Madam Speaker, it is always an incredible honour to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay.
I think if anybody had said in the House last March that we would still be in COVID now, dealing with lockdowns and the crisis of this terrible pandemic, it would have been impossible for any of us to even imagine finding a way through.
We are getting through this pandemic, but it is really important to point out that there are still serious gaps and problems, and I think many lessons that should have been learned have not been learned.
I was reading an article this morning that talked about the political malpractice that has occurred in Canada at the provincial and federal levels, with leaders refusing to look at the crisis of the pandemic and recognize what we are dealing with. We remember Premier Kenney dismissed COVID as less harmful than influenza, yet we see the ICUs in Alberta being overrun and 25,000-plus deaths in this country. Premier Doug Ford promised to use an “iron ring” to protect seniors in long-term care. The only thing he did was put an iron ring around the investors to keep them from being charged for the horrific negligence that caused the deaths of our loved ones, parents, cousins and grandparents in long-term care facilities. There needs to be a day of reckoning over these issues.
I raise this because people in my region are very tired. They are dreaming of being able to sit on a patio and have a beer with their friends. They are counting the days. The people of Canada have carried their weight. They have done an incredible job of following the rules, being responsible, doing what was necessary and taking on incredible emotional, psychological and economic burdens. The longer we go without a way of saying we can truly put this behind us, the harder it is going to be, and I am very concerned that many businesses will not be coming back.
This past weekend there were 128 new cases of COVID in the region of Timmins. We have cases at the Monteith jail. We have cases now at the OPG centre in Cochrane. We have multiple cases at the Detour Lake mine site where contractors are going in and out. We have 17 new cases in the Fort Albany First Nation, and I understand there are now cases in Attawapiskat. This is deeply concerning, given that we have many communities on the James Bay coast where sometimes 15 or 18 people live in a house and there is no place to do proper self-isolation. When I see 17 new cases over the weekend in Fort Albany, big alarm bells go off. The City of Timmins is now under a state of emergency because of COVID. The community of Moosonee has 38 cases with a very small hospital. It is under a state of emergency.
I am asking the federal government to commit the resources necessary to help our communities get through this. We need the surge capacity that was promised to be on the ground now. We need to be able to put the supports in place for the health units, hospitals, doctors and front-line workers who are dealing with people in very marginalized situations and do not have proper places to stay. I think of the staff at Living Space in Timmins who work with the homeless. They are on the front lines of the medical catastrophe that is unfolding in our communities and we need to have supports for them. I am asking this of the federal government, and will be following up with the Minister of Health, because we need that support there now to keep people alive. All of us who have come through the three lockdowns and the 15-something months of this crisis with hope on the horizon agree that we cannot lose any more people to this.
I see the government pat itself on the back again and again on the vaccine rollout, but let us be realistic. Right now only about 2% of our population has had the second dose. Until a person has had the second dose they are not free of COVID, so this idea of a one-dose summer is ridiculous. We need to have enough people with two doses to ensure that we can safely go back to living the lives we have all been missing for so long and see the loved ones we have been unable to see.
It raises questions about the decisions that were made. I know those in government do not like to be accused of making a wrong decision in a time of crisis, but we have to look at the fundamental problems that happened with this pandemic. We were fundamentally unable, as rich a nation as we are, to make our own PPE. The government and our Prime Minister, who I believe is the last of the Davos defenders, believed the free market and big pharma would look after us.
We saw the United States and the U.K. invest heavily in their domestic vaccine production. We have some really wonderful vaccine companies trying to get off the ground now. The lesson we need to learn from this is that never again can we be in a situation where we are dependent on big pharma and other countries to try to meet this nation's needs.
With Connaught Labs, we had a world-class vaccine facility that served us for 100 years. Brian Mulroney got rid of that. I never hear the Conservatives talking about what a brilliant idea it was to sell off such a national treasure to their friends in private business. If we had Connaught Labs right now, I bet many more people would have their second dose. There are lessons to be learned from these issues.
In terms of Timmins—James Bay, some very positive steps have been taken, which are really important to recognize.
I want to say congratulations to the Franco-Ontarian community in Timmins on the construction of its new cultural centre, the Centre culturel La Ronde.
That organization plays a key role in developing the Franco-Ontarian community. I am very proud that the federal government has invested $2.5 million in the construction of this new building for the Centre culturel La Ronde.
In addition, the federal and provincial governments have invested $2 million to support the Fire Keeper Patrol in its efforts to combat the opioid crisis in our region, particularly in downtown Timmins.
There are many, many good things we have seen with investments. On FedNor, the Liberal government has finally agreed with the position the New Democrats have taken for years: We need FedNor as a stand-alone agency. FedNor is the only economic development agency that has been the poor cousin. It has been a project of the industry department. What we needed all along was a stand-alone agency, because the economy of northern Ontario is as different from the economy of southern Ontario as the economy of Alberta is from Toronto's. We are resource-based and need to have investments coming back.
I applaud this in the budget. People think I am just going to get up here and beat on the Liberal government. On any given day, that makes me get up in the morning, but we have to recognize that when we make good investments we should be talking about good investments. The investment in FedNor is really important. It has been a lifeline to many of our businesses. It has kept our communities going through this time.
I pushed and worked with the federal government on the fire keepers proposal. We are being hit by a massive opioid crisis, not just in Timmins but across the country. A great program came forward in the Fire Keeper Patrol, where indigenous people work on the streets 24/7 to deal with the homeless and the opioid crisis. That funding is essential right now. Marginal populations, such as those who are homeless, are a vector for COVID, so the fire keepers are on the ground doing this.
I would like to point out we received a record $2 million in funding for Canada summer jobs. That will hire over 526 students this year in communities from Attawapiskat in the far north to the farm belt down in Earlton. This is all important.
The Liberals always ask me why I was so angry about the Canada student service grant they signed off on with the WE brothers. We worked with the federal government. Every MP in the House worked with the federal government to put in place a plan to get students hired. We could have had those students hired last summer. Instead, the program went to the WE brothers, fell off the tracks and has been a disaster ever since.
I am glad to see these investments to hire our young people. I am glad to see the work going on with FedNor and the fight against the opioid crisis, but I am begging the government for help. We need help right now to deal with the crisis of COVID hitting our communities, working people, young people and indigenous people.