Debates of May 5th, 2021

COVID-19 in Alberta

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

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, came awfully close to his former premier's famous words, “Stay the blazes home.”

I am astonished that in this country we do not learn, even within the boundaries of Canada, what is working and what is not. The Atlantic bubble was an extraordinary success of, as the hon. member said, evidence-based decision-making and strong instructions for people to stay home. They were able to create an Atlantic bubble so that New Brunswickers could drive to P.E.I. and Prince Edward Islanders could get to Nova Scotia.

The case rates in the Atlantic bubble, compared with those in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and now Alberta, show a real success story. I certainly hope, for the sake of Nova Scotians and New Brunswickers, that this recent spike is quelled very quickly.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in an earlier intervention, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands spoke about the U.K. It should be noted that the U.K. has had some of the most restrictive measures in Europe, yet it has fared much worse than most European countries in terms of cases, hospitalizations and mortality.

I want to look at some preliminary figures published by the Office for National Statistics in the U.K. On January 19, there were 1,372 COVID deaths. By the week of April 16, the average death rate was 29. Compare this with the average rate of 80 for the flu between 2015 and 2019. What happened between January and April? The government unveiled a very successful vaccination strategy. That has clearly not been the case in Canada.

Could the hon. member speak to that. How, in the face of such statistics, can she possibly criticize Premier Kenney without uttering one word of criticism for the Prime Minister and his total failure when it comes to vaccinations?

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

Mr. Speaker, the U.K. initially made a lot of mistakes. Up to the point when Prime Minister Boris Johnson came down with COVID, they had not been moving as quickly and as hard as they have done recently, which is why they have been able to deal with variants.

The variants in particular are quite terrifying. I have lots of criticism to go around on all sides. I even hate the partisanship of focusing on only one province right now. However, I think our bigger problem is the fractured federation and not being clear on how we can work together. We are not even using the Emergencies Act.

As I have said to my hon. colleague for St. Albert—Edmonton, I do not intend not to criticize the federal government, as mistakes have been made everywhere. However, the more we can approach this in a non-partisan fashion, the more chance we have of being team Canada and getting through this with minimal loss of life now that we are in a third wave that is quite terrifying.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening to this very important issue. If we track it to its very beginning, we will find that at that point, the Prime Minister of Canada made it very clear to all Canadians, including members of Parliament, that the first priority of the Government of Canada was to take a team Canada approach in combatting the coronavirus. That has happened, and there are ample examples of how we have managed it.

I was born and raised in the Prairies. In fact, Alberta is where I served my time in the Canadian Forces. I was posted in Edmonton at Lancaster Park, and I spent a few very good years of my life there. I also have family members who live in Alberta, particularly in the Lethbridge area.

My heart goes out to the province of Alberta, as it does to the province of Ontario. When a province is getting into an area of concern, it starts to put so much stress on our institutions, particularly our health care institutions, and one cannot help but wonder what the impact of that will be on the health conditions of citizens in the province.

We need to put the COVID-19 virus into the perspective of our federation. Canada is very different from the U.K. We have jurisdictional control here in Ottawa for certain things, and the provinces have jurisdictional control over other areas. However, all in all, as a federation, we have done quite well, and there is no exception here. Yes, there have been some concerns, but it is important that Ottawa continues to work closely with the provinces and territories, which we have seen from day one.

When it comes to the province of Alberta and its recent third wave, the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister have been talking with Premier Kenney. As I understand, it happened just the other day. The Government of Canada is very much aware of what is taking place in Alberta, and we are concerned about it. I do not think that will come as a surprise to the people who are following the debate this evening.

When we look at where we came from and where we are today, I am glad to say that so much more hope is there. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Vaccines will play an absolutely critical role in the post-pandemic recovery, as we all know, and we have seen significant gains in that area.

I have been listening closely to members providing their thoughts on the federal government and the role we have played. I take a great deal of exception to comments by the Conservatives, given the degree to which they continue to want to politicize, give false information and give the opinion that Ottawa cares less for Alberta than it does for the rest of the country. What absolute and total garbage. Shame on each and every member of Parliament who tries to give that impression. The Conservative Party has spread misinformation, and I question some of the statements that have been made this evening.

We have been going through this for 14 months, and the former leader of the Green Party talked about flattening the curve. It has been a very steep learning curve for all of us. It is not like we had a foundation of knowledge around the world that we could draw upon to make instant decisions. The Conservatives believe they could have, as though they can just pull them out of a hat.

This government believes in evidence-based decision-making, so we put together the committees and advisory groups that were absolutely essential. We continue to follow the advice of health experts and science, knowing full well that it is our best way out of this situation, and we are not alone. The provinces and territories equally bring together health experts, look at science and make decisions.

My concern in part is that we should be trying to send a consistent message from Ottawa. We should not be telling communities that they cannot have a lockdown. That is not a positive message. It is confusing. That comes from the Conservative opposition health critic. She makes it very clear that she does not support lockdowns. Think of the costs of not taking some of these actions.

We have consistently recognized that at times there is a need for change. I made reference to the flattening of the curve. That was an educational experience for all Canadians. When COVID-19 first came out, we all learned that we had to keep the numbers down during the first wave. That meant having to wash our hands, use some sort of sanitizer and physically distance. Members will recall that at the very beginning, the health experts were not saying we had to wear a mask. It was not until we were a few weeks into the pandemic that they starting saying we should be wearing masks. Then all of us, at least I would hope all of us, were conveying to our constituents the very simple but important message to wash our hands, wear a mask and maintain physical distancing.

The provinces, Ottawa, indigenous leaders and territories, working with a team Canada approach, recognized that we needed to shut down certain aspects of our economy to protect the interests of Canadians and their health and safety. The federal government therefore developed programs for all Canadians, whether in Alberta, Ontario or my home province of Manitoba. These programs saw literally billions of dollars going into the pockets of Canadians to ensure that they would be able to continue making the payments that are necessary. Even if they cannot work, the bills continue to come in. They still have a requirement to buy groceries and pay rent or a mortgage. The government, through different programs, made a very clear indication to Canadians at the very beginning that we would have their backs, and we have done just that in every way.

As we have seen, the provinces, at different times and in different ways, have had different impacts, in good part because of the decisions that were being made. As a federation, we recognize that there is jurisdictional control and that the provinces lead in certain areas. One of those areas was deciding what would be closed down and if there was a need for a full lockdown.

Some provinces did exceptionally well, others maybe not as well. Many different factors need to be taken into consideration. At the end of the day, Ottawa and in particular the Prime Minister have maintained communication with premiers and first ministers through the numerous meetings that have taken place. The Minister of Health and other ministers have maintained communications with provinces, territories and indigenous leaders.

We ensured there was a high sense of co-operation and that there were no surprises. People who might be following the debate should be made aware of this. We understand that Canadians want us to be working together and we have been working together in that team Canada approach, even though it has not been universal on the floor of the House of Commons. At the beginning it was, but I now find more and more misleading information coming from the Conservatives.

There are areas that cause a great deal of concern. If we listen to the Conservative members, they will say that it is all Ottawa's fault. They are more concerned about placing blame. They said that if Ottawa would have only had 50 million vaccine doses back in January, we would not have the third wave or any other wave. It is all Ottawa. The Conservatives say that if the Conservative Party of Canada were in government, it would have had manufacturing at full capacity back in August of last year and no doubt approved a vaccine back in June of last year.

Of course, the vaccines and the acquisition of them was of critical importance. The government recognized that early last year. Where was that concern with respect to vaccines back in June and July? The Conservatives asked hundreds, if not thousands, of questions. I cannot recall one question from the Conservative Party in June or July about the vaccine. If I am wrong, and many of them were there, they can give me the date. That is the nice thing about Hansard. The can show me that I am wrong.

As a country, we are doing exceptionally well. The Prime Minister made assurances to premiers and anyone else who wanted to get information that because of the contracts we were able to negotiate through our procurement minister and procurement staff, we had a commitment of six million vaccine doses by the end of the first quarter. We were saying that for months, like back in December when the first vaccine was approved last year. Not only did we meet that target, we exceeded it.

Now, because of the agreements we achieved with companies like Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, we are now in a position where we are the third best out of the G20 countries in terms of people getting their first dose. Well over 30% of people in Canada now have that first dose. We understand the importance of it.

The Conservatives will fall back and say that we are only at 2% on the double dose, that the Liberals are bad and so forth. We should listen to the evidence-based decision-making. Are the Conservatives suggesting that everyone should be getting the second dose now? What would that first dose percentage be? I am inclined to agree with what our health care experts at the national level and provincial level say.

We are on the right track and the numbers are clear on that. Issues in the months of January and February did throw us off course to a certain degree, but they were not necessarily under our control. When Pfizer said that it had to retool, so it had to cut back for a couple of weeks on its numbers, it was not like we were in a position to say no. We had a contract that said we would get a commitment from Pfizer. We will be receiving over two million doses of vaccine a week come June, and I understand we will receive two million doses this week. The numbers are very impressive.

The provinces are aware of it. They know the number of doses coming into Canada. In fact, when we talk about transparency and accountability, any Canadian can click on the Government of Canada's coronavirus website and get the hard number of vaccines that are in the country. It will say which province has what number of vaccines.

In comparison, we are doing well. Canada has a population of 37.5 million people. We have close to 17 million doses in Canada. Before the end of June, we will be somewhere around 48 million doses.

We can look at what is happening in Alberta today. We only need to read some of the headlines, such as “Alberta tightens restrictions, increases fines for COVID-19 rule-breakers.” That is from a CBC report. It lists a number of areas where it is now tightening things in hopes of minimizing the damage of that third wave.

I am glad to see the province of Alberta has made that decision. I do not know if the federal Conservative Party supports what Premier Kenney is doing based on one or two comments today. Premier Kenney is right to put in these restrictions. The numbers are concerning. In the report it said that hospitals were treating 671 patients with the illness as of Tuesday, including 150 in intensive care beds. The numbers matter. We know that.

I used to be the health critic in the province of Manitoba. There is a limited number of ICU beds. We should all be concerned. I was concerned when Manitoba had the highest cases in the country in November. I was concerned about what was taking place in the province of Ontario. Many of my Ontario colleagues talked about how serious the situation was and how we had to be on message and communicate to people what could do to get through this third wave.

I am concerned today about what is taking place in a province I care deeply about, the province of Alberta. The message I would like to leave for the people of Alberta is that the full weight of the Government of Canada, that the Prime Minister of Canada, who has a very caring heart for the province of Alberta, is very much watching, listening and communicating with the province of Alberta, whether it is the premier or other leaders. Alberta will pull through because of the health care professionals, because of people coming together despite what many members of the Conservative members of Parliament might be saying this evening.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that was quite something. The hon. member talks about a consistent message from Ottawa like that is the whole point of Parliament. It is as if parliamentarians on opposition benches should not ask tough questions of their government and expect actual answers from their government and that Canadians would not be better served by that.

He talked about false information, accused Conservatives of throwing it out there and then went on to list about six or seven completely false examples of things Conservatives had said, including that Conservatives demanded “50 million vaccines” by January.

Let us talk about real information. Yesterday, we passed 37.85 doses administered per 100 Canadians. On March 13, 52 days ago, the U.K. passed that threshold. On the same day, the U.S. was at 31.61 doses per 100 Americans. Canada had 7.77 doses administered per Canadian on that day. I am wondering if the hon. member would verify that information is indeed true.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, everything I indicated is in fact accurate, and I challenge the member to point out any aspect of what I said specifically that was not. I was being hypothetical when I made reference to the Conservatives and the 50 million vaccines.

The member poses a question that shows how the Conservatives are more concerned about partisan politics than they are about being truthful. If the member were truthful, what he would say is that of the G20 countries Canada is number three and the two countries he cited were one and two.

Yes, the U.K. and the U.S.A. are doing better than Canada on the first doses, but what about the other 17 or 18 countries? We are ahead of those G20 countries.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member speaks about jurisdiction. I hope he heard my intervention, where I spoke about how Albertans were not interested in these back-and-forths on jurisdiction. When their loved ones are sick, when our health care system fails, they are not interested in this back-and-forth.

I am going to humour my colleague right now. He talks about federal jurisdiction. I think we can all agree that working with indigenous populations is something within the federal jurisdiction, yet we know in Alberta and across Canada, indigenous communities do not have the supports they need to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Could he talk about the idea that we do not have clean water for indigenous communities? People cannot wash their hands if they do not have access to clean water. If Liberal promises on clean drinking water in indigenous communities were currencies, we would all be rich. Could the member talk about how he can prioritize the health of indigenous communities, which is clearly a jurisdiction to which he can feel comfortable speaking?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would welcome a discussion regarding a wide variety of issues within indigenous communities. In many areas, there has been significant improvement. In other areas, yes, we do need to work to do better. As a government, we are moving forward.

The issue of jurisdiction is important, which is why we saw the Prime Minister work with provinces and territories right from the beginning. It is why we had a $19-billion provincial restart back in August to help support provinces and territories. It is absolutely critical in situations like this and others that Ottawa and provinces work together.

Canadians want us to be working together. They do not want to see fed-bashing and passing the buck onto provinces. They want to see the different levels of government working together.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We will go to the next questioner, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member touched on it a bit throughout his speech, but—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I will interrupt the parliamentary secretary and go to the next person who wishes to pose a question or comment and give him a chance to throw a necktie on. We try to stay with our usual standards and protocols.

We will go to the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is really frustrating people is the inconsistency of messaging that has happened from the federal government and different provincial lockdowns. We really feel uncoordinated as a federation in dealing with this pandemic. Would the member not agree that we would be better off if we had a task force to deal with this? We have medical health officers working together province to province, but there are people travelling from province to province for work.

I really feel for the folks in Alberta. My daughter's Albertan boyfriend cannot come here to visit. He can cross the border into British Columbia into one zone, but my daughter cannot leave Vancouver Island because there are lockdowns here. We have very inconsistent rules. We have a right to travel from province to province, but—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We will now go to the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, let me talk about the most important thing that I believe can come out of tonight's discussion, and this is a personal opinion. It is that there be a consistent message from every member of Parliament, no matter what political stripe, which is to get the vaccine. The best vaccine is the first vaccine people are able to get.

Health Canada has done a phenomenal job. All vaccines that have been approved by Canada are safe and are being made available. The best vaccine is the first one available. All of us should be saying that.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, our government has invested almost $20 billion in the restart program to support provinces and territories, as well as $2 billion for education, opening classrooms and various renovations in schools. In Alberta, for the restart program, that represents about $1.3 billion and for the education program almost $300 million. The numbers are similar in Manitoba.

I would like the hon. member to speak about those investments that are so crucial to all provinces and territories in this great country.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good way to demonstrate to those who might be following the debate the degree to which the Prime Minister and the government really want to work with other levels of government and stakeholders to minimize the negative impacts of the coronavirus.

Billions of dollars were invested in the restart program. The member referenced the amount that went to Alberta, but that was to support additional testing, for example. It was to ensure that provinces were in a better position to deal with issues related to mental health and long-term care facilities. The additional $2 billion was to support school divisions, so that as children and young adults across the nation went back to school, they were in a better, safer and healthier environment. That is what I mean by a team Canada approach. Not only did we talk about it, but we also delivered in terms of dollars.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

It is a privilege to speak on behalf of the constituents of Edmonton Mill Woods. My constituents, like those right across Canada, are having a very difficult time coping with the current spike in COVID-19 cases and the accompanying lockdowns. It is unfortunate that we are even in this position to be having this emergency debate and that we could have so easily been in an emergency debate on many of the cases that we have seen and are currently seeing right across the country.

In the last seven days, we have seen the Atlantic bubble burst, with Nova Scotia seeing nearly 800 cases over the last week. Nunavut, which just weeks ago had zero cases, is now facing its own outbreak. We are still seeing British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec continue to cope and grapple with the third wave. We are in this position today because the response of the Liberal government throughout the pandemic has been slow and confusing at every single step.

Let us go back to the beginning of this pandemic when we were just seeing the reports of the first cases that we all then called the coronavirus. My colleague from Edmonton Riverbend, then our shadow minister for health, had questioned the government consistently on its plans for stopping flights from Wuhan province, when the health minister said that closing the border was not effective at all. On January 28, 2020, over a year ago, we learned from the health minister that the first individual identified with the coronavirus did not self-identify when entering Canada. He had travelled from Wuhan and had a cough. The Minister of Health stated that this individual took exactly the appropriate precautions that he was given at the border, and that the systems were working and were working very well.

One year later, and with more examples than I have time to discuss tonight of the Liberal government's failure, our entire country is facing lockdowns and restrictions over and over again. This stands in stark contrast to places like the United States and Britain where restrictions are being eased and economies are reopening. What is the difference between Canada and those other countries? It is vaccines. While both the U.K. and the United States were rushing to secure vaccines for their citizens, Canada stood at the back of the line, dawdling.

The government pursued a dubious vaccine partnership with CanSino, a Chinese state-owned company. The deal fell apart almost immediately after the Prime Minister made the big announcement about it. It took only a week for the Chinese communist government to stop necessary materials from being exported to Canada so research and production could happen. It was the only leading vaccine that the Liberal government was pushing to be made in Canada. Instead of working with the private sector to build vaccine production capacity right here in our own country with companies like Providence Therapeutics, just one of the 17 companies that have submitted proposals to build and roll out pharmaceutical strategies in Alberta, the Liberal government decided to build a new vaccine facility which will not be ready until 2022 at the earliest, well after the pandemic should be under control.

The government's failure on procuring vaccines is shown with the wait times between the doses. The four-month wait period is longer than that of any other country in the world and contrary to the advice of the developer and manufacturer of that vaccine. The Liberal government has forced an off-label usage of vaccines only because there is insufficient supply. The NACI has acknowledged it would not be recommending a four-month delay if there were sufficient supply. This, of course, is leading to more COVID cases, more vulnerability. This is the result of the government's failures.

As I mentioned earlier, another massive failure by the Liberal government has been in being very slow on closing the border. For more than a year, we have been calling for greater border measures to protect against COVID-19 and ministers of the government said that we were spreading fear and scaremongering.

More recently, we saw the ravaging effect that the variants of the virus were having. The double variant in India was first identified in October. The government continued to see variant cases pop up right across our country, most notably in British Columbia and Ontario. Now we are seeing the effects of these variants right across the country. Today, nearly 60% of the active cases in Alberta are variant cases. Simply, we needed the government to listen to our calls to secure the border. Its slowness is why we are here today.

Despite all of that, the Prime Minister has come out and said he has no regrets regarding his leadership throughout this pandemic. That is astonishing. He has no regrets that the government shut down our pandemic early warning system months before COVID-19 happened. He has no regrets that the government sent hundreds of thousands of masks, gloves, gowns and the government's own reserves to China, leading to our own health care professionals and first responders being forced to ration their own PPE and recycle masks. He has no regrets on telling Canadians that the risk was low at the beginning of the pandemic. He has no regrets about not securing our border at the beginning of the pandemic or stopping flights from hot spots earlier as variants were ravaging countries across the globe. He has no regrets about the mental health crisis that my community of Edmonton Mill Woods and communities right across Canada have been struggling with as a result of lost lives, livelihoods and more lockdowns.

For us to prevent the surge in cases we are seeing right across Canada, we needed to vaccinate Canadians in January and February, like the United States did. By the end of February, only 4% of Canadians had received their first shot, while 10% of Americans were fully vaccinated. From the very beginning, the Liberal government has been slow and confused at every step, leading us into this situation. Its slowness to procure the vaccines that we needed was a major contributor to this third wave. Its slowness to close the borders as highly contagious variants were emerging across the globe left us vulnerable to the same variants that are driving the third wave today. My constituents in Edmonton Mill Woods and all Canadians deserve better.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member took 10 minutes to cast blame. I am not exactly sure how that is going to create any meaningful outcome in this debate. Nonetheless, let me go back to what he said at the beginning of his speech. He said that the government is fully responsible for everything that has happened in Alberta. If someone is going to sit at this table to have a discussion about this in any meaningful way, they will have to accept the fact that there were many different partners at the table who participated in this and have responsibility in this.

Is the member saying that Jason Kenney and the government in Alberta have no responsibility for this?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is that what everyone agrees with and all experts are saying is that vaccines will help us get past this pandemic. It is what other countries have used. It is what other countries had back in January and February. We can see that in the United States. They are opening up their economy. People are going back to work. They are going to be able to meet with their families. We can see that in Europe.

What I am saying is that if we had had those vaccines here in Canada, we would not be in this situation today. We would not be putting premiers right across the country in the situation that they are in today, having to ask Canadians to sacrifice more because the government mismanaged the situation from the very beginning.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is quite right to point to the lack of vaccine acquisition as a major problem when comparing Canada to the rest of the world. When we look at Alberta, however, the real tragedy is that Alberta actually has the worst infection rate in all of North America.

The member referenced the issue of no regrets. Should the Kenney provincial Conservative government not have regrets about trying to push for international travel? Should the provincial Conservative government not have regrets about cutting health care funding? Should the provincial Conservative government not have regrets about what we saw over the Christmas break with members of that government travelling all over the place? Should the Conservative Government of Alberta not also have regrets about its actions that have led to this unfolding tragedy in Alberta?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is comparing Alberta's numbers with other jurisdictions right across North America, and Alberta is in this position today because it did not have the vaccines it needed. It did not have the vaccines available to give to Albertans. As soon as Alberta received the vaccines, the rate at which they went into the arms of Canadians and Albertans was very high. It was one of the best rates in the country, but the province can only do that once it receives the vaccines. As we know, right across the country we have been receiving vaccines much later than other countries. That is what we need to beat this pandemic. I am certain we will now. I know there are more vaccines coming. There have been more announcements. I hope those vaccines show up so Canadians can get back to their lives, small businesses can open up again and kids can get back to school, but we needed those vaccines in January and February. Unfortunately, they did not arrive. I am looking forward to them coming now.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, something I have heard from many constituents is their frustration regarding the status of things. They see that Disneyland opened this past weekend in California and are seeing news reports of other jurisdictions opening, yet because of a third wave Alberta and other jurisdictions across Canada are being forced back into lockdown, which is a serious action being taken for a crisis that really could have been avoided. The Prime Minister has bragged all along about his response of pouring cash into the different programs in response and whatnot, but the delivery record is very poor.

Does my colleague have any comments about how the Prime Minister seems to take credit for all the success, but diverts all the blame for the failures to other jurisdictions that have to make the tough decisions on things such as public health measures?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. The Prime Minister continues to make these very big announcements, take credit for things and have no regrets regarding his failed leadership on this pandemic. What he does not see is the reality on the ground. People in my riding of Edmonton Mill Woods have lost their jobs. People are now dealing with some very serious mental health issues and drug addictions that have gotten worse. The unfortunate fact is that I have had to attend funerals because of those drug addictions and because of what this pandemic is doing to families. This is a serious struggle. The Liberal government should take responsibility for its mismanagement and try to fix it. I understand there are more vaccines coming now. It is quite late, but it is good to hear they are coming. That is what is going to help us get past this and start looking toward opening up the economy. I know we are much farther behind other countries, but I know as soon as we do that, it will be what Canadians are looking forward to.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

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.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's remarks, and I appreciate the opposition member wanting to ask the government tough questions in good faith and to hold the government to account.

However, I want to address the claim that the member made about vaccines being late. I really fail to understand how the member can claim that when our government, all along, has been very transparent about vaccine doses, timelines and the rate at which those vaccines would be coming into the country. In fact, it has published those on a website. Aside from minor changes to delivery schedules, which happened due to suppliers and changes in those suppliers' facilities, etc., more doses have been coming in than the targets that were committed to.

In the first quarter there was a commitment to six million doses, and there were just over nine million, almost 9.5 million. In the second quarter, the minister has been working, very transparently, about exceeding the targets. In fact, it is not quite double but it is very close to double what was anticipated—