Debates of April 21st, 2021

Government Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.

I am a bit sad because my goal this evening was not to play the blame game. I think it is now time to share the blame and to find solutions. There will always be time later to determine why the wrong decision was made about the global public health intelligence network.

Now is the time to come up with solutions. All levels of government in Canada need to share the blame and determine what can be done right now to protect Canada's economy and the lives of Canadians and Quebeckers. That is why I am asking my colleague what we can do together, right now.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

What we can do now is fairly simple. We can impose stricter border measures. When it comes to interprovincial borders, Quebec and Ontario have decided to co-operate to control their shared border. However, the measures may still need some fine-tuning, since I managed to travel from Quebec to Parliament Hill earlier without getting asked any questions.

The government should also maybe impose stricter measures at our international borders, particularly when it comes to travel from India. The question has come up, and I believe that we could take immediate action. The Government of Quebec is in the process of negotiating with the federal government to do that because of concerns about the Indian variant, which does not react to the vaccine the same way. The situation is urgent and, in the very short term, we need to impose stricter measures at our borders.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for proposing this evening's debate. I think she will be happy to hear me say that I think she is well-intentioned.

As I was drafting my remarks for this evening, I was thinking about how one can be well-intentioned in a debate like this one. We must indeed be well-intentioned. The tricky thing about being an MP is that one is expected to be an expert on everything. Well, we cannot be, especially not on a subject as important as the vaccine.

To be honest, the notorious Indian variant is starting to scare me a little. I have been reading about the Indian variant, and I am starting to fear for my constituents and the general public.

I was wondering what I might say tonight that could help advance our fight against COVID-19. The answer is simple: We have to leave it up to the experts and listen to what science has to say.

Unfortunately, we cannot invite experts to participate in emergency debates in Parliament, but I would like to tell other members what some colleagues and I have been doing in recent weeks. We have been talking to researchers and vaccine experts, and I would like to share what they told us with the House.

First, one of the fundamental problems we have in Canada is basic research funding. During the various meetings I attended, several stakeholders reminded me that everyone is familiar with the famous Naylor report on the state of research. That report, which was presented in 2017, demonstrates that there was a gap under the Harper government. I do not mean to point any fingers, but unfortunately, there has been a bit of a gap in research funding, which has destabilized the basic research sector.

I will now share a statistic that bothers me. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research only accepts seven out of 48 applications received. This means that top health researchers in our country have to go through two or three rounds of review before one of their research projects is accepted. All the researchers told me that it was completely discouraging. Not only is this extremely discouraging, but we now know that the pandemic has also lit a fire under the United States, and officials there are in the process of increasing funding as much as they possibly can. The United States will be extremely attractive over the next few years, while we, meanwhile, risk losing that expertise.

Most people told me about this. They also told me that in the early 2000s, before this unfortunate gap, almost 30% of applications were approved. Today, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research approve 15% of researchers' applications.

If I wanted to do something constructive and I listened to what these research experts are saying, I would ask all my colleagues to increase this rate to 25%. That is what everyone told me. Approving about 25% of applications would perhaps help create an ecosystem that would also result in much more meaningful advances in local vaccine production. This important aspect of basic research is being ignored.

I do not want to criticize the Liberal government's efforts right now. I will perhaps come back to that a little later.

Another key point, which was raised by several people, is that there may be a disconnect in this strategy. There is no link between the department of health and the department of innovation and yet all the experts have told us that this link is necessary.

The success of certain vaccines, such as the AstraZeneca vaccine, was predicated on the ability of putting together several different platforms and gathering different profiles, that is, several actors in the health and research sectors. According to several experts we consulted, producing a vaccine in just over a year has been a major success story made possible by this magic formula.

In the interests of staying constructive, as I was saying earlier, I want to say that I have heard we should not focus on just one platform. I am not going to criticize the Liberal government, since everyone knows that that is not my thing, but I do think it just repeated the same mistake.

The government recently announced funding for Sanofi. People who understand about how vaccines work know that there are several different platforms. There is the RNA platform, which is an amazing discovery. There are other platforms that use eggs as bioreactors, like Sanofi's traditional, and somewhat outdated, platform. Then there is the very promising platform put forward by Medicago. I am not here to blame anyone, but it was a bit of a challenge dealing with the government.

I advocated many times for Medicago to get funding. We were four or five months behind, but who knows where we could have been if Medicago had gotten funding. This platform uses plants as bioreactors, which is a highly innovative technology.

Experts tell me that the government may be going down the wrong path by putting all its eggs in one basket with Sanofi. What happens in the future remains to be seen, but I believe that as soon as a government starts making decisions based on political concerns instead of science, it is on the wrong track.

That is the message I would like everyone to take away this evening. During a pandemic, it is never a good idea to make decisions based on political concerns, when the focus should be on scientific concerns and on what the science is telling us.

I will give another example of something that bothered me. I had discussions with Dr. Gary Kobinger. I can name him because he came forward. He was part of the COVID-19 vaccine task force, which was tasked with coming up with the protocol for the vaccines that Canada would use. What Canada did with CanSino is a classic example of a political decision. Most experts told the government not to move forward with what CanSino was proposing. The government did it anyway, and it ended in disaster.

Dr. Kobinger offered some interesting ideas for solutions, but I get the impression that because he did not exactly toe the line, the government sidelined him.

When I see a debate like the one we are having this evening, I think we could all afford to show some humility as legislators. Maybe we should all allow the science to take precedence.

We will see how the government reacts in the coming weeks in its recovery plan and all that. We will see whether there is funding for basic research and whether the government will agree to listen to what the experts are advising with regard to vaccine platforms.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his intervention. It was very interesting. He spoke today a bit about the AstraZeneca vaccine and the public dollars that went into developing it. I have to say, I am excited because today I was able to get the AstraZeneca vaccine in my arm. That is great news for me.

When we talk about the public dollars going into AstraZeneca, one of the big concerns I have, and I have raised it in the House many times, is the Canadian government's unwillingness to allow for intellectual property rights to be waived so that other countries can access the vaccine so they can continue to make sure that people around the world are getting the vaccine. Public dollars went into the development of these vaccines, so I do not understand why there is not that impetus for public good through the IP waiver system, the TRIPS waivers.

Would he be willing to support that if we could get the Bloc to support waiving that intellectual property right?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we talked to people in the biotech sector about the review done by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, the PMPRB.

I am not an advocate for big pharmaceutical companies, nor do I want to be, but I was told that could have a devastating effect. Big pharmaceuticals do not do research, and they definitely do not do clinical trials if they know they will not be selling the products they are developing. There could be unintended consequences. I am not saying I am against the PMPRB's review, but we have to understand how that review will impact the biotech research sector.

I am not a biotech expert, but biotech experts tell me that there could be negative effects that have not been accounted for. The Standing Committee on Health is actually studying this issue. I am not prepared to give a quick answer, but I urge everyone to be prudent about this.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Jonquière. I am pleased to see that his approach is based on the importance of science. I think we should all work together.

Does he agree that no government anywhere in the country has made perfect decisions? This is an unprecedented situation. If we do not work together, it will be very difficult to know the truth and to find the best approach. What does my colleague think about that?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague.

Politicians sometimes tend to look for a scapegoat when something is not working properly. It is true that we sometimes do that.

Public policy changes for the better when we learn from our mistakes. To learn from our mistakes, we, as legislators, need to point out the missteps. Pointing out missteps does not mean playing partisan games or criticizing everything without offering constructive suggestions.

What the leader of the Bloc Québécois asked us to do was to consult with experts before presenting a vaccine platform and on how much should be invested in basic science and research. Consulting with experts helps us deliver a coherent message, not just a political one.

I agree with what my colleague is saying. In politics, we tend to quickly look for a scapegoat, and that is unfortunate.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague on the tone of his speech, which I agree is the right one to use. However, heaven knows that we could point fingers.

I would like my colleague to talk more about the importance of focusing on research and development so that we do not end up trailing behind other countries. We are thinking mostly about vaccines, but there are other important sectors.

I would like him to talk about his vision, which is focused on the development of those sectors.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in his great wisdom, my hon. colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé has put his finger on a fundamental problem.

I mentioned the Naylor report earlier, which indicated that Canada was not faring very well in terms of basic research. What we are learning from the pandemic is that health crises, which could happen more frequently because of global warming, will leave Canada exposed. This will often be the case, because Canada does not have the research ecosystem needed to develop its vaccine production capacity. Consequently, it will often be dependent on external supply. We need to recognize this right away. The alarm bells sounded during the SARS outbreak, and now COVID-19 is showing us that lockdown can be very costly and has a certain morbidity associated with it. It is therefore essential to reinvest in research.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Windsor West.

This debate occurs at a critical time in our country. We have a serious third wave of COVID-19 raging across our nation. We are seeing transmission rates higher than at any time since the pandemic began. We have variants of concern that are now the dominant virus in many areas with greater contagion capacity and virulence. From Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, B.C. and the north, no area of the country is untouched. This is clearly not a purely provincial problem, it is a national one, and Canadians are exhausted. They are anxious, they are isolated and they are hurt physically, emotionally and financially.

It is time to state the obvious. Things are not going as well as they could and should. We must do better. Canadians do not want excuses, they do not want spin, they do not want finger pointing and they do not want partisan politics trumping Canadians' health. They do want action, effective, science-based and coordinated. We must have an understanding of why we are in this predicament to help determine the best path forward because there is nothing to say that we will not face a fourth wave if we do not effectively analyze how we got here and improve our responses wherever possible.

The causes of the third wave are multi-faceted. They include the following. There was poor PHAC preparation. The Auditor General released a report a few weeks ago that is a disturbing and objective indictment of a federal government that was unprepared for an emergency. There were repeated warnings to get ready for an emergency that were ignored for years. There were long-standing problems that remained unaddressed. We have decades of poor pharmaceutical policy by both Liberal and Conservative governments that have left Canadians vulnerable to multinational drug companies and foreign governments. The Prime Minister admitted as much when he was forced to acknowledge that countries that produce vaccines would give preferential access to their own citizens. That is the reality today.

We have an inadequate vaccine supply. PHAC confirmed yesterday that we are only able to utilize half of our provincial capacity to administer vaccines because of a lack of supply. That is 1.8 million doses per week versus a capacity to administer 3.1 million doses per week. The truth is that this has caused governments at all levels to be forced to ration vaccine doses and even violate the label instructions of vaccines against the explicit instructions of the manufacturers.

We have seen weak and incremental border controls by the federal government. This cannot but have helped introduce and spread the variants of concern. We were late to close borders. In fact, the current health minister said that doing so would be harmful. The border was then closed to certain countries, but left open to the U.S., which was raging with COVID at the time. Most SARS-CoV-2 viruses in British Columbia came from Washington state, not India. Perversely, Liberals designed a hotel quarantine policy that applies only to travellers arriving by air, not by land. As we speak, there are travellers using this loophole by flying to the U.S. border and then coming across by vehicle or on foot. To this day, we are still allowing international flights from hot spots.

A federal government that has relegated most duties onto the provinces, saying all it is responsible for is procuring vaccines and dispensing advice, is not good enough. It is refusing to use tools it has and is content to watch as provinces struggle instead of jumping in and helping with supplementary resources like other national leaders of federated states are doing, including U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

We have federal and certain provincial governments that are too slow to take decisive action, that put short-term economic interests above prudent public health measures, regularly communicate confusing messages and choose secrecy and self-interest over transparency and accountability, which are vital to maintain public confidence in an age of rumour and inaccurate information.

We must learn these lessons, but we also must apply positive proposals about what we can and need to do. Here are some.

First, we need to put public health first and adopt a zero COVID policy. If this means a hard and sharp shutdown of the economy to get us to sustained recovery, let us do it.

Second, we need to get control of our borders. Evidence is now crystal clear that countries and jurisdictions that did so drove transmission rates down and reduced the introduction of variants of concern.

Third, we immediately must get started on building our domestic vaccine manufacturing with a wartime approach through a Crown corporation. That is the only way we can truly ensure that Canadians will have access to essential medicines in a time of global shortage. The U.K. did it and we can, too.

Fourth, it is time to invoke the Emergencies Act. This is the exact legislation that was drafted precisely for a situation like we are seeing today. I am going to spend the remainder of my time on this vital component.

Frankly, I am shocked at the misunderstanding and confusion around this legislation, often spread by the current government. It is not the War Measures Act; in fact, it replaced the War Measures Act in 1988. The War Measures Act has not existed in the country for 33 years. It does not even contain the word “war”.

The Emergencies Act was drafted with two very different goals. It replaced the scope of the act from war and insurrection to a much different one, including, strangely enough, the outbreak of disease in humans. It was drafted to cure the abuse of civil liberties that was the hallmark of the War Measures Act. It is Canada's central legislation intended to be invoked in a time of national emergency.

Let me read the definition of “national emergency” in the act and then members should ask themselves whether this is not the exact situation we find ourselves in today. It states:

...a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that...seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it....

Specifically, this act also defines a public welfare emergency. I will read this as well. It means that it is:

...an emergency that is caused by a real or imminent...disease in human beings...and that results or may result in a danger to life or property, social disruption or a breakdown in the flow of essential goods, services or resources...

This act gives the federal government specific powers that are limited to 90 days, targeted to a specific province or region and that have to be laid before both houses of Parliament for scrutiny and approval. It explicitly says that powers shall be exercised, “in a manner that will not unduly impair the ability of any province.” There is no constitutional clash here and the permission of the provinces is not required.

It gives the federal government specific powers that are desperately needed. Here are three: The first is the regulation or prohibition of travel to or from any specified area. This could help control interprovincial transmission, just like the Atlantic provinces so successfully did. It provides for the authorization or payment of emergency payments. This could provide for paid sick days. It allows for the establishment of emergency shelters and hospitals.

Up to now, we had to send in the armed forces to two provinces to help them with long-term care homes that were overwhelmed. Look at the province of Ontario today, where doctors are warning of overwhelmed ICUs, health care workers are exhausted, patients are being taken off ventilators if they do not have at least a 70% chance of survival, poor areas are not getting enough vaccines and workers are still being forced to go to work sick because they have no paid sick time. I think most Ontarians would agree that this pandemic has overwhelmed the capacity of the Doug Ford government to deal with it.

The Prime Minister today once again dismissed the Emergencies Act, this time by derisively referring to Tommy Douglas voting against the War Measures Act in 1970. The Minister of Health today said that it was not needed and that everything was under control. With respect, these answers are absurd. Tommy Douglas voted against a very different bill that was used to suspend people's civil liberties. We are calling for the use of a modern act to help save the lives of Canadians.

My question for Canadians this. Do things look like they are under control and that nothing more is needed by the national government? To ask these questions is to answer them.

The Prime Minister has said we need a team Canada approach. Team Canada needs a captain, and a good captain gets everyone working together, not just his own line mates. Therefore, let us now join and truly come together to implement the measures that I believe the vast majority of Canadians know we need and desperately want.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, so I genuinely want to discuss his ideas around the Emergencies Act. I share several of his concerns with respect to my home province of Ontario, which we are seeing every day.

I am curious about is this. I know the minister earlier in her speech spoke about some of the work we were doing with the provinces. We are working together collaboratively with provinces and territories right now and I worry that if we implement something like this, it would impede the provincial government's responsibilities? What if the Province of Ontario disagreed and decided instead to challenge this use in the court? Would that not be a terrible use of time in the middle of a pandemic instead of working collaboratively with the provinces?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me take the opportunity to congratulate my hon. colleague on her appointment as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health. I also have a great deal of respect for her and her excellent representation in the House of her constituents.

To answer in a short way, I remember when former prime minister Trudeau wanted to tackle inflation and invoke the Anti-Inflation Act, and it was challenged by the provinces. The Supreme Court of Canada ended up saying that it was a valid use of federal power.

The War Measures Act was used by former prime minister Trudeau when one province faced an insurrection. Right now, we have a national crisis that is at least as important as inflation. I actually believe if these powers are invoked in a supplementary way with the provinces, no premier would turn down federal assistance.

This power empowers the federal government to bring in restrictions on interprovincial travel. No province has that power individually. This is an example where the federal government has to step in and use its full powers to get control of this. Frankly, Canadians want to see leadership in action, and we will deal with litigation, if it happens, after. What is important is saving lives right now.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He spoke in concrete terms about the War Measures Act.

In the current situation, does he not think that we could pay attention, learn from what has happened and take quicker action in three areas, namely, border management, for example when a variant appears in a country, investment in research for the future, so we do not have to again depend on foreign vaccines, and increases to health transfers, when the provinces are faced with exponentially huge expenses?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did touch on those very important points made by my colleague. Absolutely, we must never again allow Canada as a G7 country to be put in a place where we do not have the capacity to produce life-saving medications or vaccines in our own country. That is something on which all parties should join together and recognize, and construct the capacity to do so.

It is also vital to ensure we use every tool at our disposal. If we do not invoke the Emergencies Act now, which is Canada's flagship emergency legislation at the federal level, when would we?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was factual and helpful.

With respect to priorities for the government to act on with the list of suggestions he made, what would he say is the number one priority now to get things under control? Is it the Emergencies Act?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Vancouver East, who is also the deputy critic for health, for her extraordinary representation and contributions to the House and country.

To be honest, all the things I mentioned are important, but the most acute crisis in the country right now is going on in Ontario. I think all of us across party lines can share the horror at any doctor in our country, in a G7 country, having to make a determination to take someone off a ventilator because he or she has a 65% chance of survival. That is the reality in Ontario right now.

I mentioned that this act has the power to establish hospitals. The federal government could into Ontario right now and establish federally funded hospitals and resource them fully with more ICUs. Let us get more ICUs in Ontario, paid for, organized and funded by the federal government. I do not think any Ontarian would reject that right now.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to participate in this debate. It is very important, and I want to thank those who made it happen as well as the staff. I am speaking from Windsor, Ontario, from the traditional territories of the Anishinabe, the Haudenosaunee, and the special lands of the Odawa, Ojibwa and Potawatomie.

If I walked out my door here, I quite literally could be in the United States in about a 15-minutes. On a daily basis, 40% of Canada's trade to the United States goes through Windsor. Even with the pandemic in its full thrust, about 5,000 trucks per day cross into the United States.

Part of the difficulty we are faced with is dealing with our borders and our dependency, and I will touch on that a bit later. It is important to acknowledge that Canada right now, our Confederation, is in many respects a failed state. I know you, Mr. Speaker, have been here for a number of years, and I will be coming up to my 19th year. I could never imagine that a federal government would disinvolve itself from responsibility during this pandemic.

There are a lot of reasons we have come to this point in time, but this is a crossroads. Examining ourselves as a nation shows our failure to protect the citizens we swore to protect. That disappointment comes from a number of different experiences through this process. I see a lot of hope and opportunity, and I will touch on those elements later.

For example, today, the Prime Minister raised the War Measures Act and Tommy Douglas basically as an argument against having responsible debate on a problem that needs to be fixed. It is important for us to disinvolve ourselves from personalized attacks. So many people hold health care as a central bond among ourselves from coast to coast to coast, a reason to be Canadian and to be different than many places in the world. Health care was from Tommy Douglas and it came from a specific evolved principled position. To use that argument at this time is unfortunate.

We are going through a difficult time right now in Ontario. We had over 4,000 new cases today. The decision about who gets a ventilator and who does not is a very difficult one. It is very important for me to acknowledge all those who have lost a loved one, a family member or co-worker during this pandemic. This will haunt people for the rest of their lives, such as what they could have done to stop one more of those deaths or could they have done better to respond to the crises? In my riding, I had to call for help from the Salvation Army and the armed forces to go into a long-term care facility that had a significant outbreak because of the irresponsible actions of its management. We lost people.

I also worry for other people as well. For example, Asian hate crimes are on the rise, not only in Canada but in the United States as well. I worry about variants coming from different parts of the world. The continued collective assault by some on others has been unacceptable. We have to put this aside and work better together. If we are distracted by those things, they will complicate our situation.

I want to touch on a very important issue in my area. I want to thank the member for Vancouver Kingsway for his work on this. He has raised this a number of different times. It is the demise of manufacturing. As a representative of the auto sector, I have seen it myself. I have seen us slip from number three or four in the world to number 11. It has been going on for long time. We were told that it was globalization and that we could nothing about it. We thought that divestment and lowering corporate taxes would bring different investment, but it never did.

We saw the planned loss of Connaught industries, a Canadian manufacturing facility that would have provided some solutions. What we have done is created a dependancy. Located a few kilometres from where I am are auto plants that produced Second World War materials to help us during a time of crisis.

During this pandemic, I cannot lose sight of the fact when the Prime Minister was in London, Ontario, 200 kilometres up the road from here, he said that we had to transition out of manufacturing. That was back in 2015. That rang hard for a community that was fighting to save it jobs, its tool and die and mould making, its automakers, all those things. Ironically, we really kept some of those things in the Ford plant. Although diminished in its capacity, it produced PPE. Hiram Walker and other types of businesses struggled through this, and some had to restart.

Manufacturing is a critical component for our future as part of our domestic national security. As a New Democrat, I have been saying for many years that we need national policies on some of these things. That does not mean overtaking provinces like Quebec or other areas, because manufacturing takes place as far as B.C. What it means is supportive, comprehensive, measurable programs. We used to have some of those to make sure we are doing those things.

The SARS issue is a great defeat for us. Not only did we actually find out what we needed to do at that point in time, but we did nothing. We let things rot away and we let other people become the dominant producers of those things and more dependency has evolved.

One of the things I have asked for in terms of a process for solutions is a national strategy for manufacturing so we actually have measurables and tangibles. What does that mean? It means the production of real goods and services. It means innovation where our patents are no longer shipped out of this country and producing goods and services that we have to buy back. We spend millions upon millions of dollars every single year to develop patents and innovation at our research facilities, at different industries that get tax credits, and there is no accountability of that innovation leading to production and jobs in our own economy.

That has to be something that is going to be a focus for ourselves, and we should be measuring the results against our money that we see going in there. Then those companies that are doing that need to get rewards, whereas others need to be moved against, in terms of not getting the supports that are necessary for basically allowing our production to dissipate and go somewhere else.

We fought here, under five kilometres from here, for Canadian innovation, where a federal grant from the Liberal government of millions of dollars went into a plant, and the plant took that technology and innovation and shipped it to Mexico and now sent the jobs to Mexico, too, including innovation. These things would not happen if we actually had a planned economy for these things and for manufacturing vaccines, which are very important.

There are other things that need to be done. There is no doubt that the pandemic is costing us a lot of money and our finances are going to continue to struggle in many respects.

As the industry critic and someone who has put forward the telecom policy, I can tell you that it would be more advanced in terms of connecting Canadians, especially when we look at the fact that we have some of the highest fees in the world and some of the biggest challenges because of geography, but we have control of it. Federal Conservative and Liberal governments have taken in about $25 billion in spectrum auction fees over the last number of years; $25 billion have come into government coffers, and at the same time we pay some of the highest fees.

I see this in communities like mine, with a high rate of poverty, which have to basically decide which kid gets to go to classes, who goes online, what businesses can afford things and how they can compete and stay together. What is important is that this is an essential service. It was before the pandemic, and it is now, but when we look at students and social equality and inclusion, being online is an important factor that needs to be resolved right now.

Right now the federal government is going to take in billions of dollars more in a spectrum auction and not have any terms and conditions for connecting Canadians who are in rural and remote areas. This is something that has to end. We have to give people opportunity and connection. It is about civil liberties, because it is about the right to be connected in society right now. It may not seem like the biggest issue at the moment, but if we have a pandemic that continues and variants that continue, then we need to connect Canadians much more strongly than ever before. We have that opportunity, and that should be a solution sought as part of our national infrastructure, as part of our identity, as part of something we can do. No jurisdiction should be left behind. There is no doubt that we have to do that.

I want to conclude by thanking all the health care workers who have been out there working on the front lines. We think of our doctors, nurses, PSWs and all those in those profile spots. They are so important and we are so grateful for them every single day, but let us not forget the young people who have to work in grocery stores. In an area like mine that is in the hot zone, there are kids who go into the grocery store, not getting any more pay, probably not getting the training they deserve, and they are making a subpar wage to feed the rest of us. I could go on for days with regard to migrant workers and so forth and the issues there, but we have to change the way we do things. There has to be fairness and equality.

To pay for this, we need to have a profits on the pandemic pay. There are too many companies that have done so well and have so generously padded themselves, had salary increases, had CEO bonuses and a number of different things. It is their turn to return that back to our country.

If we do not do that, then we will continue to be a failed state. It is up to us as federal representatives to make sure we are unified. How do we do that? Let us find the things that can do it for us and our families, because too many of our people have already lost their lives and we cannot get that back, but we can stop more.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I actually agree with the member, and a number of members have talked about this, about making sure Canada has the capacity to manufacture vaccines moving into the future, so that this never happens again and so we are never put into this situation again. In his experience of being a critic for industry and knowing so much about the manufacturing sector, I am curious what his thoughts are as to the best way that we would put something like this into practice, so that we could make sure that we did have that. Is that done through a Crown corporation? Is that done through competitive industry? How does he foresee that rolling out?

I would agree with him that if we do not learn that one thing from this, then we are probably being extremely short-sighted. I am curious about what he sees as the best way to ensure that we can build up that manufacturing and make sure that it is maintained and stays in place for a long time, so that we have this next time we are here.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats here have been on this for an aerospace strategy, an auto strategy, forestry. I will not go into the full details, but basically there are strategies for sectoral development that many countries already do and are actually experts on. We measure them by the jobs created, the investment created and the policies. What we have done is large corporate tax cuts over a number of different decades, and basically we promised jobs that never came and investment that never showed up. That has to end.

Second to that, we need a border task force. We have so much of our manufacturing capacity tied in to the United States and Mexico. We need to have regular meetings and regular operations that are open, clear and public, and we actually have logistics. That just-in-time delivery was huge for those things that could be assets to redeveloping and reshoring a number of different things. Ironically, it used to be a pride to say we want to outsource when faced with global competition; now we are back to actually wanting to bring things home. That should never have been lost.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I heard him talk about the border. He said that he lives very close to the U.S. border. More generally, what are his thoughts on the Auditor General of Canada's criticism of what she deemed a fiasco with regard to checking on quarantining travellers?

At one point, it was estimated that just one-third of travellers had been asked whether they had gone into quarantine, and half of them had been asked if they were complying with quarantine. These kinds of figures are scary, especially with the arrival of the new, more contagious variants.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, essentially, we need to have more comprehensive supports for our CBSA officers and those controls. I have been well noted for that. I want to thank today our health unit, with Dr. Wajid and others, who have helped get our CBSA officers in Windsor vaccinated. We normally run about 10,000 vehicles a day through here. We are finally getting them, and Michigan has had a major outbreak, so that is where we think we have to have some more resources. We know we have underperformed in that area, and that is just the starting point.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, although it is not directly on point for the emergency debate that I asked for tonight, I could not agree with the member more about manufacturing and that we have adopted an approach economically that said we could have just-in-time delivery of things from anywhere fast. That has significant implications for global warming. It has significant implications for Canada's economic health.

I just want to ask him if he sees a change coming, because, due to COVID-19, I think a lot of Canadians now want supply chains that are more domestic and want to know that we can manufacture the things that we really need.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think getting out of this is going to require more help from our neighbours. I have asked the government several times to investigate. Most recently I wrote the Prime Minister today. We look at what is happening between Manitoba and North Dakota. They are vaccinating Canadians who are trucking and essential workers through there, so I have asked for the same thing for New York and Ontario and for other places. We have friends out there, but we need to be unafraid to ask our friends for that help.

I am hopeful there will be a return to manufacturing, because there are a lot of pride and innovation that do not take place because we offshore everything.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to discuss such an incredibly important topic. I want to thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for suggesting that we have this emergency debate. It is extremely important that we talk about this and try to wrap our heads around whether there are other ways of doing things. I appreciate some of the information that has come forward today, in particular from the member for Windsor West, who just spoke before me, who talked about manufacturing capacity and where we ultimately need to get to.

I will start by saying that I have been extremely proud of not just sitting on the same side of the House as the government but, indeed, being a part of this particular Parliament, where a number of measures were put into place for Canadians throughout this pandemic.

When I think back to the beginning of this, Canadians were confused and wondering what was next. I am not talking about what was next in terms of weeks and months, but literally days. No generation alive has ever gone through this before, with the exception of a few people who may have experienced the pandemic in 1918. To be there for Canadians, to make sure they have the supports they need, to make sure they are being taken care of, in particular those who really needed it, was extremely important. This Parliament was able to come together to pass emergency measures very quickly to put money into the bank accounts of Canadians while asking them and, in many cases, telling them that they had to stay home and could not work. We took care of them.

I get a bit of a kick out of the Conservatives from time to time when they say it is not the federal government's money. The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes said earlier today that there is only one taxpayer. Of course he is right, but the question here is whether it should have been the burden of everybody, that one taxpayer, to take on the responsibility of what was going on, to take on the consequences of what was going on. The question is not whether or not it was the federal government's money. The question is who should pay for it. Should it be individuals? Should it be those who are struggling? Should they take on the sole responsibility of this, or should it be society as a whole?

When we say the federal government supported Canadians, we clearly do not mean that the federal government somehow miraculously had its own money to do this. We are using the money of society, generally speaking. We are bringing everybody together to get through this together. That is what happened. That is what we saw happen here. That is what made, in my opinion, a successful go at this. We could have done things a lot better. In hindsight everything is 20/20 and there is a lot we could have done differently, but I think we came together and we passed very important measures to make sure that Canadians would be taken care of.

Now, here we are, in the middle of the third wave of this. I am going to speak primarily to what is going on in Ontario because that is the province of the riding that I represent, but I know, indeed, that this is happening in other parts of the country as well. Today, there were just under 4,500 new cases of COVID-19 in Ontario and 32 people passed away. Over 2,200 people are currently in hospital, and 737 of those are in the ICU. On April 17, there were 4,812 COVID cases, the highest daily number that Ontario has experienced.

We have talked about the Emergencies Act in the past, and I will get to that in a bit. We have also talked about a number of the measures that have been brought into place for Ontario specifically. I just want to highlight some of those because I think it is important. I think it is really important, especially when having a discussion about the Emergencies Act and whether it should be implemented. I want to highlight some of the things that did happen.

We talked about the Canada emergency recovery benefit, CERB. Nearly one in four Ontarians, 3.5 million Ontarians, were recipients of the Canada emergency recovery benefit. The Canada emergency wage subsidy protected just under two million jobs in Ontario, making sure that employers did not let their employees go so that when they needed them, even if only temporarily, they could bring them back very quickly. The Canada emergency business account provided interest-free loans of up to $60,000 to small businesses and not-for-profits. As of April 15, 343,966 loans totalling $18.5 billion had been supplied to businesses and not-for-profits throughout Ontario. The Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program provided relief for businesses experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19. Over 70,000 tenants were protected by that, and 654,000 employees, totalling just over $1 billion.

Again, there are a lot of questions about the debt and where this money came from. It came from society, because we determined that it was better for society as a whole to take on this responsibility than to watch individuals and businesses collapse at a more alarming rate, which still ended up happening to a certain degree.

However, as we talk about the third wave specifically, as things unrolled there were responsibilities and roles the federal government would take on. Of course, we worked with our provincial counterparts to make sure, as things were rolling out, that we could provide them with the supports they needed.

There have been questions about the Emergencies Act and whether it should be implemented. Before I talk about it, I think it is worth noting exactly what was put into place. In terms of vaccines, the federal government let the provinces know, particularly Ontario, at the beginning of the pandemic what the strategy would be for vaccine rollouts. The provinces and territories were given a schedule, going back to late 2020, and were told what they should expect to see coming in terms of vaccines and when they should expect to get them.

Provinces, territories and regional jurisdictions were able to plan for when those vaccines would come. They should have been, and we know they were. They were making strategic decisions about when lockdowns would have to happen and when they could start to let up, and it was all around the timeline of those vaccines coming.

Although at the beginning there were some hiccups and some moving around of vaccine amounts in any given week for about a two- or three-week period, by the end of March, particularly in Ontario, more vaccines had been delivered than had been originally scheduled. The province of Ontario was able to plan for what to expect. This is important, because I want to talk about what Ontario should have been expecting and what it was told to expect.

There is a clip circulating on social media. I cannot remember the news outlet but, on February 11, a reporter was talking to the co-chair of the COVID Science Advisory Table and said, “I have looked at all of your data. I have seen this. I am looking at your modelling, but what you are basically telling us is that removing the restrictions that were in place in January,” which they were doing at the beginning of February, “means dire consequences. Are we not heading for a disaster?” The response was: “No, I do not think you are missing anything. You have it right and, yes, we are heading for a disaster”.

As a matter of fact, the province was told in that modelling at the beginning of February that it was going to reach 4,000 cases by the beginning of April and, sure enough, on April 9, Ontario had surpassed 4,000 cases with just over 4,200 cases. The seven-day rolling average at that point was 4,300 cases in Ontario.

I am not bringing this up to point fingers at the provincial government. I am bringing this up because it is germane to the discussion on implementing the Emergencies Act and what the federal government should be doing. The Ontario government was told the timeline, what vaccines it would be getting, and how it would be getting them. The quantities in those timelines surpassed the targets. At the beginning of February Ontario was also told, if it removed those restrictions, the position it would be in at the beginning of April. In both cases, the information was correct. Ontario got more doses of the vaccine than officials were expecting, and the cases were exactly what they were told.

I brought this up in a question for my Conservative colleague earlier when he was discussing this issue. It is one thing to question the timeline from the beginning and say, “Why are we not getting more in February? Why are we not getting more in March? Why is this happening at this time and this time?” However, the province's officials could not say that they did not know what they were getting. They did know, and they still chose to do what they did and to act the way that they did. That was the situation in Ontario.

When we talk about what Ontario has done and the position that it has gotten itself into, we have to do it in the context of knowing where we started and what Ontario was expecting. Since then, we have seen the reality play out as it was forecast back in February. We have seen the vaccines continue to roll along and come in at or above the scheduled rate as promised, yet we still ended up in this situation.

Therefore, when we talk about the Emergencies Act, which I will get to momentarily, my concern is this. I want to know what my colleagues are expecting if that act is enforced or an emergency declared. Perhaps one of my NDP colleagues could answer that in a question they ask me.

In Ontario last week, when things really started to fall off the rails, the federal government stepped up to say it would work with the province. It got together with the provincial government and said it was going to send some assistance to set up field hospitals and help with self-isolation areas, and that it was going to send more medical supplies and more medical professionals. A number of these measures kicked in not because we had to declare an emergency and send them, but because the province wanted them and we were there to support it and to help deliver the supports that it needed.

That happened over the weekend. We heard from members earlier today. I think it was the member for Don Valley West who said from his place he could almost see people setting up a field hospital. We know those measures are working and are in place, so the federal government is there to help the Province of Ontario.

My question to the NDP is this: What more would they expect to get out of engaging the Emergencies Act? I know the member for Vancouver Kingsway has brought it up on a number of occasions and talked about it, but there is another quote in that act that I did not hear him speak to. He has talked a lot about the act.

He has referenced different parts of it, the various times that it needs to be utilized and what defines an emergency. However, there is another part that states a national emergency is a situation “that cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” There is a specific provision that says the government cannot invoke the Emergencies Act if this could be dealt with using other laws.

I would suggest to the hon. member, and to my NDP colleagues, that various things have been happening. Other laws have been utilized. Other agreements have been made, including other bilateral agreements with Ontario and other provinces, territories and regions throughout the country, to get supports to them.

These are things that have been done. It leaves me wondering what else my colleagues could possibly expect to get by invoking that. It is not as though the federal government is holding something back. It is not holding back on anything that it would otherwise be able to implement. It is implementing everything it can. The federal government is communicating with the provinces. It is working with the provinces.

I personally do not see how invoking this measure at a time like this, which would obviously allow us to step on the jurisdiction of the provinces, would do anything positive to the relationship we have with them. If the federal government genuinely wants to work with the provinces and territories, and if we genuinely want to work with Doug Ford right now in Ontario, I do not think that implementing a piece of legislation that allows the federal government to go in and do something for the province is the approach. It would basically be saying that Ontario had done a horrible job, and it should get out of the way because the federal government is taking over now.

The approach that the federal government has taken is the right one. It is an approach of working with the provinces to find solutions and see what they need and want, so that the federal government can then help them to be as successful as possible.

Going back to my earlier discussion about the provinces and what Ontario chose to do and when it chose to do it, Ontario had decisions to make. I was not laying that out just to say that the Province of Ontario screwed this all up and should have done x, y and z. It made its decisions based on its own information and based on what it thought was the best way to proceed.

I do not agree with that approach. I think it was the wrong approach. I think that if I had known what the timeline would be in terms of getting vaccines and I had known what the timeline would be in terms of the third wave, I could have connected the dots pretty quickly. However, maybe there were other factors at play. Maybe Ontario chose to put parts of the economy ahead of health. I do not know. We do know that the Ontario government had the information and the data to make the decisions that led to where we are.

I want to conclude by saying that I am extremely proud not just of the Liberal government, but indeed of this Parliament. A lot of discussion has been going on tonight. There have been a lot of comparisons to places such as New Zealand and Australia. Compared with our G7 counterparts and our G20 counterparts, Canada has done fairly well.

Obviously we have suffered tremendously from a health perspective and an economic perspective, but when Canada is compared with comparable nations, the success of the Liberal government and this Parliament has shown itself in the fact that our mortality rate is the second lowest in the G7, and our ability to vaccinate people, to get needles into the arms of people, is now among the best in the G20. I think we are third in the G20 and in the G7, for that matter.

We are doing well. There are always going to be disagreements among provincial and other jurisdictions as to how we do things, but at the end of the day, the best solution is continuing to work with them to protect Canadians.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the member's analysis that the government has done an excellent job. The Prime Minister has a far-out target that would allow for success by September. Things are opening up in the States. Everybody there is now permitted to get vaccinations and we are locked down.

I want to read a note I received yesterday from a constituent, who said:

I am writing to you to voice my concern over the federal government's COVID vaccine rollout, or more so the lack of a rollout. Where are the vaccines? What's taking so long? Our 19-year-old daughter just had a heart valve replacement earlier this month and was bumped several times. Due to the B.C. government's idea of vulnerability, she couldn't get vaccinated until her age group is called. She is so vulnerable, and now with these variants and cases rising everywhere and no vaccines, I am completely on edge. Do you know when she can be expected to be vaccinated?

There are a lot of problems with getting vaccines in B.C.