Pierre Poilievre on The Budget

Madam Speaker, I regret that the government made it necessary, through its mismanagement of the pandemic, to plunge so deeply into this deficit. It made it necessary by leaving the borders open and allowing 60,000 people to enter from China after the military had warned there was a pandemic brewing in that country. It made it necessary by failing to deliver rapid testing that could have allowed businesses to reopen months before they did. It is making it necessary now because it has failed to deliver vaccines that are widely available around the world. Just yesterday, images splashed across the Internet of pubs opening in London, England, of flights going back and forth seamlessly between New Zealand and Australia and of countries all around the world returning to normal with people returning to work, while here in Canada we are locked in our basements and terrified of a third wave that is the result of the government's failures. We wish it had not made these deficits necessary.