Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to participate in this evening's emergency debate, which is being held at the request of the Green Party member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, to talk about the third wave we are experiencing across Canada. I can confirm that the third wave is definitely hitting Quebec along with everywhere else.
As we see it, lack of leadership and inconsistent decisions by the Liberal government and its Prime Minister have led to numerous consequences.
I would like to go back to the beginning and review how it all unfolded. Over a year ago, during question period, my colleagues and I were asking the Minister of Health some questions. I remember it like it was yesterday. We asked her for an update on the situation. The COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning in China. I clearly remember the minister telling us that everything was under control, that her government was on top of the situation, that it was capable of responding, that it had what it needed, that it was ready and that it would be there to help.
Looking back, everyone saw that the government was slow to react. It knew certain things, but did not share that information. A number of mistakes were made over and over again. This government likes to lecture the provinces, and yet it cannot even deal with issues under its own jurisdiction. We have seen this in a number of areas, and this week's budget is proof of that.
I can name two mistakes that have led in large part to the third wave that we are experiencing, and have had an impact on Canadians and on our economy. The first is border controls. The government made bad decisions and often made them too late. Whether it was the use of rapid tests at the border, authorization to leave the country or directives for Canadians returning home, all the decisions were slow to be made.
Today we learned that the variant from India has been detected for the first time in my region, Mauricie—Centre-du-Québec. People are even wondering whether the vaccines will provide protection against this variant. Still, flights from India have landed in this country today. Hearing this news, it is quite troubling that some people still refuse to follow the directives, and the government refuses to bring in the measures needed to protect our air and land borders.
Based on the information we have, we know that there is practically no monitoring of people who quarantine themselves when they arrive. Then there are the problems people run into with the bureaucracy and the fact that they are receiving instructions too late because the government is so slow to act.
That is the first problem I wanted to raise. Border management took time, and, as a result, COVID-19 entered the country. Then, despite all the international warnings about the variants, the government was lax. Now we are suffering the consequences of this mismanagement, which led to the third wave.
The second major responsibility of the government was to procure vaccines. The government was dealt failure after failure. We do not have access to the expected number of doses as scheduled. Every day, the Prime Minister stands in front of his house to say that there will be millions of doses, in an effort to make people feel better and to boost confidence. However, we know that the doses are not arriving when they are supposed to. This has a domino effect on the provinces, which have to manage the health care system and the vaccination rollout in every region of the country. They are having a hard time coordinating all this, and people are left waiting for information to register to be vaccinated so that we can get out of this pandemic once and for all. This therefore has major consequences.
All the rules and measures put in place by the provinces to protect us were valid, whether it was handwashing, masking or physical distancing. Quebec imposed a curfew, which is still in place in almost every region.
Our economy was affected, especially restaurants, businesses and bars. These financial and, by extension, human disasters affect workers and entrepreneurs who have invested their life savings and are anxious for things to return to normal. In some countries this has already started, and it will happen here when we are vaccinated and the provinces can lift restrictions. The one and only reason why we are not there yet is that the vaccine procurement was not done properly. The government's defence is that it did its best. Everyone knows it and everyone agrees.
Could Canada have done better?
It certainly could have, in our view. Why is there so little transparency from this government when we voted unanimously in the House of Commons in favour of motions to get access to contracts?
Other countries are disclosing their contracts, and that would also let us see what is happening here. In particular, we would know why we are paying much more than other countries, to the tune of several billions of dollars.
We could at least say that we paid what we had to pay. Given that we paid more for the vaccines, why are they not arriving on schedule and why have there been so many delays that our country has had to hold back vaccine doses that were supposed to be sent to developing countries to help them get through this crisis?
The government is racking up failure after failure, and everyone is suffering the consequences.
The budget has made it clear that the government is making decisions based on a potential election instead of helping Canadians and Quebeckers in the middle of a pandemic. An election is coming very soon, likely in the fall. Everyone knows and every analyst has predicted it because this government is throwing around billions of dollars.
Here is an example. The word “pandemic” is related to health care, and health care is a provincial jurisdiction. The provinces are asking for money because they are the ones managing the crisis that has, in large part, escalated as a result of the federal government's incompetence and decision-making. However, nowhere in the latest budget does the government talk about transferring money to the provinces so that they can properly manage their health care systems. Rather, the government is choosing to give money to help campground owners with the post-pandemic recovery. The government talks about campgrounds, sprinkles money here and there and mentions a day care system, supposedly to help with the economic recovery. The day care system is all lip service. The idea is good, but it will take three, four or five years to be implemented. The government is using the pandemic to push its left-wing Liberal ideology through the system and on the public. It is an awkward election ploy. It is rather unsettling to see this Liberal government play politics with the unfortunate situation we are in.
It is time for this government to be transparent and to give parliamentarians all of the information so that we can do our job. This created a lot of frustration during the crisis. I know what it was like to be unable to get access to information quickly, to feel left out of decisions when our constituents, businesses, farmers and organizations were knocking on our doors and looking for information in order to simply survive and keep their heads above water so that they could get on with their lives.
Unfortunately, the reality is that we were left to our own devices. We had to do our best with the small teams that we have in our ridings and invest hours and hours in trying to provide quality service to our constituents, despite the public health restrictions.
I could talk about the election budget that was presented. The Prime Minister and the Liberal government should have shown some compassion and implemented measures to help Canadians and the economic recovery instead of thinking about the next election, which may well occur in August. We can assume that there will be an election, given all the cheques that will be sent out to citizens, the changes to the pension rules and the cheques related to the carbon tax. They were supposed to be sent out once a year, but now they will be sent out three times a year. Coincidentally, all of the—