Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased, albeit with a strong sense of irony, to be taking part in this completely pointless debate that the governing Liberal Party of Canada has foisted upon the House.
It is unfathomable to me that the Liberal minority in this Parliament can force such a pointless debate that is of no interest to the people we represent, especially during this health crisis during which we are meant to be productive.
I have collegial relationships with a number of my Liberal colleagues, and they know that our verbal sparring and political interventions here in the House, in committee or in our respective ridings come from a place of trust and good faith.
With that said, I cannot emphasize enough how very disappointed I am to see that the government is moving so slowly on its piddly response plan that should have reassured Quebeckers and Canadians. After all, the Prime Minister runs a G7 country, which ranks last in terms of vaccination, but is still a G7 country.
We take comfort in what we can, and everyone will readily agree. It was 44 years ago that the current Prime Minister's father made history by addressing the United States Congress for the very first time. Tomorrow, his son will meet with the new U.S. President. It goes without saying that keen observers will note the obvious and not-so-obvious differences from what will be said from the Canadian perspective. One had a vision; the other, a simple reaction. I could never be satisfied with either one. Here and around the world, since the start of his mediocre tenure as the head of government, the Prime Minister's personal work during the pandemic has been deemed to be fruitless, without constructive results, and, above all, to this point, not worthy of mention.
The motion currently before the House, a dilatory tactic on the part of government members, speaks for itself. It demonstrates the government's philosophical disconnect in attempting to avoid basic issues that should be of serious concern in order to buy time for the Prime Minister. The Liberal Party's dilatory motion seeks to buy time. We believe that buying time is a petty thing to do, and it would be a good idea for members to remember that. That is what the government is doing and it is quite frankly unacceptable, insulting and unbelievable. In my opinion, it is completely ridiculous and juvenile for the government to take the House's precious time today to discuss a committee report on the new president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Tourism Commission. It is not hard to imagine the preposterous backroom wrangling that senior members of the Liberal Party have been doing over the past few days to slow down the work of the House. I am sure that other members are just as disappointed as I am. The entire strategy of a G7 government is likely based on a note hastily scrawled on the corner of a napkin, a government that is struggling to limit the shame felt by its own caucus regarding its vain attempts to dig out of a hole the economic forces it claims are its proudest ally.
To be honest, if I had an ally or a partner of the sort the Liberal government claims to be, I would quietly tell the Chair, given that nobody is listening anyway, that I would have gotten rid of such an ally with no compunction whatsoever. It seems true friends are not those one might instinctively think of. The tourism industry from coast to coast to coast deserves much more than the promises this government is dangling before it.
Given some of the cockamamie ideas we have been discussing, it is worth informing our colleagues from all government parties that the government is using them for blatantly partisan purposes, emphasis on “partisan”.
The only thing in this entire futile debate that has made any impression on me at all is this stalling tactic that is orally and literally wasting the House's precious time, time that is all the more precious and crucial for the entire population, time that we should be spending debating much more important issues during this pandemic.
I would like to think that everyone shares my sympathy and concern for the awful times the businesses in the tourism industry are going through right now.
Many people know how much energy I have put into having as many meetings as possible with all the players in all sectors of this vast business community, regardless of their size within the industry, to ensure its survival. To see the Liberal Party of Canada stoop so low today and abandon them in such a vile and mean-spirited parliamentary procedure suggests that the Prime Minister's pretty words yesterday were nothing more than a prelude to an even worse rejection to come. For months now, day in and day out, the Liberal government has been promising better days for the entire tourism industry. Day in and day out, it keeps repeating that promise, although it never really delivers on it.
The Liberal Party, headed up by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Economic Development for the Regions of Quebec, kept on misleading the small business owners who make our regions the most charming places to visit, before heading out into the broader world. However, the Liberals return to the House with a dilatory measure like the one before us, which is deeply offensive.
The appointment of Marsha Walden at the head of the Canadian Tourism Commission was duly approved by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. This powerful House of Commons committee had already exercised the necessary due diligence on reviewing Ms. Walden's candidacy and had approved her appointment. The motion for reference to the House of Commons tabled by the Liberals is as outrageous as it is despicable.
As proof, I submit all the despicable treatment meted out to the tourism industry from the outset of the pandemic. From the time the federal government declared a pandemic to the deployment of all the health measures in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada, the tourism industry was the first to be affected. Not only did all of its operations cease overnight, but this industry employs tens of thousands of people in Quebec and hundreds of thousands more across Canada, so it will be the last to recover. All members will agree with me that the House had better things to do today than to discuss the shenanigans of the people opposite, which just prove how amateurish this government is.