Debates of April 21st, 2021

Government Response to COVID-19 Pandemic

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House tonight.

Throughout this pandemic, Canada has constantly adapted its response to emerging science, and everything we have done to date has been with one overarching goal in mind, which is to protect Canadians.

At this time, Canada is experiencing a third wave. Like many countries around the world, we have struggled to maintain public health measures in place due to concerning economic and social harms. Like many countries around the world, this combination of relaxing public health measures and the introduction of variants has resulted in the growth of cases in some provinces. As a result of more infections, of course, there is increased hospitalization and ICU admissions, leading to health care systems in some provinces being stretched to capacity, so it is more important than ever before to control transmission and keep COVID-19 infection rates down.

We collectively know how. The variants have not changed what works to stop the spread. Despite an increasing number of vaccinations each day, we must continue to protect each other while we work so hard to reach the finish line. We can see it together, and we need to continue to have the appropriate supports in place to get to that finish line safely and together.

Canada is now seeing an increased number of younger adults with COVID-19 being treated in hospital and admitted to ICU. It is an important reminder that COVID-19 can impact people of all ages and severe illness can occur at any age. National case counts have more than doubled in the last month, and each new case is a person who is spreading infection to more than one other person, keeping the epidemic in a growth pattern. Modelling predicts that continued resurgence is possible if variants of concern continue to spread as expected and public health measures remain at current levels. That is why it is so important for us all to keep our contacts low and to reduce our risk of getting infected or unwittingly spreading this virus to others.

On a positive note, the benefits of vaccination are beginning to show. As of April 10, more than 84% of seniors over 80 years of age have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Incident rates have declined dramatically among adults aged 80 years or older and have not increased as quickly as in other age groups in recent weeks. We continue to see a significant drop in the number of long-term care home outbreaks, and deaths continue to decrease for the most vulnerable elderly population. As vaccination programs expand across the country, we will see further benefits across the population.

Growing rates of variants are concerning, as they have been linked to more severe outcomes. The number of variant cases in Canada is continuing to increase quickly. They have almost doubled in the past week, and several jurisdictions continue to experience variants of concern during the third waves this spring. There have now been over 70,000 cases of variants of concern reported publicly in Canada as of April 20, and the variants of concern now account for the majority of cases in Canada's four largest provinces.

In response to the emergence of variants of concern in late 2020 and the ongoing detection of new variants, the Government of Canada has implemented a variants of concern strategy and invested $53 million into it. What will this strategy do? It aims to increase sequencing capacity across Canada to reduce time to getting to results so that public health action can be more rapid, and to create a robust results-driven network of research to enable us to come to understanding these emerging variants and what their impact is very quickly. This work is being done in partnership and collaboration with the provinces and territories, and it has led to the increase in sequencing capacity from 5% of cases in December to 15% of all positives in March.

The Government of Canada has also been working through critical networks, such as CanCOGeN and public health laboratories, to utilize existing and newly implemented sequencing capacity, again with the focus of delivering public health results quickly. This includes the development of rapid screening assays for known variants, as well as a national sequencing strategy that combines outbreak investigations, surveillance of trends in Canada, and targeted testing, such as infections following vaccination or in travellers. Specific for travel-associated cases, Canada now tests returning travellers and all positives are sent for sequencing. This helps us monitor variants arriving in Canada and provides an additional measure of support in our border policies.

Canada's vaccine strategy is clear. We are working to vaccinate as many Canadians as quickly as possible, beginning with those at the highest risk of more severe illness and hospitalization. This not only helps to protect individuals, but also helps to provide protection for those around them.

With increasing supply of approved vaccines, Canada is well equipped to scale up vaccinations and maximize protection to the population even faster. A total of 10,719,000 vaccine doses have been administered as of today, and this has been done in partnership with the provinces and territories. Together with partners, we are monitoring and learning in real time how well the vaccines are working, how best to distribute them and how to optimize their use using all of this information, obviously while maintaining safety for everyone.

Studies from Israel and the U.K. are demonstrating excellent protection with two doses of mRNA, with effectiveness of over 90% against asymptomatic infections, symptomatic infections, hospitalization, severe disease and death. As well, based on a number of studies, mRNA vaccines show protection against COVID-19 infections, which means they are likely to reduce transmission at a population level. This is good news and helps us get to the finish line.

We know that public health measures work while vaccines roll out. International experiences show that stringent public health measures and adherence to them are required to control rapid epidemic growth and to allow time for vaccinations to occur. In fact, some countries have experienced growth while having high rates of vaccination, largely as a result of relaxing public health measures.

Given that many people in Canada have yet to receive a vaccine and that some have had one dose of vaccine, it remains important that everyone, whether vaccinated or not, continues to follow public health advice. We need to keep physically distancing, wearing masks and avoiding gatherings, particularly indoors. This is what will help hold the epidemic at bay. The public health measures are extremely important, while vaccines roll out, to provide protection at the population level. Lifting measures too soon before enough people are vaccinated, as observed in other countries, can result in an upsurge in cases, requiring repeated adjustments to control infection rates. In fact, this was an early finding in Israel's vaccination campaign.

The speed of information flow is unprecedented, and of course we are using this information and rapidly emerging evidence data and local epidemiology to inform how we adapt. We have to continue to adhere to public health measures. We can only ease them when we are sure that the data is showing us that a phased approach of relaxation, with an aim to increase social interaction and support economic recovery, does not put people at risk. Some factors that influence this could include the spread of variants, the severity of illness, vaccine effectiveness and coverage, health care system capacity and the degree to which public health measures are successful in controlling transmission.

Right now it is important to safeguard the progress that we have made by acting on the evidence and collaborating with all levels of government. After a year of managing the pandemic in Canada, what remains clear is that managing COVID is a lot of work and requires all levels of government, and indeed individuals, to combine public health measures, personal precautions and, most recently, vaccinations to control the growth of cases.

I would now like to talk about the rollout of vaccines across our country.

The Government of Canada has taken a comprehensive approach in its response to address the COVID-19 pandemic, and the immunization plan follows along those lines. We are now entering phase two of the vaccination campaign. Starting this month, the pace of our vaccine supply is expected to accelerate, and as the Prime Minister recently announced, Pfizer will advance the delivery of doses into June. That means Canada is expected to receive at least 48 million doses by the end of June. The arrival of the millions of doses that I just mentioned means that leading into the summer, first doses will be in the arms of every Canadian who wants a vaccine. Then we can move on to providing second doses, which will increase the protection against the disease. By the end of September 2021, every person in Canada who is eligible and wants to be vaccinated will have access to a vaccine.

As the weather gets warmer and we start to see people get vaccinated, obviously Canadians are sensing a bit of relief. However, they want to know what this means for them personally. How do we begin to transition to a life, a new normal? While it will be tempting to change our practices in this context, my message to Canadians could not be clearer: Now is not the time for us to let our guard down. We know that the virus spread is continuing to accelerate in some parts of our country, and it poses an unprecedented challenge for our health care system. In fact, our neighbours, our friends and our loved ones are counting on us to work together.

While the COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in Canada are highly effective at preventing illness, we do not yet know whether vaccinated individuals can spread the virus and pose a risk to public health and all of our health. As a result, life when Canadians are vaccinated will still be based on what the COVID-19 situation looks like in our communities and what kind of health care capacity we have to rapidly respond to outbreaks if they occur. If both of these indicators are favourable, then decisions could be taken at the local level to relax public health measures.

In other words, when someone gets vaccinated, they are contributing to a community of vaccinated people. Then that collective community actually helps to control the spread. This, in turn, means that there is less COVID, and less COVID is what makes a healthier, safer community and allows for the relaxation of public health measures.

When someone gets the first dose and then eventually a second dose, they are starting along a path toward a new normal for themselves. However, it is also a new normal for their community. It is a contribution to the health and wellness of it. That means the best thing that we as Canadians can do at this point is get vaccinated when it is our turn, wear our masks, wash our hands, maintain physical distancing and not hold events at home. We know that these public health practices work, and maintaining these practices is especially important within the context of new variants of concern.

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada will continue to work hard to fulfill their mandates. They will continue their close work with provinces, territories, indigenous leaders and indigenous communities so that we can have a consistent approach to COVID-19 immunization across Canada. The agency's expert advice and leadership have been invaluable, especially as we move into this critical phase two of Canada's vaccine rollout strategy.

We rely on the accumulating scientific data, emerging evidence and expert guidance, and the agency is guided by all of that to inform its decisions, strategies and recommendations. Furthermore, it is participating in international communities of practice so that we can benefit from the experiences of other countries. The government is continually evaluating the latest evidence and the epidemiological situation here at home, and indeed internationally, and we will continue to adjust our guidance accordingly. Right now, we are following the best scientific advice in rolling out vaccines and working to control COVID together as we collectively work to bring the pandemic under control.

Throughout the vaccine rollout, we have taken many steps to keep Canadians informed. In January, the Public Health Agency of Canada launched a website and opened a 1-833 number so the public can ask questions about COVID-19. Since then, the agency has directly addressed the questions and concerns of tens of thousands of Canadians on many aspects of COVID-19 and the vaccine rollout. As the situation evolves, we will continue to provide Canadians with accurate and up-to-date information.

I would like to conclude with a clear message directly to Canadians. The virus may change and it might shift, but we know what to do to protect our communities. Canadians know what to do to protect their communities and their families. They need to keep reducing their contacts and get vaccinated when eligible, and we as a government will continue to have their backs.

Our goal remains the same: Together we need to bend the curve down. This will be easier with the widespread uptake of vaccines across the country. We can see the finish line. Fall of 2021 should look and feel very different from the fall of 2020, but we do need to stay the course together.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Health where we are at with the test that temporary workers are supposed to get on day 10 of their mandatory quarantine. We have asked a lot of questions about this in recent days.

This evening we are having an emergency debate on the management of the pandemic, and I think this issue is a big part of that.

Currently, farmers are having to wait up to 25 days before they can put their workers to work even though the quarantine is supposed to last 14 days. That is because Switch Health is unable to provide this service. I am seeing incompetence all over the place. Nobody is delivering.

We have been raising this issue for a long time. Have there been discussions about this?

People in the agricultural sector have put forward solutions. Nobody wants to relax measures or get rid of the day-10 test. They just want to be able to do it locally. They would like the government to let them hire specialists to come do these tests. Why not allow that?

That way, they could carry on producing food. After all, people need to eat, and that food comes from our fields.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I share the member opposite's frustration with the return time of day-10 tests for temporary foreign workers. I can assure him that we are working not only with Switch Health, but with many other providers of potential solutions to accelerate the test returns.

I am sure the member opposite realizes that it is important for us to continue our rigorous measures at the border for all travellers. We will continue to work with Switch Health so that we can ameliorate the situation as quickly as possible.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to quote from the Emergencies Act. It says:

a national emergency is an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that

(a) 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

It then defines a public welfare emergency as:

an emergency that is caused by a real or imminent

(b) 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, so serious as to be a national emergency.

Finally, it authorizes the government that invokes it to authorize and make emergency payments and to establish hospitals.

Does the minister agree with me that this perfectly describes the situation in Ontario, which is clearly overwhelmed and needs the federal government to come in and help establish hospitals or make payments for paid sick days? If not, could she explain to Canadians why not?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will point out that we do not need the Emergencies Act to support Ontario. In fact, that is what we have been doing all along, with cash infusions into Ontario and the establishment of field hospitals, and by mobilizing health human resources; supporting, with the Red Cross, rapid response teams; helping with testing; purchasing PPE; purchasing testing; deploying testing; and supporting private businesses to procure and perform tests and to analyze them. Every step of the way, we have worked with the provinces and territories and provided them with the inputs they need to control the spread.

My department will not rest. We will continue to be there for Canadians. In fact, the rapid response program was born out of a need to assist the provinces with hot spots, and it has grown to include the ability to support people with vaccinations. Every step of the way, we have promised Canadians that we will be there, and we will be.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by saying to the hon. Minister of Health that I am grateful her work. I bet she has had almost no sleep for a year. I hate to say it, but I am glad we are having the emergency debate tonight, and I want to apologize to her for adding to her workload.

Something is bothering me a lot, as members can tell. That is why I asked for the emergency debate. I do not think we have things under control, and I am particularly concerned for the one out of three Canadians who gets COVID and then has symptoms that go on and on and on. They call themselves the “long-haulers”.

They need help, and I ask the hon. minister what is planned for them. Some of this is in provincial jurisdiction and some of it is federal, but they are feeling abandoned.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her kind words. Indeed, the credit goes to the hard-working public servants as well, who are literally working around the clock to help protect Canadians.

With respect to her question about COVID long-haulers, as they are sometimes referred to in the various media pieces, I know the CIHR is investigating, through the research networks, to try to understand what the nature of these long-haul symptoms means, both in the short term and in the long term, for individuals who are struggling to recover from COVID-19. This is the challenge with a new health crisis. So much is still unknown about the virus and the long-term effects on people who have it.

I will reiterate that this government will stop at nothing to support people, whether they have been infected with COVID or been affected by the public health measures necessary to control COVID. I appreciate the question. I know it is on the minds of many, and I can advise the member that we will get back to her about the specific measures from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which is looking at this very question.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I want to echo the thanks from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. On behalf of the people of Don Valley West, I want to thank the minister for her work. I never use the word “tireless”, because I am sure she gets tired. The difference is that she keeps going when she is tired.

I also want to echo the parliamentary leader of the Green Party's opening remarks. She talked about not laying blame but working together. I can almost see the field hospital that is just a few blocks north of me at Sunnybrook Hospital. It was set up with the help of the federal government.

Can the minister tell me a bit about the challenges and opportunities of our federation and how she is able to continue in that work? I am sure it is not always easy, but I suspect that at times it is rewarding.

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as tired as I am, what keeps me going is knowing that all Canadians are tired and that it is an exhausting time, actually, for global citizens. This is a terrifying time for Canadians, and it is a terrifying time for global citizens, but it is an honour to serve my country, as I am sure the member feels every day when he gets up and serves his constituents.

The member is right that we do have a federation. The challenge, in some ways, is that we have provinces and territories that operate very independently from a health delivery perspective. That is the nature of the way our country is set up. What that means is that we often have different systems of care, different data systems, different approaches and different public health units set up. That is challenging, especially if we are talking about this in the context of taking over health care systems.

We have to be careful, when we are responding in the middle of an emergency, that our response would in no way make something worse, and that whatever we do should be an add-on to the work that is already being done in local communities, rather than in any way jeopardize care that is delivered through provincial systems that are sophisticated, independent and have the responsibility to deliver care. We do have an opportunity, though, through the pandemic and through the work of the federal government, to identify significant gaps and build on those gaps.

Data is an example. At the beginning of the pandemic, in many instances cases were faxed in to the public health unit with very basic data missing, such as the gender or the age of the person who was sick. People would ask about disaggregated data and in my heart I would smile a bit, thinking that even just the gender or the age might be helpful. We have come a long way since then. Part of that is the investments we have made of $19 billion, including $4 billion of that for data, as well as the constant and ongoing collaboration at the civil service level and, yes, even at the political level.

Sometimes it is very challenging in a political media space, and it seems like there is a lot of fighting and jarring going on, but I can say that, for example in Ontario, Minister Elliott and I have a fantastic working relationship. We may not see eye to eye on every issue, but she knows that Canada has Ontario's back. She does not hesitate to call me when she needs something, and I do not hesitate, and I often do, to pick up the phone to say, “How can we help?” That is truly the nature of a good democracy.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands requested this emergency debate today, but I recall being in this House in January having a similar emergency debate on the inability of the Liberal government to access and distribute vaccines, their putting of the impetus on the provinces and the potential of a third wave. I definitely do not want to be back here in May, June or July having a third emergency debate on the Liberal government's inability to procure and distribute vaccines to the provinces to ensure that every Canadian is vaccinated.

I am going to go in a different direction than other speakers have this evening because of a phone conversation I had yesterday afternoon. One of my constituents, a 19-year-old girl, called me to have a discussion about her brother. Unfortunately, her brother committed suicide. Her brother committed suicide because of isolation, losing jobs, and the inability to see his friends and family. That is just one of many stories that I know all of us in this House have heard from constituents.

This was a 20-year-old young man who had his whole life in front of him, but after a year of lockdowns, quarantines and restrictions, the mental health impacts on his life were just too much for him to bear. We cannot have those stories any longer. This cannot be the new normal. Canadians need hope that there will be an end to this crisis.

The mental health implications of the COVID pandemic are frightening. We saw the report from the Canadian Mental Health Association in December, which said that almost 50% of Canadians had reported that their mental health has deteriorated. That was six months ago. I am sure that number is much higher.

We have seen an incredible increase in domestic abuse, suicides and opioid overdose deaths. My province of Alberta saw skyrocketing numbers in terms of the opioid crisis, and suicide numbers tripled over a two-quarter period late last year. Canadians have had enough, but what is most frustrating about the impact this has had on Canadians' mental health is that this could have been prevented.

A year ago, we were asking the Liberal government to ensure that it had agreements and contracts in place to procure vaccines that Canadians would need. In November and December, the Prime Minister stood at the podium and said there would be millions of vaccines for Canadians, but through January, February and March, Canadians were not being vaccinated anywhere near the rate of our G7 counterparts and countries around the world. As a result of the federal government's inability to meet the most basic needs and ensure the safety of its constituents, Canadians are dying not only of COVID-19, but also because a mental health crisis.

I know the government says that we cannot go back to the past, but the past often dictates where we are going in the future. It is very clear that the Liberal government's inability to access and procure vaccines is rooted in the mistakes it made a year ago when it was putting its faith in an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party and CanSino, which, to the shock of no one, fell through last summer. The Prime Minister and his procurement minister were scrambling, going with hat in hand to pharmaceutical companies, asking for whatever they could get.

As a result of that, we see where we are right now. We see other countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, have been vaccinating their citizens at a much quicker pace, but they also had very strict guidelines in the contracts they signed with pharmaceutical companies. They ensured that if those pharmaceutical companies did not meet their delivery commitments, there were consequences. In most cases these were financial, but certainly the monthly reports had to be transparent.

We do not know here in Canada if we have similar contracts signed with Moderna, AstraZeneca or Pfizer because the Liberal government has refused to share those contracts with the Canadian public. The Canadian public deserves to know exactly where we stand.

Other countries have shared those contracts with their citizens. In fact, the United States has one of the contracts that we signed. It knows what is in that contract, and has made it public, but Canadians here at home are not allowed to see those contracts because the Liberal government is blocking that information.

We had a motion here in the House in October, which was passed unanimously by the House, to ensure that all documents and information regarding the COVID pandemic and the response to the pandemic were provided to parliamentarians. Those documents have been trickling out, but we still have not had an opportunity to see those contracts. I put a motion in front of the health committee more than a month ago asking specifically if the law clerk had those contracts and, if not, that he prioritize accessing those contracts from the government. It has been almost six weeks, and we still have not seen those contracts at the health committee.

Now, I am not naive. I know that there will be information redacted, which is why we asked that it go to the law clerk before it is redacted by the government. There may definitely be some information in there that is sensitive that the government and those pharmaceutical companies do not want to share. However, I think it behooves the government to show Canadians the contracts it signed, because we are in this Liberal-government third wave that could have been prevented had it been able to procure and distribute vaccines months before.

This was brought up in question period today, and I am sure in the debate tonight we will hear some more about this disagreement in facts, but the facts are that only 2% of Canadians have had two doses of the vaccine. In the United States the rate is close to 30%, and some states are already going to a third shot as a booster. It is incredible to see the difference in this country when we compare it to others. Not to mention, I heard yesterday from a pundit on the news that we are spending like a first-world country but getting third-world results, and I could not think of a better description of what we are seeing.

Thanks to some research from my staff member Mark Choi, I was able to find out what we were paying for an AstraZeneca vaccine. In Canada, we are spending $8.00 for an AstraZeneca vaccine. I know that many Canadians say that they do not care what it takes, and they want that to happen. I agree, but in the United States it is $4.00. In the EU, it is $2.00.

We are spending, in many cases, triple or double what other countries are paying, yet we are not getting those vaccines. If I am paying a premium, I expect premium services, and we are not getting that. Now we are seeing the provinces having to struggle and try to find ways to vaccinate their citizenry.

Also, we are one of the only countries in the world that has gone off label in telling our constituents that they will not get that second dose until four months down the road. We have asked Pfizer if that meets its requirements and if that would still be acceptable, but it will not answer that question because it does not know. It does not want to make that commitment. So, we are continuing to roll this out when only 2% of Canadians have had both their vaccines and now we are waiting four months for that second dose. It is unacceptable. That is poor leadership and poor action, or inaction, by the government, and it has to apologize to Canadians.

We cannot keep this up. As I said, this cannot be the new normal. Our mental health and financial health just cannot take this much longer. We have been on this roller-coaster ride, or, as I like to say, hamster wheel, for a year. I commend Canadians, and I certainly commend my constituents, for how they have handled what has been a very difficult time.

However, we have asked Canadians to do a lot, and there is a breaking point. As I have said, we have seen many Canadians getting to that breaking point as our mental health continues to deteriorate.

Last year, we approached many Canadian pharmaceutical companies with vaccines that were ready to be produced and tested here in Canada, but the Liberal government ignored them. It still fails to support homegrown opportunities. Mr. Sorenson, the CEO of Providence Therapeutics yesterday said, “We're getting contacted by probably two or three countries per week asking if we could supply them with vaccine booster doses in 2022.... We're trying to get those things moving...to convey [that] urgency, but we're just not getting...reciprocated from [our own Canadian] government.”

Again, the failures are piling up and, unfortunately, Canadians are the ones paying the price.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would challenge a number of things in that speech.

For starters, on the issue of Canada being the only country that is extending the time period of taking that second dose, that is false. The U.K. is doing that as well.

The member talked about other things, such as how we were spending like a first world country and getting third world results. That is false. Among the G20, we are putting more needles into arms on a daily basis. We are third among the G20 for getting needles into arms.

My question for the member is about this. We can criticize the vaccine rollout; we can criticize the timeline of getting vaccines to provinces; we can say more should have been done sooner, more should have been done later, although we would never say that, but we can adjust the timeline; we can say whatever we want, but what we cannot say is that the provinces did not know when they would get vaccines. The provinces were told in December when they would get them.

Therefore, in Ontario, when Doug Ford saw on February 11 the modelling of what would happen in the third wave, he knew when to get the doses and actually ended up getting more than he was promised by the end of March. Therefore, the lack of vaccines cannot be blamed on the third wave, because the provinces knew and had a responsibility to target and timeline themselves around that rollout. Unfortunately it appears as though they did not plan properly for it. At least, that is the case in Ontario.

Would the member not at least agree that the timelines and the vaccine distribution were set well in advance and we exceeded what the provinces were told they would get?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the question from colleague is the typical response from the Liberals, where they fail to take responsibility for their failures while they push the responsibility onto the provinces.

We heard in November, December and January that we would have eight million vaccines by the end of February. Then it was the end of March. Then it was the end of May. It kept getting pushed and pushed. Now we are hearing it will be into June and July. As the federal government, it has one job, which is to procure and distribute those vaccines. We knew that the Liberal federal government would put these failures at the feet of the provincial governments, which it has certainly done. We have seen vaccine clinics cancelled. We have seen the ages now fluctuate for who can or who cannot get vaccinated.

I want to see Canadians vaccinated, do not get me wrong. I want to see our life get back to normal as quickly as possible. This debate today is about how we got here and where we go from here. The answer to the question is that we should have been having these vaccinations in January, February and March and we did not. As a result of that, this is the situation we now face.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear my colleague talk about the government's incompetence on many levels in managing the crisis, including border security in the early days. The measures were excruciatingly slow in coming, which allowed the virus to come into the country permanently.

Now, with the arrival of the variants, the same thing is happening. The government is very slow to react. When the government imposed the hotel quarantines, it was also very slow to react and improve the reservation system. Remember, the phone lines were jammed. It also seems like the government does not learn from its mistakes. Ironically, I spoke of this earlier. We have the company Switch—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have to interrupt the member for a moment. We are having a bit of a problem with interpretation. Can I ask the member to start his question over again so that the member for Foothills can understand it?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly important that the member understand the question because it is directed at him. I will start over.

I appreciated my colleague's speech in which he spoke about the different signs of the government's incompetence in managing this crisis.

Remember that, at the outset, the government waited a long time before closing the border, then implementing restrictions, and then reacting to the variants. We wondered when flights from certain countries would be banned. Remember that it was a very long time before flights from Great Britain were banned. By the time the government finally closed the borders, the variant was already here. How ironic that the Indian variant has reportedly already arrived. The government has been incompetent on all levels. Also remember the reservation system for hotel quarantines, when the phone lines were jammed and nothing was working.

It seems like the government does not learn from its mistakes. Today, we have the company Switch Health, which is unable to meet demand in administering testing for foreign workers on day 10 of their quarantine. We see failure everywhere we look. The government is negligent at everything, except when it comes to basically oppressing farmers by leaving their workers in quarantine for 25 days. No one wants to jeopardize public safety. The day-10 tests must be done, but they must be done efficiently.

People on the ground have proposed solutions. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the fact that the government is not listening to recommendations coming from people on the ground. Do such problems exist elsewhere in Canada? It seems to me that a big part of the problem is that people in Quebec speak French, but the government hired a company that has virtually no employees capable of providing service in French.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is right. The biggest failure of the government has been miscommunication from the beginning. It said to wear a mask then do not wear a mask. It said border closures did not help then they did help. We saw the Auditor General's report, about which I did not even have a chance to talk. It showed that this had been a catastrophic failure by the Liberal government, starting with dismantling the early warning system.

This has been a failure every step of the way. What we see now with the third wave and the lack of vaccines has been the epitome of where we have gotten. At some point, there will be an investigation on how we got here. Someone has to be held accountable, and it should be the Liberal government.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

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—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I have to ask the member to stop speaking because his time was up a little while ago. I thank him for his intervention.

The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, this is an important debate and I have been listening to some of the remarks opposite tonight. To be honest, as a parliamentarian, I am really sad. Tonight is not the night to play political games. The speech I just heard is beyond the pale. During question period if we want to ask questions, put out myths and answer non-realities that is fine, but to say that provinces did not know and to say that the government did not meet what it said it would do with procurement when it really surpassed it, is just absolutely wrong. That is providing misinformation to people.

Let us look at some of the facts. Just in terms of equalization, $736 million more than the previous years to the country; $1.5 billion more under the Canada health transfer; $19.9 billion under the safe restart agreement and that was expanded; $2 billion for the safe return to class fund, and this member stands up and says that the federal government is not helping people at the provincial level. Come on, let us have a debate here on facts and stop perpetuating these myths that too many members are trying to portray tonight.

Tonight is the time for a serious debate, get facts out to Canadians and let us work together, instead of playing terrible politics in this debate tonight. I am saddened as a long-term member of Parliament by what I have heard from the member opposite.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry if the member is saddened, but what I said is the truth. Being an MP has been extremely frustrating over the past few months because of how little information has been shared with us.

One issue is official languages and French. During most of our meetings, we had trouble getting information in French, so we could not share it. That information came trickling in. We were getting information after the Prime Minister's big show out in front of his house. The information I provided is all verifiable, observable and documented.

If the member wants us to have more information, he should make sure his government shares it as agreed. Had that been done, we would have access to the vaccine contracts. Those documents would be public, and then everyone could come to their own conclusions.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska for his contribution to the important debate we are having this evening.

Two things really stood out for me.

First, he basically talked about vaccines. Not only has the Liberals' lack of transparency caused delays, but today it was confirmed that we paid more for vaccines. For instance, we paid $8 for each AstraZeneca vaccine, although most European Union countries paid only $2. This lack of transparency can affect the price and the delays in vaccine supply.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention the importance of developing our vaccines here. Countries that are producing their own vaccines and have factories to do so are ahead of the game in terms of vaccination. This also has an impact.

Second, he talked about health care and the importance of health transfers. The Conservatives keep saying they want stable and predictable transfers. Increasing health transfers by 2% or 3% would be stable and predictable. However, Quebec and the provinces are calling for them to be increased to 35%, immediately, in this pandemic, when our health care system needs financial support.

Is the member willing to commit to immediately increasing transfers to 35%?

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

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

My colleague is quite right about the vaccines. With regard to the fact that we paid a higher price for the vaccines, some could say, among other things, that we had to do so, that it is what was required. What is extremely serious in all this is that the Liberals concealed information. From the outset, they misled us about the real cost of the vaccines. The real scandal is that the vaccines have not been delivered. To know what happened, we need access to the contracts.

I could also talk about ventilators. The Liberals gave $250 million to a former Liberal MP who had just left office. He had never even worked in that field. Furthermore, we learned that the ventilators are currently being stored in garages. They have not been delivered because they are not needed. I believe that Quebec had about forty.

When the auditors start conducting their regular audits, they will discover all of this. These scandals will be brought to light. It is sad to see how the Liberals are currently handling the crisis.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for requesting this very important debate this evening.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Jonquière. He will talk a little more about vaccine procurement and how the federal and provincial governments are coordinating vaccinations.

I would like to talk about the federal government's management of the border since the beginning of the pandemic. I have already said this in the House, but I think it is worth repeating. Some of my colleagues may see where I am going with this or may have read the same book I did. I am talking about the book that political commentator Alec Castonguay recently wrote about the pandemic in Quebec and across Canada. He interviewed Quebec and Canadian government officials, health care workers and political staffers to learn how the pandemic was managed, especially in the early days of the crisis.

Alec Castonguay reports a number of interesting facts, including about the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, or GPHIN, a unit of the Public Health Agency of Canada that was set up in the 1990s in the wake of the SARS crisis. GPHIN acted as an early warning system, like a smoke detector for new viruses around the world. Over the years, GPHIN had become the main early warning system for emerging infectious diseases for 85 countries. Normally, the World Health Organization, the WHO, relies on GPHIN for approximately 20% of its reports of new viruses in the world every year, which is quite a lot.

Apparently, however, GPHIN was caught off guard by the emergence of the COVID-19 virus in Wuhan, China. Actually, I believe it saw the virus coming, but it was unable to issue an early warning like it used to. GPHIN scientists stopped issuing warnings in May 2019, six or seven months before the virus was detected in China.

According to Mr. Castonguay's book, the reason is that Stephen Harper's Conservative government cut funding to GPHIN because it did not think it was important, or did not realize how important it was. The scientists were reassigned, and the situation did not improve when the Liberals took office in 2015, since they did not inject any more money into GPHIN.

That shows just how ill-prepared the federal government was to deal with this crisis, how it did not see the crisis coming at all and how it could have been so much better prepared. I think this is a perfect example of the lack of co-operation with other governments around the world. There was a lack of coordination from the start, and I think the recent budget that was presented this week is also proof of that.

We see how paternalistic the federal government is being with the provinces by trying to leave them no choice but to be constantly begging for money. The federal government goes and infringes on the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec, and the sheer paternalism is completely staggering. I think that is the reason for the lack of co-operation among the various levels of government.

I want to take a look back at the government's management of the border. Members will recall that the WHO declared a global health emergency on January 30, 2020. However, in February 2020, Canadians continued to return to Canada from China and other places around the world and started bringing the virus to Canada. Many international experts and specialists were saying that countries needed to start testing travellers or at least screening them, but that was not always done.

The Public Health Agency of Canada maintained its alert level at “low risk” within Canada. An alert was issued for people returning from China, but nothing more. Then, on March 11, the WHO officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, to alert governments, but this had no impact in Canada. On March 16, the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal decided to take action at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport because no one was asking returning passengers any questions, screening people or taking temperature readings. Travellers were not being instructed to self-isolate, either.

In March 2020, the Bloc Québécois proposed 22 measures to the federal government, particularly on managing the borders in order to bring in somewhat tighter controls. I seem to recall that the Government of Quebec and Premier François Legault had asked for the same thing, specifically, that the federal government screen travellers more proactively. However, it was not until this March that the federal government finally imposed the mandatory quarantine, which I would say was too little, too late.

Between March 1 and March 21, 42,000 foreign travellers and nearly 250,000 Canadians arrived at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport in Montreal from all around the world, including COVID-19 hot spots. By land, nearly 157,000 Quebeckers returned home and nearly 37,000 Americans also crossed the border from neighbouring states. At the beginning of the crisis, during that first wave, 250 different strains of the virus ended up in Quebec alone.

Let us move on to the second wave and the arrival of the variants. We all remember the episode with the U.K. variant before the holidays. People were calling for tighter measures at land and air ports of entry because we all remember that people were fed up with the pandemic and they wanted to spend their Christmas holidays down south. It was not the best idea, but the federal government did not stop people from leaving. People asked the government to at least ban entry from the U.K., which it did a few days later, fortunately. However, the variant was already taking hold across Canada and in Quebec. Again, it was too little, too late.

Then the same thing happened again. In January 2021, François Legault once again called for tighter border restrictions. The federal government claimed to have the strictest measures in the world, but people realized that the federal and provincial governments were all passing the buck. Nobody knew who was supposed to monitor quarantines, the police or the Public Health Agency of Canada. As we know, people returning from abroad were getting either a text message or a phone call to make sure they were at home and quarantining as ordered. Basically, it was a total fiasco.

On January 29, the Prime Minister of Canada finally confirmed that he would be implementing new measures, but they did not come into effect until a month later, on February 22. That was the infamous mandatory hotel quarantine, whose implementation was a total farce. Still, I think that measure is important, and I want to stress that. Nevertheless, the fact that variants continue to show up here, especially the Indian and Brazilian variants, proves that the existing measures are clearly not enough to keep the pandemic under control or at least that they are not being implemented properly.

I do not have to tell members just how critical the situation is in every province at this time. We learned earlier today that there are now 27 cases of the Indian variant in Canada, including one in Quebec. We heard Quebec's health minister say that this variant is more worrisome than the others because public health authorities are concerned that it is more resistant to the available vaccines. This calls into question the whole vaccination program, which was the light at the end of the tunnel. We figured that, when everyone was vaccinated and when all Canadians were immunized, we could put all of this behind us once and for all. However, it is very worrisome to see that variants can enter the country and change the situation.

What is encouraging is that we can take action to prevent this. What we need to do is tighten border restrictions because the variants and the virus did not magically arrive in Canada.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. There are a lot of lessons we are going to have to learn from this experience and I hope that we take them to heart, unlike the lessons that we should have learned from the outbreak of SARS in the early part of this century.

I wanted to ask a question in terms of the lessons we can learn from the experience in our long-term care homes. Throughout this country the conditions in long-term care homes, no matter which province they were in, were found to be very unsatisfactory, with underpaid staff and improper safety measures in place. That is why we saw the largest numbers of outbreaks and deaths absolutely devastate our precious seniors in long-term care.

I know the Bloc is key in its defence of the role of provincial jurisdiction, but can the member agree that we need to have some kind of standard in place for workers in long-term care homes to protect seniors? Is there a way that the Bloc can agree that the provinces and the federal government can come together so that Canadians, no matter which province they live in, can at least be assured of some basic level of care?

Would the member agree that there is room for the provinces and the federal government to come together to establish that baseline somewhere?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.

The situation in Quebec's long-term care homes was indeed terrible, and it was a defining point for Quebec during the first wave of COVID-19. We will learn from these mistakes. The health care sector was struggling. As Alec Castonguay pointed out in his book, there was a big push to free up hospital beds at the beginning of the crisis, so seniors were sent to long-term care homes, which did not have PPE. That was a complete disaster, and the people in those long-term care homes were put at risk. We will absolutely learn from these mistakes.

However, when it comes to introducing standards, health care is a provincial jurisdiction. Quebec manages its own health care network. It does a good job with the resources it has, but it needs more funding. In this case, it is not the federal government's responsibility to set Canada-wide standards for something that Quebec already manages quite well on its own. What Quebec needs is a cheque with no strings attached, no conditions. Quebec must be able to use the money as it sees fit, since health care is a provincial jurisdiction, and it is not for the federal government to tell Quebec what to do. I am all for working together to find solutions, but Quebec knows what is best for its long-term care homes.