Madam Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The Prime Minister is very committed to accountability and transparency. He was committed to those principles even before becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.
Since the 2015 federal election, the Conservatives have left no stone unturned as they continue to look for any possible way to be critical of the personalities within government. We have seen that virtually from day one. One might think that during the pandemic the Conservative Party might refocus and demonstrate more concern about Canadians.
At the beginning, it looked pretty encouraging. Thirteen or fourteen months ago, we saw a Conservative Party with a higher sense of co-operation, wanting to be a part of that team Canada taking on the pandemic. However, it did not take too long for the Conservatives to fall back into the ditch, with character assassination as their primary focus.
No matter what the Conservative game is, I can assure Canadians that the Government of Canada, and in particular the Prime Minister, will continue to focus on them, first and foremost, with priority one being minimizing the negatives of the pandemic, ensuring they are getting the vaccine and that we are able to build back better. One only needs to look at the most recent budget to get a better understanding of the environment we are in today, in good part because the Prime Minister, over a year ago, took that team Canada approach, bringing together provinces, territories, indigenous leaders and many different stakeholders, and challenging members of Parliament on all political sides to come together and be there in a real and tangible way for Canadians.
The Minister of Health, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement work day, day out to ensure that Canada and Canadians are well served by ministers and parliamentary secretaries, who are prepared to put in the sacrifice, working with other stakeholders, in particular other jurisdictions.
I would invite the Conservatives to get on board once again, to get out of the ditches and the gutters, and support what Canadians want us to be talking about, and that is the pandemic.
I always appreciate the opportunity to share a few words and thoughts in hopes that my friend will see the benefits. When he talks about the thousands of questions during summer, it is too bad some of those questions were not on the vaccines. We would probably be a little better off if the Conservatives would have put more priority on the pandemic and less on character assassination. That is the bottom line.
I have no problem comparing performance of the current Prime Minister to any prime minister in the last 30 to 40 years. He has been there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way, whether it was putting money in the pockets of Canadians through CERB, or protecting jobs through the wage subsidy program or the whole suite of programs that the government introduced with the support of Canadians and working with civil servants.