is shifting and changing and how it will impact our success.

I want to thank Canadians for their continued hard work, and remind Canadians that now is not the time to travel internationally.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have known about the British variant of COVID-19 since mid-December. There were two ways to prevent it from coming here. The first was to quickly vaccinate the population, which has been a failure on the part of this government. The second was to impose mandatory quarantine on travellers arriving here. The government waited two months and ended up bungling things every step of the way. As a result, the British variant is now in our primary schools in Quebec. We can only hope that the lockdown measures will be effective.

Does the government realize that the public in lockdown is paying the price for its repeated mistakes?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, every step of the way, we have been monitoring this virus as it changes and taking appropriate steps as necessary at the border to strengthen our processes. I will remind the member that we have had a mandatory 14-day quarantine for quite some time now. In fact, we want to thank provinces and territories for the hard work they have been doing with us to ensure the enforcement of that quarantine.

Now, there is more that we can do. We know that fighting COVID-19 is an all-hands-on-deck endeavour and we will continue to be there for provinces and territories as they fight COVID-19, including by providing tools like vaccination.

Indigenous Affairs

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister talks a lot about how the government's relationship with indigenous peoples is the most important one. The Liberals talk about it during elections, they talk about it after they are elected, and they talked about it when they introduced legislation on UNDRIP, Bill C-15. However, that bill was introduced three months ago and we have only had two hours of debate, with no further debate scheduled. What is going on? It is almost like the Liberals do not want this bill to pass. If this relationship is really the government's most important one, when will the Liberals stop talking and get to work proving their words?

[David Lametti, Liberal, Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, our government remains firmly committed to implementing Bill C-15, which would ensure that indigenous rights are considered when reviewing and updating federal laws that affect those rights. At core, this is a human rights issue. It is about protecting the rights to self-determination, self-government, equality and non-discrimination. This bill is a major step forward in our reconciliation journey. We support it wholeheartedly. It remains one of our top priorities and we will see this through.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, damning media investigations have revealed that the government consistently green-lights water projects on first nations reserves to companies with bad track records and that the minister's insistence on the lowest bid has resulted in cost overruns, corners being cut and the ongoing denial of safe service, and yet the minister continues to stick to his three-point plan which is, number one, show concern; number two, act surprised; and number three, do nothing.

Why is the minister continuing to perpetuate this policy of incompetence, negligence and the basic denial of human rights to first nations people across this country?

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Minister of Indigenous Services]

Mr. Speaker, as the member will note, at the end of November and the beginning of December, this government invested a further $1.5 billion in water infrastructure with first nations and in partnership with first nations. The member is fundamentally mistaken about the process by which we engage with first nations. They pick the contractors; we work with them and we follow industry practice to ensure that these projects will move forward and that, ultimately, long-term water advisories get lifted. This is the choice of the first nations and we will continue to walk that path with them as we ensure that the long-term asset, the water infrastructure, is preserved in partnership with first nations.

The Economy

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to be the worst at one thing is a real distinction. To be the worst at everything takes real talent and effort. Unemployment in Canada, with 800,000 people losing their jobs, is the highest in the G7: the worst. Our vaccine results here in Canada are the worst in the G7, and the Liberals have paid for all of that failure with the biggest deficit, the worst fiscal record in the G7.

Can the Prime Minister explain to us how he has managed to deliver the worst results at the highest price?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, to the contrary, I will point out that Canada has had fewer people die than many of the comparator countries the hon. member points to. Moreover, he is using mistaken statistics to try to trick Canadians into supporting him. If we actually want to compare the employment record of Canada against the U.S., 71% of the jobs lost during the pandemic in Canada have returned, and 56% in the U.S. We have a higher labour force participation rate than our G7 counterparts.

We have had one of the most ambitious economic recovery strategies and pandemic response strategies, and if the hon. member wants to continue to try to trick Canadians into supporting the Conservatives, I invite him to remain on the opposition side of the aisle after the next election.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will quote what the BMO says about the Canada's-U.S. comparison: “the unemployment rate in Canada was 3.1 percentage points higher than the U.S. [in January]—this compares with a 2 ppt spread over the past five years....we estimate that Canadian employment could be roughly 300,000 jobs below where it would otherwise be if GDP was keeping pace with the U.S. economy.”

The member should stop torturing the data to make it confess to anything, and tell the truth. Does Canada not have the highest unemployment in the G7 today, yes or no?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I have watched the hon. member try to use the same statistics to trick Canadians for the last number of weeks. The unemployment data kept in Canada measure something different from what the federal labour statistics do in the United States. If he wants to compare apples with apples, I would point him to the labour force participation rate. In Canada, it is 64.3%; Japan, 62%; the U.S. 61.3%; and Germany 56.1%. If he is wondering how our pandemic response has assisted in this, I would point him to the fact that 71% of the jobs lost during the pandemic in Canada have returned, and 56% in the United States.

Finance

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been over 700 days since the Prime Minister last tabled a budget for Canadians to see. That is unprecedented. The most important planning document for a federal government is a budget, yet for two years the government has operated with little transparency and even less accountability. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has botched his vaccine rollout and failed to deliver a robust economic plan for the future.

Where is the transparency, and when will the Prime Minister finally table a budget for Canadians to see?

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record. The member may be aware there has been a global pandemic during the past year that has interfered with the way we ordinarily do things when it comes to our budgetary practices. If he is interested in transparency, I would remind him that during the heart of the pandemic a little less than a year ago when we were launching unprecedented strategies to get money to Canadians in need, we showed up repeatedly, in fact, every two weeks, with a report to the finance committee. I happen to know this, because I was a witness on one occasion who presented that data to the committee. Every step of the way, we have advanced measures to help Canadians keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and helped—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Abbotsford.