Mr. Speaker, it has been a year since governments in Canada and around the world locked down their citizens in order to fight the COVID-19 virus. While they were accepted as being necessary at first, Canadians want to know the plan to bring these lockdowns to an end.
One million Canadians have lost their jobs and the dignity that comes with them. Seniors are locked away from the people they love. Extended families remain separated. Overdoses and mental illnesses are skyrocketing. The impact of these lockdowns on our children will take decades to address.
Delays in diagnostics and treatments for serious illnesses continue to have deadly impacts, and while we can watch hockey at the bar and shop in the hundreds in big box stores, faith communities are prevented from meeting together, their buildings empty.
Our physical, mental, spiritual and economic health has suffered long enough. It is time for the government to deliver a real plan to get us out of these lockdowns, because we just are not meant to live this way.