Debates of April 21st, 2021

Government Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

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

Mr. Speaker, members can say what they want about the September target. They can criticize it and say it was too far out or that it should have been sooner. However, what they cannot say is that it has not been consistent. It has been consistent from the beginning. From the beginning, it has always been September. They can say that we set that in advance, but targets were given for when provinces would get vaccines and those targets have only been exceeded.

The provinces had the data and the schedule. They knew when exactly they would be getting the vaccines, and they have received more by this point than they were told they were going to get. If they had an issue with being able to properly plan around that, that is a whole different thing we can talk about. However, they knew when they would be getting the vaccines.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am still blown away by how paternalistic the Liberals sound when talking about the federal government working with Quebec and the provinces. I will come back to this later.

My colleague spoke about vaccines and about how pleased he was with the government's measures. I want to look back a little and talk about the idea of being quick and proactive, because the National Advisory Committee on Immunization did not meet until June. Between March and June 2020, it was radio silence, and the Trudeau government lost precious months that could have been spent working on vaccines if it had been quicker off the mark.

My colleague mentioned vaccines again when he was talking about collaboration. Quebec was falsely accused of letting vaccines sit in freezers instead of getting them into people's arms. However, it has been proven that Quebec did get the vaccines required but then ran out. There were no vaccines sitting in freezers. This kind of accusation could undermine Quebec's collaboration with the federal government, and I do not think it is a good example to use.

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

Mr. Speaker, I did not say anything about Quebec keeping vaccines in freezers. I did not go near that topic or discuss it in my speech.

I find it bizarre that the Bloc member is accusing the Liberals of being paternalistic, when here I am telling the NDP that we should not be using an emergency measures act that would step all over the feet of another province. I am actually doing the exact opposite. I am saying that I do not think we should be utilizing this particular piece of legislation so that we can start telling other provinces what to do. Quite frankly, I would argue that I am doing the opposite.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree with the member regarding the need to bring in the Emergencies Act to help out the situation in Ontario. The situation in Ontario is dire and it needs help. I think Ontarians would welcome the help.

The Premier of British Columbia has been calling for interprovincial travel restrictions for some time now. While there seems to be some noise to say that we are moving in that direction, we really have not seen action in that regard.

In terms of travel restrictions in hot spots, early in the pandemic the government did take action, although it was slightly delayed. Will the government take action now to restrict travel with respect to hot spots?

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

Mr. Speaker, travel represents 1.5% of transmissions. It is not the dominant force in spreading the virus right now.

Members will notice an interesting word the member used. She said that the provinces “would” welcome help. She is suggesting that the only way to get help to provinces is to use the Emergencies Act. Then, suddenly, we will be able to deliver help to them. I would argue that the provinces “are” welcoming that help right now.

As a member from Ontario, I appreciate her sincere concern for the province. However, in Ontario, as in other provinces, measures are being delivered. The government announced a number of them last weekend, and this did not require the Emergencies Act. During my speech, I said that I really hoped an NDP member would get up and tell me what more they were expecting from the Emergencies Act. I do not believe that anything substantial can be done with it that cannot be done outside of it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by acknowledging the great work the member and his team do in getting really relevant, truthful information out through his social media feed. For Ontario it has been really helpful.

I have been listening to the debate tonight, and some members, in particular from the Conservative Party, have pointed to other countries that are opening up. He got a question of that nature tonight. I would like to point out that we see our friends and colleagues in Atlantic Canada, such as our friend from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, going to restaurants. Things are opening up. The Atlantic bubble has done quite well, and on a per-capita basis it has received fewer vaccines. However, it has all the same federal restrictions in place.

Perhaps the issue is that continuing to work with the provinces and territories, which is the spirit of this debate, is about learning within Canada from the premiers and provinces that have done quite a good job. We see their economies opening up and we see their vaccinations continuing.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the compliment. I know that Kaitlin, Parth and Kelly will very much appreciate the nice comment she made.

She is absolutely right. What we need to do here is look at the successes in provinces that have been successful and ask what they did and whether we can help Ontario get to the same place. That is the whole point of the federal government.

I know Bloc members look at that as though we are somehow trying to impose something upon them, but really we just want to work together collaboratively. I think that is the right approach. I do not think it is going to be done by forcing the Emergencies Act onto provinces at this stage in the game.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been intrigued tonight, and I loved the discussion between the hon. member and the member for Windsor West.

After a question I asked yesterday of the public safety minister, CBSA officers in Windsor are finally getting vaccines today. That is a great thing.

There has been a lot of discussion around manufacturing. Will the member please have a discussion with the public safety minister to allow business owners and customers in manufacturing to come across the borders so we can open it back up?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think I understand the question, and I will go back to the question I had earlier from the member for Windsor West. If we have not learned from the pandemic that we need to boost our biomanufacturing sector and make sure, if this ever happens again, that we are not put in a position where we are not manufacturing vaccines in Canada, then I think we have really lost sight of what is important here. Do I personally believe that? Absolutely. We need to make sure that we are never again in a situation where we do not have the capacity to manufacture in Canada.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I just want to take a moment to thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for requesting this emergency debate tonight. This is a great opportunity to highlight some of the serious concerns that I have with the Liberal government's response to the pandemic, but also to offer some recommendations.

We are well over a year into this crisis and the fact remains that we are in worse shape now than at any other point during the pandemic. People continue to die and health care staff are kind of burned out. Hospitals and ICUs are struggling. Variants are spreading. Millions of students are not in their classrooms. Countless business are shut down, workers are without pay cheques and we have a vaccine shortage that is prolonging the pandemic.

Throughout it all, we have witnessed a government struggling to meet these challenges head-on. While no one expected a flawless response, time and time again it has dropped the ball. I have yet to hear the Prime Minister, or any minister for that matter, acknowledge the multiple mistakes that have been made. I do not say this lightly, but the Liberal government has failed; failed to ensure that we had an emergency stockpile of PPE, failed to safely reunite families and failed to secure enough vaccines to arrive in Canada for the first half of 2021. Regardless of however the Liberals want to spin it, the virus is winning. Until there is an acknowledgement that mistakes are made, we are left scratching our heads if they truly understand the implications of their decisions or, in some cases, their lack of action.

Tonight, I will share three specific recommendations that I want to see the government act upon.

The first is to abide by the motion that was passed at the health committee that ordered the government to allow the committee to review the vaccine contracts at an in camera meeting. My colleague from Foothills referred to this earlier. We are aware of the confidentiality clauses contained in those contracts, which is exactly why we proposed they be shared at an in camera meeting.

I want everyone to step back for a moment and think about how ridiculous the government's position is. The government sought parliamentary approval to purchase those vaccines, but does not want parliamentarians to know what was contained in the contracts. How can we do our job as the official opposition if we are being completely left in the dark? How do we know if the Liberals signed good deals? The answer is that we do not know. From my vantage point, we have a massive vaccine shortage and every day we find out that more shipments are being delayed. Without Pfizer and now the Biden administration, we would be even further behind. We cannot measure vaccine successes by the size of Canada's vaccine portfolio. We measure success by getting vaccines delivered to the provinces and into people's arms. There is no other matrix that could possibly be used to evaluate the government's record on procuring vaccines.

The provinces need the vaccines now, not five months from now. The only information in the contracts that I know to be true is that the government paid double for the AstraZeneca vaccine compared to some other nations; at least double in most cases. The only reason we know that little bit of information is because it was contained in an email from the Prime Minister's Office in his communications shop. The provinces cannot wait any longer. Just this week, it was announced that the premier of Ontario was calling international allies to see if they can send more vaccines to his province. The Government of Manitoba has already signed a contract with one of the Canadian pharmaceutical companies and they just announced a deal with North Dakota to get our truck drivers vaccinated. I applaud those actions as it is clear that they cannot wait for the Liberal vaccine portfolio to be delivered sometime down the road.

The second recommendation is to fix the mail-in process of PCR tests for returning Canadians who live in rural areas. In the last month alone, my office has been contacted by multiple families about how the government has signed a deal with Purolator and how it is next to impossible to mail back the PCR tests. I want the Liberal MPs in the House to know how stressful this is on families, so I will share the contents of an email I received yesterday.

The mother of a son who recently returned from university called PHAC to arrange for a pick-up of the PCR test and was told only Purolator is handling the packages. She then called Purolator and it told her it does not visit the rural community on weekends. After being on the phone for an hour she finally spoke to someone who was supposed to swing by their farm to pick up the package on Monday. They waited on Monday and no one came to pick it up. She then waited on hold for another hour and was told there was no guarantee the PCR test could be picked up. Purolator then told her to drive into town to drop off the package on Tuesday afternoon and to leave it outside at the agreed upon location. By the time the PCR kit was sent in, it begs the question whether it would still be accurate. Because the PCR test was left outside, would it make the result unreliable? I really do not know. What I do know is that this is happening across rural Canada. She mentioned that her son would have been willing to drive to Brandon to get the test done in person, which is about 90 miles, rather than try to navigate through this convoluted process. Here is the kicker. Because her son had been in the United States, he was fully vaccinated. He received both doses. These are not my words, but she closed out her email to me by saying that this whole thing “stinks”.

Once again, the government has implemented a plan that sounds good, but in practice is not working. Surely, if people can get their online parcels delivered to far-flung places, the federal government could partner with parcel delivery companies to get PCR tests picked up.

My last recommendation is to distribute and encourage the use of rapid tests. It was disappointing to see the government disregard the Calgary airport testing pilot program, which completely took it off guard.

We have also seen the Minister of Health question the validity of rapid tests, even after spending millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase them.

It must also be said that the government paid a company for rapid test kits without even seeing if they would pass Health Canada's standards. They were then found to be faulty.

Putting all that aside, I know there is a willingness from the government to get more rapid test kits handed out to Canadians as Industry Canada announced it is “launching new efforts to increase the availability” of rapid tests. Multiple provinces are now using rapid tests to help with their screening efforts and it is paying off. Part of the challenge with COVID-19 is that not everyone has symptoms but can be a carrier of the virus and potentially expose others. With the use of rapid test kits, schools and businesses have been able to stop outbreaks before they happen. In the U.K., nine in 10 pharmacies are offering free rapid test kits and are now offering every citizen in the U.K. twice weekly rapid test kits. I want to see this success be replicated in every community across this country. As the adage goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

These are three recommendations the government can easily adopt and build on.

My heart goes out to all those who have lost loved ones and to those who are now on the brink of bankruptcy.

I also want to add my heartfelt thanks to all of our frontline service personnel who have worked tirelessly to try to bring this pandemic under control as much as they possibly can.

I also want the government to succeed in ending the pandemic. I know the government can and must do better, so I urge all members, including Liberal MPs, to join us in pushing their ministers to act swiftly. This is not the time for excuses. People are counting on all of us to get this right.

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned rapid tests. We have distributed 25.4 million rapid tests and there are millions that have gone unused, so I would encourage him to ask the premiers, provinces and territories to use them.

The member talked about mistakes being made, so my question is with respect to his credibility and that of his party. His party has suggested that we end the border measures we put in place to protect communities. It also recommended weeks ago that we should simply ignore public health measures and open everything up. We have seen what happened in Ontario when those public health models were ignored.

Does the member opposite still support removing the restrictions at borders? Does he still support opening everything up and ignoring the public health advice?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, of course, we know that the American border is closed. We do know, however, that the action in regard to closing the border to flights coming into Canada was much delayed. It was at least a month and a half after the Americans made their closure. The present border closures that we have in Canada are based on provincial decisions, as was done with Ontario just recently. My province, Manitoba, has done similar action as well, and these have helped bring the numbers down in some of the provinces. Certainly it did here earlier on in the summer last year as well.

I think one of the things we need to look at is the actual delivery of vaccines. As I pointed out, that is the only real measure that we have here in regard to bringing things under control and giving Canadians the confidence that they can actually begin to move around again. It is too early in most provinces yet to do that, but if we have to wait until the end of September and take a whole nine months here to get the first shots into Canadian citizens, does that mean it is going to be next July before everyone gets their second shot?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen what happens in terms of rushed reopenings like we had in Ontario and Alberta. Both have Conservative governments that have been scared and have not had the courage to stand up for families and for working people, and instead have catered to large corporations, big business and the wealthy. They have now plunged both of their provinces into record numbers of COVID-19 cases. We have seen other provinces take very different approaches, where they put public health, workers and their citizens at the top of their priority lists, and we have seen lower numbers.

Can my colleague talk about what he would do differently at the provincial level from Premier Ford and Premier Kenney?

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have that decision-making power, but I appreciate my colleague's question. I think that some of the actions that have taken place in regard to trying to manage the borders, as I just mentioned in answering the parliamentary secretary's question, have been good moves. I also, from being a member of the health committee, know that we can have all of the procurement discussions we want to have, but the only true measure, as I have said in my presentation this evening, is how many vaccines we get in people's arms. We are way behind in regard to that and not only in first vaccines. It is improving, because we are now getting vaccines after that three-month delay we have had, but that is the true measure. We still have very few Canadians who have a second vaccine, and if it is going to take us another nine months before we get the second vaccine in, which from the end of September would be somewhere around the beginning of July next year, when do we start getting the third shots? Many people are talking about them, particularly in the questions we have asked, even on the health committee, of Health Canada in regard to the boosters that would be available and be needed by those people who may have had some efficacy loss because of the longer waits between vaccines.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for moving this emergency debate.

In her letter to the Speaker, she points out that across Canada, we've had 8,400 cases a day on average this week, and Ontario cases have surged to a new all-time high. In her own province of British Columbia, the P.1 variant from Brazil is becoming dominant, and the province has hit a new record for hospitalizations.

The member also notes that, across Canada, we are lagging in vaccination, testing and tracing, and our medical health care professionals, researchers and epidemiologists are expressing alarm, feeling exhausted and showing signs of despair. She writes that it is time for more provincial-federal co-operation.

I could not agree with her more. As a matter of fact, this is something that we on this side of the House have been asking for since day one. We have been asking for the government to lead.

While my hon. colleague asked for a non-partisan debate, I have listened intently to the debate over the last couple of hours, and each side is taking shots. Our friends across the way, including my friend from Kingston and the Islands, good soldier that he is, looking a little tired now and seemingly the only one in the House for the longest time now, keeps saying that we are peddling falsehoods and misinformation. A few weeks back during our opposition day, the parliamentary secretary, in questioning my colleague from Brandon—Souris, whom I want to thank for sharing his time me, questioned his integrity and questioned our integrity for pushing the government for a plan.

We were not pushing for the gates to open up and everything to be well. We all want that, but we understand that we are gripped in the midst of the third wave of a global pandemic. We are well over 400 days into it now, and lessons should have been learned. That is what my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands is asking for. What are the lessons we have learned? We are asking so we can move forward, and so Canadians can have hope. That is really what Canadians need right now.

Earlier, my colleague from Foothills spoke of a phone call that he took yesterday from the sister of a 20-year-old young man who committed suicide. I am the special advisor to our leader on mental health, and everyone, both in the house I am in now and in our parliamentary House, knows that I am a tireless champion for mental health. It is weighing on all of our colleagues, and it is weighing on Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We are facing a social and economic upheaval that has never been seen before. Canadians are angry and frustrated. They are facing higher anxiety. Millions of Canadians have lost their jobs. Over 200,000 businesses have closed their doors. At this time, one in six business owners is considering closing their doors.

What we have been doing from day one is asking the government what its plan is as we move forward. We in the opposition, Conservatives, Bloc, NDP, Green and independents, have been pushing the government for what its plan is. All along the way, we have offered truly a team Canada approach, so if they are seeing frustration on the sides of the opposition, it is because we truly have been pushing for that team Canada approach. Sadly, what we have seen across the way is the government saying, “We've got this, thanks”, or playing partisan politics.

The Liberals shuttered Parliament right in the heart of a global pandemic. Last July and August, they shuttered Parliament to cover up a scandal. That is the truth. Those are the facts. Right when Canadians' COVID relief packages were coming due, they shuttered Parliament. They kept parliamentarians away from their job. Every day, we are faced with more and more constituents who are at their wits' end.

Politicians, federal, provincial and municipal, are facing angry constituents because it is time. It is time for all of us to lead and show leadership to Canadians.

In terms of the vaccine rollout, I have listened to my colleagues across the way pointing fingers at the provinces. The inconsistencies with the vaccine rollout lay squarely at the feet of our federal government. As was said earlier, it had one job to do and that was to secure vaccines.

Everyone wants to make sure we are doing whatever we can to open the doors so that we could get back to a new normal, whatever that looks like. It is frustrating for me because, believe it or not, I am probably the most non-partisan person, as evidenced by the work I have done across all party lines to get pieces of legislation passed that benefit Canadians. I will do whatever I can to make sure that we are benefiting Canadians.

I have taken that approach, far and wide, even throughout this. I have tried to be a good soldier as well. However, I am feeling frustrated because that phone rings every day, and on that phone are business owners who are probably going to close their doors because they do not know how to make ends meet, or it is that constituent who has lost their job, or that nurse who is tired, or that medical professional, who is worn out and saying, “We need help. Nobody is listening. We need leadership.”

I have not even talked about the opioid crisis here in our province. We have been calling on the federal government to declare it a national health emergency. It has only gotten worse during this pandemic.

If anyone senses the frustration coming from me, it is because I wear my heart on my sleeve, as members know. I am tired of getting those phone calls from constituents. We were making phone calls this week, and there was somebody who was the beneficiary of a very large Canada summer jobs grant, which they are very thankful for. However, they said that they had sadly had to close their doors. That is a personal story that is heartbreaking.

I know all my colleagues on all sides of the House get this. Our colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, somebody who is usually not that partisan, has said that Canada is lagging in vaccinations, testing and tracing. We could be better. We should be better.

The Prime Minister and his Liberal colleagues have stood up, trumpeting about all the vaccines. However, they had to go to a program that is designed for third world or have-not countries to make sure that we had vaccines for Canadians. Early on, in the days when we were asking about why we were not doing something about closing our borders, we were ridiculed for fearmongering and being racist. Early on the government said that masks were not necessary. Then it said that maybe we should be wearing masks.

It is all that misinformation, as we go along the way, that adds to, and fuels, the frustration. That has fuelled where we are today in the midst of a third wave of this pandemic. If we do not do what we need to do today, we are going to be in a fourth wave.

Sadly, I think the Prime Minister is more concerned with engineering a pandemic election so that he could guarantee a majority for himself, rather than focusing on benefits for, and the well-being of, Canadians. We saw a budget announced that was really just an election budget.

We need a plan. We are having this emergency debate today because we are all frustrated. Canadians are frustrated. It is time. It is well past the time. I would challenge my Liberal colleagues, who are going to stand up and question my integrity, to tell me what I am supposed—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I am sorry, but we have to go questions and comments.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Madam Speaker, I certainly would never question the integrity of the member. I have a lot of respect for him. One thing I totally agree with him on is that he wears his heart on his sleeve, and I admire that about him.

However, I really think we need to keep the context here. That is key to this discussion. The truth is, and I have not seen this member do it, but I have seen a number of people from his party, especially during question period, get up and challenge how effective Canada is versus the United States, as one example, and talk about how the United States is so far ahead of us. Here is some information. As of today, Canada recorded 5,800 new COVID cases for the whole country. By comparison, Michigan recorded 5,900 and Florida recorded 5,600.

Would the member not at least agree, in that spirit of non-partisanship that he was talking about, that sometimes we might over-inflate a situation, both on this side and that side, in order to make a situation look better or worse?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I heard my hon. colleague talk about comparing apples to apples in earlier interventions when people were talking about Taiwan, Australia or New Zealand. Here is a fact: Only 2% of Canadians are fully vaccinated. That fact right there lies squarely at the feet of this Liberal government.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, first, I want to thank my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands for triggering tonight's debate.

My colleague is genuine, and I do appreciate his speech and the work that he does on the all-party mental health caucus, which I sit on with him. I appreciate him talking about the opioid crisis.

The member talked about the small business owners who are struggling right now with mental health challenges, especially as they are facing the next six to eight weeks during this third wave. Does my colleague not agree that the government needs to expand the CEBA loan, help with liquidity, and help those who have fallen through the cracks? One example of this is start-ups, which are getting absolutely nothing right now. Does he agree that it is critical that we support those small entrepreneurs and small businesses in the coming weeks so that they can get through this?

Like he said, we are going to lose tens of thousands of businesses, and there is going to be a long-term recovery for those people, not just for their economic recovery but for the recovery of their mental health.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, I think we need to be doing everything we can to support our small businesses. There are so many businesses that have fallen through the cracks, such as our tourism businesses and seasonal operators.

I have major events in my riding that our municipalities depend on, such as the Williams Lake Stampede, Billy Barker Days, the British Columbia Northern Exhibition, and the Vanderhoof Fall Fair. These are all huge economic generators for our region, and the businesses and communities that depend on those events are desperately hurting.

I honestly think that we need to rethink this. We need to be providing more supports for these small businesses because every day I pick up the phone and there is another business that is closing its doors. I thank my—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

We have time for one last question from the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech. As the member is from northern British Columbia, I would like to get his comments on keeping the camps open for workers who were travelling back and forth early in the pandemic and the spread that happened in the northern communities. Now I am hearing from teachers who are saying that these camp workers are vaccinated, but they are still waiting for their vaccines in areas where COVID is exploding.

I would like to hear the member's comments about the priorities of the provincial government in terms of vaccinating and in terms of the lockdowns.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Madam Speaker, I think there is fault that can be laid at a number of governments' feet. However, the failure to secure the vaccinations that were needed on a timely basis to make sure that we could continues lies squarely at the feet of our Liberal government. We needed those vaccines for our northern, rural and remote communities to be safe and secure, and we know they have been unfairly punished and left out in this pandemic.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

It is about 10:35 p.m. as I rise to speak in this important debate. During the pandemic, we have lost many Canadians to COVID-19. Some people lost a loved one and were unable to visit them in the hospital as they would have liked.

This evening, I would like to talk about someone who served in the House for 22 years, the Hon. Don Boudria. He lost his mother yesterday, and I would like to offer him my deepest condolences. Ms. Loiselle was a constituent of mine and a wonderful woman. I know that her family is mourning her. She had a good life, and she raised a very good boy who went on to serve his community.

In March and April 2020, every member of the House experienced the same thing. We all brought thousands of Canadians home from abroad. We all worked with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was very busy bringing home Canadians on flights as some airports completely shut down.

Members were getting calls at all hours of the day and night about repatriating all these Canadians. That is how the pandemic started for MPs. We did everything we could to bring these Canadians home. On March 13, 2020, we instructed Canadians not to travel anymore, as it was no longer safe to leave Canada.

That was a very difficult time for many MPs. It was like being hit by a tsunami that no one saw coming. The entire world went through this. Today, I want to thank all those who were involved in this operation, all those officials who worked to repatriate all the Canadians. It is already a distant memory now, in April 2021, but that is how the pandemic started for the majority of Canadians.

Today, I also want to thank all front-line workers and first responders. In my riding, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit did an excellent job of deploying rapid testing. People could be tested at a drive-through assessment centre in Casselman.

I really want to thank Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, the chief executive officer of the Eastern Ontario Health Unit. He has done an outstanding job, but it is not over yet. I know he has not slept in a year, like most of us here today.

Once people returned to Canada, the provinces implemented quarantine measures. That is when business owners and people who had lost their jobs overnight started coming to us, because they had to go into quarantine. At that point we had little information about the COVID-19 virus.

I want to thank all members for their work, but I also want to thank all of the business owners who contacted me during this period to say they needed help because they had lost their jobs and had no income. They were not eligible for employment insurance and wanted to know if there would be another program. The Canada emergency response benefit was created.

My aunt, who passed away on Saturday, was a hairdresser. Unfortunately, the vast majority of hairdressers were not eligible for employment insurance. The Canada emergency response benefit was helpful to them during the shutdown, as it provided some assistance to cover personal expenses. If they had to pay rent, they could apply for the emergency subsidy to get support.

Our government delivered for Canadians because we listen. None of this would have been possible without our Prime Minister, who did everything he could to help Canadians.

That mission did not change for our Prime Minister in 2021. It is still very real. In my opinion, it also did not change for the members who sit in the House either in person or virtually.

We are now in the midst of the third wave, and I would like to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for requesting this emergency debate.

We are still getting requests for help every day. Business owners in my riding were telling me recently that they did not know how they would survive if the Canada emergency wage subsidy was to end in June. They asked me to extend that measure.

The budget that our Minister of Finance presented on Monday confirmed that this measure will be extended until September, and I know that will help many business owners in my riding. The extension of the Canada emergency rent subsidy will also help many businesses to survive.

Our strategy for the pandemic is to build a bridge to help businesses survive and to participate in the economic recovery.

On Monday, the finance minister announced that she wanted to create a million jobs by the end of the year. That is a commendable goal because we know that, during the last recession, it took nearly 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, to create and bring back all of the jobs that were lost.

Everyone in the House has acknowledged that women have paid the price for this pandemic. I cannot repeat what my wife said when I told her that we plan to bring in $10-a-day child care. Her words were unparliamentary, but I can assure my colleagues that the message was very positive. My wife works with women entrepreneurs, first at Startup Canada Entrepreneurship Empowers Everyone and now at Global Entrepreneurship Network, where she keeps hearing every day about how child care is a hurdle for women business owners or those who want to start a business.

Earlier, I heard my colleagues ask us what we were going to do to help new businesses. I can assure them that helping families get access to $10-a-day child care alone will open a whole range of jobs in our communities in Canada.

In English we call that a game-changer. It will be a game-changer for society. I cannot say how many female entrepreneurs I have met in my riding who have told me they need some help with child care. It is a true story in rural Canada, particularly in rural Ontario, and it is also a true story in urban communities.

The other issue is rural Internet access. I know that many children who are trying to learn from home simply do not have access to good broadband. Access to a reliable Internet service should be a right in Canada. We answered that question in budget 2019, but in budget 2021, we added another billion dollars to speed up the timeline to connect every Canadian who wants a reliable, speedy connection. That means access to offered services and access to schooling, and it means being able to talk to the family members we all miss so much.

I want to finish with the procurement strategy. I have full confidence in the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. She has done a great job. We started off with an objective of six million doses by Q1, and we ended up with 9.5 million. We are going to get almost 50 million doses, with current timelines, by the end of June. That is a lot more doses to vaccinate every Canadian who chooses to have a vaccine and includes the second dose for those who choose to have one.

We are on track, we have done a good job and we will continue working with the provinces.

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

Madam Speaker, in British Columbia, where I am from, the numbers are going up, and nurses, health care providers and doctors are crying out for relief. They are exhausted. They are making decisions in their provision of health care that they never thought they would have to make and it is extremely stressful.

One of the challenges is that low-income people who need to work to pay for basic necessities do not have access to paid sick leave during COVID or at any other time. I am wondering if the member could speak to addressing this issue in a fulsome way not only for COVID, but also going into the future.