Mr. Speaker, it was great to listen to my colleague speak on behalf of his constituents in Edmonton Mill Woods, which is an area I represented for 10 years before the boundaries changed. I am so glad that those constituents have such a fantastic MP advocating for them. I sensed the passion in his speech, and I share that passion. My thoughts tonight, as we are having this conversation, are with my constituents here in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
It has not just been a tough last year and a bit, but a tough five years for the people of our province and of my riding. When COVID hit in March 2020, we woke up to a different world on March 11, 12 and 13, and the government put in place programs to deal with the emerging situation. One of the things that was really tricky was that many of the income support programs did not actually address the needs of my constituents. They had been on EI long enough that their benefits were just about to run out or were running out, so they did not qualify for the early programs put in place by the government. Things have been tough here financially for a long time.
From that time to where we are today, many months later, one of the challenges has been a complete lack of transparency and accountability on the part of the government, and it started almost immediately. We had two weeks when we were supposed to be sitting, with a weird schedule of three constituency weeks thrown in. For these five weeks we had an opportunity to shut down Parliament and rely on the advice of some of the world's best public health experts to treat Parliament as an essential service and get back to work. Members from all sides could have been acting on behalf of their constituents, and those of us in the opposition parties could have been asking tough questions of the government to come up with the best policies to serve Canadians. Instead, Parliament was largely shut down for the better part of six months. It sat as a glorified committee most of the time, when it sat at all. Of course, we had the six-week prorogation period when everything was shut down so that the government could avoid scrutiny on some particular problematic programs.
We finally came back in late September. Ever since then, question after question from members of the Conservative Party, but also from the NDP, the Bloc, the Greens and independents, was met with condescension and derision. It is immeasurable how many times Liberal ministers, led by the Prime Minister, stood in the House of Commons and, rather than actually answering a question, met the question with an accusation of partisanship. We have seen it tonight in the debate. For example, a couple of minutes ago we saw the member for Kingston and the Islands talk about using 10 minutes to cast blame, and he was talking about the previous Conservative member's speech. The Conservative member simply brought up issues that are the responsibility of the federal government. As a federal member of Parliament serving his constituents, it is his responsibility to ask those questions or bring up those issues.
We heard the minister earlier talk about opposition members playing partisan games tonight. We heard the member for Winnipeg North make all sorts of accusations, and accuse me of being untruthful when I asked a question of him. Here is the funny thing about it. His response was in reference to March 13 numbers and where we were in terms of doses administered by countries. I was referencing March 13. On that day we were behind the U.K., U.S., Turkey, Germany, Italy and France. He put forward misinformation in his accusation of untruthfulness. This is the constant, daily m.o. of the government right now, and it is problematic.
Right now, I think members from all sides, but particularly members of the Conservative Party, have rightly raised the issue of vaccinations.
As we have raised the issue of vaccinations, going back to when we were raising those issues in November, December, January and February and when we were not completely discounted out of hand, the promise that was given was that a whole bunch of vaccines would be coming down the road, far in the future.
Here we are today. The vaccines did not come in time, and across the country there is a price being paid for the fact that the vaccines did not come in time. The lockdowns we are seeing in different parts of the country are part of the price that is being paid.
I liken the response to the question of when vaccines are going to come to buying an old house with old wiring and no fire extinguishers. There might be a chance to redo the wiring one day when it can be afforded, but imagine having a family meeting and bringing up the issue of fire safety. Imagine one of the kids saying that they heard in class they should have three fire extinguishers in their house. Imagine, as a parent, saying that instead of getting three fire extinguishers for the house they were going to wait until September, and in September they would get 15 fire extinguishers, three per member of the family, many months from now. Imagine the reaction of the kids who were simply raising what the experts were saying was best for the house.
That has been the response of the government. Somewhere down the road, by September, everybody who wants a vaccination will get one. Clearly there is a price to be paid for that.
I have pointed out multiple times tonight, and I think it is worth pointing out again, that as of today, we were at 37.85 doses administered per 100 Canadians. If we are going to talk about information, let us deal with real information. That is 37.85 doses administered. Fifty-two days ago, on March 13, the U.K. passed that threshold. On the same day, the U.S. was at 31.61 doses administered per 100 people. On that day, Canada was at 7.77 doses administered, or one-fifth of where the U.K. was. Imagine if we had met the same standard, and had taken it as seriously as other countries. We would not be in the predicament we are in today.
Tonight we are talking about Alberta. Let us look at the Alberta situation. Today we have 146 Albertans in the ICU. On March 13, we had 35. Today we had 2,271 new cases. On March 13, we had 474. Again, imagine if we were at 35 doses administered per 100 Canadians, instead of 7.77 on that day.
It is absolutely fair and right for opposition parties to hold the government to account for its lack of performance, and to ask tough questions about where we are going. It is absolutely right for Canadians to expect their government to answer those questions. That has not happened up to this point. I hope that for the rest of tonight and moving forward, Canadians and Albertans particularly, the folks we are elected to represent, can expect answers from their federal government.