House of Commons Hansard #127 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was liberals.

Topics

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

5:45 p.m.

Bloc

Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have read the bill carefully. I understand that there is a very proactive aspect to the bill, that is, setting up committees to improve processes so that we can avoid what happened in the past.

The very sad reality is that the pandemic is not over. Hopefully we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but we are still very much in it. The government has made some management errors that are potentially very serious. I am surprised to see a bill like this from the Liberal Party of Canada right now, when the Liberals are the only ones in the House who are still opposed to a public inquiry into how the federal government managed the pandemic.

Instead of looking 10 kilometres ahead, perhaps the Liberals should choose to look inward a bit.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Mr. Speaker, I think that question drives at something really important, which is that we cannot move ahead until we have learned the lessons of what is behind us. We are still living with COVID, but much of the government's response, at all levels, frankly, has been seen through in a serious way, so there are still serious public health conversations to be had. There are major crises in Ontario with respect to our health care capacity, as a result, in part, of the flu, but certainly still because of the pandemic. To that core question, though, of how we put ourselves on the best footing going forward, unquestionably we need to look at the past.

I would also emphasize, and I hope this holds true for all of us, that this should not be a points-scoring exercise. If there were missteps, if there were things that were done right or things that were done wrong, it is not a matter of us getting up and patting ourselves on the back or of those across the aisle scoring points. The goal of this bill is to say, in a very serious way, let us scrutinize what went right and what went wrong to inform what should come next.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

5:45 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Speaker, first of all I just want to say how much I respect my hon. colleague and thank him for the bill, but with great respect I have to say there are some serious flaws with the bill. We in the New Democratic Party have, for a long time now, said there would come a day when we needed to have a public, comprehensive, searching and fearless review of the federal government's response, from both a preparation point of view and an execution point of view, with respect to COVID-19.

The bill before us, which purports to do that, would have the Minister of Health appoint an advisory committee, presumably to examine the behaviour of the Minister of Health, and it would have no power to order production of documents, summon witnesses or hold hearings in public. There would not even be a requirement to table a report in the House.

Does my hon. colleague not agree with the NDP that what we need is an inquiry under the Inquiries Act, chaired by an objective third party, to hold hearings in public with the full powers of an inquiry, so that all the questions can be asked and answered, so Canadians can have confidence in the review that is done, and so we can not only learn from the past and expose the errors that were made but also, more importantly, plan for the next pandemic and emergency that will come in the future?

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's work; we have always worked in a really collaborative way.

I would say I am open to a different approach in terms of how the review ought to be conducted and in terms of the powers of that review. Again, I started from a different perspective here. I looked at the SARS report, for example, from David Naylor, whom I consulted in the course of drafting this bill. When I looked at that report, the challenge was not the nature of the review; the challenge was the implementation of the lessons learned in the course of that review.

Therefore, if that SARS report, the Naylor report and the powers they had were greater than what an advisory committee would have here, then I entirely agree that there should be substantive powers to do that kind of review work and that kind of investigation to get at the right answer.

However, I think the core question we have to grapple with is not only how we learn the right lessons in the course of the review, but how we make sure this does not fall off the table, that it continues to be a serious political priority five years, 10 years and 30 years from now, and that we do not have a report like the SARS report that sits on the shelf, some of it implemented but most of it not, but a report that is significantly and substantively implemented. That was my core focus in putting this bill forward.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

5:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House this evening.

This is an important topic, and I appreciate that the member for Beaches—East York has brought this legislation forward and prompted the discussion that we are having here today. I can certainly understand that after the past two years of COVID, there are those who feel we need to get something like this done immediately. Nobody wants COVID or something worse to hit Canadians. Our first priority as parliamentarians is the safety and security of our citizens. We have to take the time to properly reflect on and examine what we have just gone through to have a meaningful conversation about how to respond to a future pandemic.

The bill's proposal that the Minister of Health and other government ministers be the ones to put together or even make up the advisory committee to review their own response to the coronavirus is, frankly, quite ridiculous. That is like having the fox guard the henhouse, because they all have a very vested interest in the outcome. Canadians will never get the answers they deserve if the ministers who perpetuated or promoted many of the failures, abuses and violations of charter rights that we have seen over the past two years are the same ones tasked with reviewing their own government's response.

Let us face it: Transparency, accountability and, frankly, honesty are hardly synonymous with the government. We have seen first-hand much of the misinformation propagated by these ministers. That is why I propose, before embarking on some of the elements contained in Bill C-293, that we need a full non-partisan national inquiry into how governments at all levels have handled the response to COVID-19, because as I reflect on the past two years, there are too many questions. These are questions that have never been answered by government, and in many cases, no one in government or the media has even had the courage to publicly ask them.

Herein we have the first major issue in the government's handling of COVID. It is the “my way or the highway, we know best and do not dare ask questions about what we are doing” approach that the governments across this country have taken. We kept hearing “follow the science” and “we are following the science”. It is the political science, yes, but the last time I checked, a big part of doing real science involved asking questions, analyzing data and doing so with rigorous skepticism. We make an observation, we research the topic, we form a hypothesis, we test the experiments, we analyze the data and we report the conclusions as objectively as we can based solely on the empirical data. That is the scientific method.

In the case of COVID, the government never really got beyond forming a hypothesis. The Liberals based their response on the assumptions that they and many in the medical field made in the early days of COVID, which led to selective and often misleading data being collected and used to back up those assumptions.

The media also failed in their objectivity to ask questions, choosing instead to parrot government talking points as truth, sowing fear and division as they quietly pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies. They refused to allow different points of view. They did not ask the tough questions, and they silenced or mocked anyone who did.

Canadians should not need to fear repercussions in their workplaces, their communities, their professional associations, online or by the media. However, that is what happened. Anyone who questioned anything related to the government's handling of COVID, at any level of government, got smeared, bullied and cancelled. In a free and democratic society, that should be deeply concerning to all of us. Governments made huge demands of Canadians, and it is incumbent on governments at all levels to provide empirical data to back up their actions. We owe that to Canadians.

I sat down the other night as I prepared to deliver this speech today and started to write down some of those nagging questions. They are questions that we cannot trust the government to ask because it has sought so diligently for two years to cover up the answers from Canadians for its own political purposes. I am going to take the remaining time here to ask some of those questions.

For a start, why did the government make the decision in 2019 to shut down our pandemic early warning system? We had SARS and H1N1, and we knew the potential of a Canadian epidemic. Who chose to shut it down? Who in the government was responsible for leaving Canadians defenceless?

Why was there so much conflicting information provided by government and public health officials? There were days when the WHO said one thing, Dr. Tam said another and, in my province of Manitoba, Dr. Roussin said something completely different, and all on the same issue.

This bred confusion, fear and mistrust. I think this is the type of issue the legislation, at least in part, may be trying to address, but again, we cannot address these issues until we know first-hand what took place and who was responsible, and we cannot trust the government to provide us with those answers.

We learned that the Public Health Agency of Canada, the same department responsible for the government's COVID response, allowed our national microbiology lab in Winnipeg, one of our nation's foremost secure facilities, to be infiltrated by Chinese spies with direct links to both the Wuhan lab and the bioweapons program of the People's Liberation Army. Why?

The government sued Parliament to cover it up. It refused to come clean. Then it turned around and made a deal with China to be the sole manufacturer of Canada's vaccine supply. The deal ultimately fell through, but there are a lot of questions here that require answers. Why does the government refuse to release procurement details, such as the price per dose, when other governments have been transparent?

There are still legitimate questions related to vaccine safety and efficacy. Why did the government agree to hide the safety data on Pfizer for 75 years? There are 51,714 Canadians who have suffered vaccine injuries to date as a result of their COVID shots, with 10,501 serious reactions, including 874 anaphylactic reactions, 1,342 cases of myocarditis, 140 thrombosis cases and 382 reports with an outcome of death following vaccination. Where does that information come from? It is from the government's own website. Anyone can look it up. There are also many reports of doctors refusing to even file a VAERS report, which is a vaccine adverse event reaction report.

How many of those individuals have been compensated by the government's vaccine injury program to date? It is eight. Why is the media quiet about those things? Why is it that the Prime Minister was more interested in his political fortunes than in public health?

We saw this in the Prime Minister's decision to call an unnecessary election last fall. We have seen this in his unacceptable rhetoric demonizing those who chose not be vaccinated and in his heavy-handed approach to dealing with vaccine mandate protests. One minute our truckers are essential workers and heroes who kept our country going, and the next they are villains so awful that the Emergencies Act was invoked to deal with them. The inquiry, and ultimately history, will show what an unjustified and politically motivated response that was.

There are also serious questions related to government spending. The Liberal government spent unprecedented amounts, hundreds of billions of dollars, to fight COVID, but its own Parliamentary Budget Officer shows that at least 40% of that money, or $205 billion, never went to fighting COVID. Where did it go? We know that tens of millions of dollars have found their way into the pockets of Liberal cronies, as the government paid exponentially more for ventilators and other medical equipment that was never used and now sits collecting dust in warehouses.

Who got rich while Canadians suffered? Why did the government refuse to put any safeguards in place for CERB, resulting in three million people, including criminals in jail, receiving the CERB benefit? Why did the government send federal public servants home at a time when five million Canadians had lost their jobs and were forced into government programs and unable to access services? Why are they still at home?

My office has stayed open every day over the past two years to help Canadians. We did it safely and we had no issues with COVID. There is no reason that other government officials and agencies could not have done likewise. Canadians are paying their salaries, and public servants need to get back to the office and back to work full time for Canadians.

We could keep going on here all evening. We could talk about divisive and unscientific mandates. We could talk about the disastrous ArriveCAN app. We could talk about how the government's actions destroyed border communities and separated loved ones. We could talk about how Canadians were assaulted in quarantine hotels. We could talk about the provinces and their responses, and the draconian measures that in my view did far more long-term harm than good. The questions go on and on. Canadians deserve answers.

Over the past two years, governments have made big demands of Canadians. Canadians stepped up again and again, only to have their hopes dashed by government failures and broken promises as the goalposts were moved over and over again. Canadians deserve empirical justification for mandates. History will show that mandates were based on politics, not public health.

After two years of sickness, restrictions, divisions and fear, governments at all levels need to be held accountable for their actions. Bill C-293 is insufficient because the government, and any government, cannot and should not be trusted to investigate itself.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6 p.m.

Bloc

Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Beaches—East York for introducing this bill. I must say I have a great deal of respect for that colleague. I think he is a free thinker and a top-notch parliamentarian. I noticed that even before I joined Parliament. I was waiting for the right time to tell him, and now it has come.

Bill C‑293 essentially seeks to ensure that the Government of Canada is better positioned, at least in theory, to deal with future health crises and pandemics and, in some way, to learn from them.

What is more, as I said earlier in my question, this bill is very proactive. It talks about establishing an advisory committee, developing a plan for the future and appointing officials to prepare contingency plans for future pandemics, although the bill provides a lot of room for that to potentially evolve in one way or another. This would also require major involvement from Health Canada, the Department of Health, and so on.

I feel somewhat uneasy about this bill. Although I believe that it is well intentioned, I think that the Government of Canada already has, and did have, a large number of tools at its disposal that were not used much, if at all. I seriously wonder if we are adding another layer of red tape, more committees and all sorts of things when the recent pandemic already exposed the significant flaws in the federal apparatus.

I believe that what we need at this time is a public inquiry. If we are unable to have a serious independent inquiry shed light on the serious flaws in the federal government's management of the pandemic over the past months and years, we will not be able to benefit from any new institutions, such as the ones presented in this bill.

We are in a rather odd situation. We have a minority government, and we are currently in a situation where the Conservatives have asked for an independent public inquiry and the Bloc Québécois is in favour of an independent public inquiry. I also heard my NDP colleague, who asked a very good question earlier, reiterate that we should have an independent public inquiry.

What is the Minister of Health's response to that? The minister says it is important to have a mechanism to hold an inquiry, but he will not say how or when.

That is typical. It is like saying, someone is very sick, but I am not telling if or when I will call an ambulance; we will just hope for the best. It is like saying, we know illegal firearms are out there in Montreal, and we think that is a big deal, but we are not telling how we plan to get them off the streets or when. It is like saying, we know French is in danger in Montreal, and we think that is a big deal, but we are not telling what we plan to do to protect it or when. That is basically what the government and the Minister of Health are saying.

I know that it is not the fault of my colleague who is introducing the bill. However, as parliamentarians, this puts us in a tough spot. We know that they want us to sit until midnight, that this means we will have less time in committee, and that we need to carefully select the bills we send to committee because of the behaviour of the Liberals and their friends in the NDP. This basically forces us to vote against the bill. It forces us to vote against it and tell the government to use the tools that are already at its disposal. If it has nothing to hide, then it should come clean on how it managed the pandemic.

What is the solution? According to the first part of the bill, it is the creation of a committee. Actually, the solution is to immediately launch an independent public inquiry. Then there are the second and third parts, which I find problematic, particularly as a sovereignist, as a Quebecker and as a Bloc Québécois member, because they talk about a prevention plan overseen by a national coordinator.

I am starting to spend a lot of time with the Standing Committee on Health, and I know that when something starts with “the federal government shall coordinate” or “the federal government shall use its leadership role”, it ends with federal legislation, spending power and conditions on our transfers. I know that if we do not do this or that, they are going to coordinate by tightening the purse strings and withholding the money. That is what coordination is, and that is what federal leadership is.

I know my colleague is well intentioned, but I have a hard time believing that the tools proposed in this bill will be put to good use. The priority should be to launch a public inquiry immediately.

With respect to jurisdictions, the bill states the following: “in collaboration with provincial and municipal governments, assess the public health and pandemic response capabilities of those governments”. Assessing the capabilities of provinces and municipal governments does not mean meddling in their affairs. This is complete interference. Since the Liberals have trouble looking inwards, they blame others and point fingers. This is minor interference.

A public inquiry is needed because 45,000 Canadians died and there were many failures on the part of the federal government. My colleague said the pandemic should not be used to score political points or to point fingers at others. He is right, but we have been asking for accountability for quite some time now, and we never see any. I do not understand how all these new committees and institutions will be used on a permanent basis.

My Conservative colleague spoke earlier about the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, an alert system that was modified in 2018, though we do not know how. It was changed by some official, and at some point in 2019, it shut down altogether, 400 days before the pandemic of the century. It is an alert network that gives us the opportunity to learn about global pandemics. The bill we are studying today proposes to establish a small committee to assess how provinces and municipalities have done their job.

My colleague from Beaches—East York said earlier that we need to be prepared for the next 10, 20 and 30 years. In 1950, the national emergency stockpile was established to store pharmaceuticals, supplies, pandemic stockpiles, and so on. However, that stockpile has been systematically neglected, and since 2015, N95 masks have even been destroyed because the government got tired of storing them. Now we would be planning for the future without knowing what happened with that.

We recently spoke about the infamous respirators. There were 27,148 in the stockpile, but the government ordered over 27,000. The Minister of Health told us that it was important to look out for people and plan ahead. I am getting good at imitating the health minister. In the worst-case scenario modelled by the federal government, we needed 13,500 respirators. A $237‑million contract was awarded to FTI Professional Grade, a shell company owned by a former Liberal MP. This company produced half of the surplus, or 10,000 respirators. We now have 13,000 too many, yet we need to set up small committees.

Let us talk about quarantine management. Montreal had to rush its own staff over to the airport because the federal government was too incompetent. What is more, 30% of the COVID-19 tests from screening locations at airports went missing. There was no automated quarantine registry. There was no follow-up with 59% of those who were flagged as priority cases. The federal government did not follow up with or contact 14% of those it knew had tested positive for COVID-19. Screening was not done in both official languages. I will not even talk about temporary foreign workers, because there were already major problems with that program and the federal government was unable to adapt it.

Then there is vaccine capacity. The government will say it ordered tons of vaccines, but as the 2003 Naylor report on what we learned from SARS revealed, Canada's production capacity is inadequate. We know we have to be more independent and capable of producing more. That report came out in 2003.

The government does not want a public inquiry, and the Minister of Health has nothing of substance to say. Moreover, the government does not want to give the provinces money, even though they are the ones who will be on the front lines if ever there is another pandemic.

Honestly, I respect my colleague. Truly, I do. However, I think introducing this bill at this point in time is inappropriate. The ball is in the government's court. I would like to see it use the law and the mechanisms it has to prove to us that it managed the pandemic properly. Once that is done, it might think twice before telling Quebec and the provinces how to manage things.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:10 p.m.

NDP

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in this House and speak on behalf of the great people of Vancouver Kingsway and as the health critic for the New Democratic Party of Canada.

Tonight, I speak to Bill C-293, which, in our view, represents an unacceptable attempt to provide the illusion of accountability and oversight with respect to Canada's response to the most severe pandemic in a century.

I am going to briefly review the measures the bill calls for. If enacted, it would require the Minister of Health to establish an advisory committee to review the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. It would require the Minister of Health to establish, in consultation with other ministers, a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan.

It would amend the Department of Health Act to provide that the Minister of Health must appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator from among the officials at the Public Health Agency of Canada to coordinate the activities called for under the act.

From the very inception of this pandemic back in early 2020, New Democrats have been calling for a root-to-branch, independent, penetrating and comprehensive review of Canada's COVID-19 preparedness and response. Unfortunately, the measures outlined in Bill C-293 fall far short of that standard.

By way of background, the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health was established in May 2003 by the then minister of health, Anne McLellan, following the outbreak of SARS. The committee's mandate at that time was to provide a “third-party assessment of current public health efforts and lessons learned for ongoing and future infectious disease control.”

The next year, in 2004, the Public Health Agency of Canada was established in response to the advisory committee's recommendations. That agency was specifically mandated to be Canada's lead organization for planning and coordinating a national response to infectious diseases that pose a risk to public health.

Canadians expected that the federal government would build and maintain the capacity to protect them from future pandemic threats. Instead, both the Liberals and the Conservatives allowed that capacity to atrophy under successive governments.

Canadian officials first became aware of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, on December 31, 2019, yet PHAC did not assess the pandemic risk posed by COVID-19 or the potential impact were it to be introduced to Canada.

As a result, the agency underestimated the potential danger of COVID-19 and continued to assess the risk as low until March 15, 2020, nearly a week after the World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic. By then, Canada had already recorded over 400 confirmed cases and community spread was under way.

Even as the machinery of public health ground into action, deficiencies in the federal government's pandemic preparedness and response were glaring. Pandemic response evaluations conducted in Canada to date have documented serious deficiencies.

A scathing internal PHAC audit released in January 2021 found limited public health expertise at the agency, including a lack of epidemiologists, psychologists, behavioural scientists and physicians at senior levels. The audit also found a lack of emergency response management expertise and capacity within the agency, the very agency charged with preparing Canada for a pandemic.

PHAC communications were terrible. Internal auditors found that PHAC was missing sufficient skills and capacity for risk communications. Our chief public health officer is Dr. Theresa Tam. Her office noted that she often received information in the wrong format, with inaccuracies or in an inappropriate voice needed to convey information to the Canadian audience.

Canadians will remember the problems with Canada's so-called emergency stockpile. A May 2021 report, a full year after Canada declared a global pandemic, from the Auditor General confirmed that negligent management of Canada's emergency stockpile resulted in shortages of PPE for essential workers when COVID-19 hit.

Serious issues with the stockpile had been raised for more than a decade prior to that with nothing done. Canadians will remember we had to throw out millions of PPE in this country because they were out of date as PHAC was not accurately keeping track of them.

A March 2021 report from the Auditor General found that PHAC only verified compliance with quarantine orders for one-third of incoming travellers and did not consistently refer travellers for follow-up who risked not complying.

Later in that year, in December 2021, the Auditor General found that PHAC was either missing or unable to match 30% of COVID-19 test results to incoming travellers from February to June 2021.

In addition, because the agency did not have records of stay for 75% of travellers who flew into Canada, it did not even know whether those who were required to quarantine at government-authorized hotels had in fact complied.

As for long-term care, in May 2020, a report from the Canadian Armed Forces documented shocking and disturbing conditions in long-term care homes where approximately 1,600 trained military personnel had to be deployed. It highlighted serious concerns about shortages of personal protective equipment, staffing levels and failures to follow basic procedures of infection control to keep both residents and staff safe.

That is a sample of what we know to date. PHAC officials have said that they will address identified shortcomings by incorporating “learnings from the pandemic into its plans and test them as appropriate.” In response to the Auditor General's report, PHAC has promised to update its plans within two years of the end of the pandemic.

I want to stop there for a moment. This bill would have the Minister of Health, who is in charge of PHAC, appoint an advisory committee, not even an independent committee with powers but an advisory committee, to assess his or her performance and the performance of PHAC, which is under the aegis of the health minister. Talk about a conflict of interest. That is like the defendant appointing the judge. That is completely unacceptable on its own.

In April 2021, the then Liberal health minister said that a full investigation into Canada's COVID-19 response is required at the “appropriate time”. She noted:

We are still in a crisis and so our focus remains right now on getting Canadians...through this global health crisis...and when the time is right, our government will be very open to examining very thoroughly the response of this country to the COVID-19 crisis.

In September of this year, our current health minister said in an interview that there should be a broad-based review of how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled. He noted that a government decision could come “soon”, without specifying when or what kind of formal review should be held. However, when asked if it should be independent of PHAC, he would only say a “strong” review is necessary.

To date, the Prime Minister has deferred all questions about an inquiry or review of the pandemic response, saying that there will be time for a “lessons learned” exercise but that it must wait until the pandemic is over.

New Democrats want the federal cabinet to launch an independent public inquiry into Canada's COVID-19 response under the Inquiries Act without delay. Throughout the pandemic, we have called for such an investigation and the time is now. We are past the emergency phase of the pandemic. We are approaching the third-year anniversary of COVID coming into this country. Now is the time for that root-to-branch inquiry.

Rather than providing a transparent, independent and comprehensive review of Canada's COVID-19 response, this bill would not do that. The measures do not meet the standard. Rather, this legislation represents an unacceptable attempt to provide the illusion of accountability and oversight with respect to Canada’s response to the most severe pandemic we have ever faced.

The Inquiries Act would establish an independent chair of that inquiry. It would empower that inquiry to subpoena witnesses, to order the production of documents and to hold evidence in public and under oath. It would allow them to retain appropriate experts, including counsel and technical experts to advise them.

Most importantly, the inquiry would be done independently of the government and in public. Every Canadian was affected by all governments’ pandemic response and Canadians have to have confidence that any inquiry that looks at the decisions that were made and the mistakes that were made is done in an honest way with integrity.

I note that experts across the country agree with the position of the NDP. Dr. David Naylor, chair of the federal COVID-19 Immunity Task Force and former chair of the federal review of the 2003 SARS epidemic, has called for an independent review. Richard Fadden, former national security adviser to the Prime Minister, has called for an independent review. Dr. Adrian Levy, Dr. David Walker and Dr. David Butler-Jones have all called for such an inquiry.

We do not need a citizens’ inquiry that is called for by Preston Manning, because we do not want this to be a political circus. We do not want a Liberal bill that stickhandles this inquiry into safe waters for a whitewash. We do not want a political circus. We do not want a whitewash.

The NDP and Canadians want an independent, objective and searching root-to-branch inquiry into all aspects of the federal preparation and response to COVID-19 and we will not stop until Canadians get that.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, first off, I want to acknowledge the efforts of the member for Beaches—East York.

We are somewhat losing the perspective of what we are debating today. It is almost as if the government presented legislation that it was proposing to pass. We need to put it in the perspective of private members' hour. An individual member of the House has brought forward a bill that is reflective, no doubt, of the concerns of constituents, people and some stakeholders who the member himself met with, and he has come forward with a proposal. I had the opportunity to chat with the member and listened to what the member was saying when he introduced his bill. It is very much a private member's bill.

In no way does it put in the limitations that are being suggested by opposition members or anyone else in the House. I see it as a positive piece of legislation that, ultimately, would be nice to see go to committee. The member himself has indicated, if not directly, indirectly, that he is very much open to changes to the legislation and to other ideas that members might have. I suspect that the offer for changes goes beyond members from any one political party, but is open to members of all political parties. That point is being lost.

I know there is a huge expectation about where we go from here with respect to the pandemic. The pandemic is not behind us. There is still a need for governments to monitor and take actions where necessary. There are some governments at local levels raising the issue of masking again in the current pandemic, depending on the region of the country. There was a policy this year of a curfew in at least one province. There was mandatory masking. A great deal of variations have taken place.

What I see before us today is proposed legislation that would provide something very tangible for a standing committee could look at. It talks about a comprehensive study or report where we could start to itemize some of the things we could look at. We heard that in a number of speeches, including from the member who introduced the legislation. No one would question issues such as long-term care and the manner in which both provincial—

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

There is a point of order by the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we have quorum in the House.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

There is a quorum call, so we will do a count.

And the count having been taken:

We do have quorum.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, quorum does not necessarily reflect that on the entire other side of the House—

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

November 15th, 2022 / 6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

We are not going to do that again. We cannot say whether someone is here or not. We had a quorum call, and we have quorum. Therefore, the member has the floor.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, I was just going to say there is only one person on the other side of the House. There is absolutely nothing wrong with indicating that there is only one on the other side of the House—

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

An hon. member

There is one Conservative.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Other members might say “one Conservative.” I will not say that. The bottom line is that we are in private members' hour and—

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, it is double.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

An hon. member

We said “Conservatives”. That is two people.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

There we go. Let us all just take a big, deep breath.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, we have a private member's bill of substance. It is a private member's bill that would have a positive impact, and it reflects what has been taking place over the last two and a half years. I do not want to play games on the legislation. I want to recognize the legislation for what it is. It is something that reflects a very real and genuine need, and it gives specific direction as to what the government could actually do, not only the government but also the entire House of Commons.

To imply that this is in fact a government initiative is to do a disservice to private members. To try to play the quorum game on a private member's bill does a disservice to private members' hour. I really, truly believe that, and I would hope that we will at least put a pause on that game until we get through private members' hour.

There were issues such as border controls, supply issues, stockpile issues and supports for real people during pandemics. Let us think of the human resources that are necessary, not to mention outside stakeholders such as the Red Cross or our Canadian Forces. There are so many dynamics at play.

We have a piece of legislation that has been brought forward by a private member to try to have an answer going forward. Are there things that we can learn from the last two and a half years? Every member of the Liberal caucus will tell us that, yes, there are things that we can learn from this process. I would like to think that all members on all sides of the House would recognize that value.

Let us put partisanship to the side for a moment and say that it would be good to see this legislation go to a committee. Of the many times I have debated during private members' hour, it is not often that I would be so bold as to say, “Let us get this legislation to a committee” in private members' business. However, I believe this legislation is relevant to the what we are experiencing today.

It would not prevent other forms of inquiries. It would not prevent other standing committees from looking at what has taken place. I am one of many members of Parliament who have recognized that we had to make decisions in a fairly quick fashion. I have acknowledged in the past, and I will continue to acknowledge, that it has not been perfect. There have been some mistakes. However, when governments spend literally billions of additional dollars and create programs from virtually nothing, there are going to be mistakes. There were things that took place during the pandemic that we can all learn from.

It is not just Ottawa. Whether it is provincial governments, municipal governments, school boards, and indigenous community leaders and indigenous communities in general, all of us have played a role in making the decisions. Having that comprehensive study is the responsible thing to be doing, along with the idea of having a report on a three- or a five-year basis. The legislation says three years, and the member says he is open to changes in that.

I do not quite understand why other members would be opposing the legislation. I anxiously wait for a vote because I do believe that, if we were to consult with our constituents, this is the type of legislation they would want us to get behind unanimously.

Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness ActPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Government Business No. 22Government Orders

6:30 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the House that I will be splitting my time with the member for Saskatoon West.

Here we are again. I was in the process of recapping a bit of history on the draconian motions the Liberal government continues to bring. I had described Motion No. 6 in 2016. It was the same thing of wanting to extend the hours and basically obstruct, and that of course was where “elbowgate” came from. The Prime Minister was upset because there was legislation pending and many amendments were brought, so that evening turned into a fiasco.

The government then withdrew Motion No. 6. It realized it had pushed everyone too far and it was very undemocratic. In fact, I quoted the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, who said that the motion was fundamentally anti-democratic. The NDP seems to be supporting its costly coalition now, but at the time he said that it was fundamentally undemocratic.

Then the government came forward with Motion No. 11, which was about sitting until midnight, but not for everybody to be sitting until midnight. The Liberals and the NDP would have been able to be home in their pyjamas with Motion No. 11, because there would not need to be quorum. They would not need to have a certain number of people in the House, which is actually a constitutional requirement to have 20 in the House. They were recommending something that was not even constitutional back on Motion No. 11.

The irony is they have now brought Motion No. 22, which is twice as bad as Motion No. 11, and mathematically, people will see the irony there. On the one hand, we hear Liberal members say they are trying to give us more time to debate, but actually that would only happen when Liberal and NDP members would be here, and they would not need to be because we would not need to have quorum. It is a little insincere.

The other thing is that the government continually moves time allocation. It promised not to do that when it was first elected in 2015, back in the old sunshiny days. Its members said they would never move time allocation, and now they are moving it all the time.

Rushing things through the House can be disastrous. We saw that with Bill C-11, where all kinds of draconian measures were used. It was forced to committee, and it was time allocated at committee to get it over to the Senate. Now we can see there are so many flaws in the bill that the Senate is taking quite a bit of time with it and is likely to bring numerous amendments.

That is why we need to have time here in the House for reasonable debate. Debate means people need to not just speak but also be heard. For that to happen, one needs to have an audience, which of course Motion No. 22 would eliminate. The role of the opposition is to point out what is not good about legislation that comes before the House. It does no good at all for us to point it out if nobody is listening to what is being said.

I find it particularly awful that the Liberals talk about family balance and try to promote more women to come into politics. The member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake and the member for Shefford, who are young mothers, have stood up and said that this motion is not good for family balance. It is not that people do not want to work, but if we want to encourage more women to come in, these kinds of measures are not encouraging them. There is a lot of hypocrisy for the government to talk on the one hand about getting more women in politics and promoting that and on the other hand putting draconian measures such as this in place, where mothers with young babies would need to be here at 11:30 at night debating legislation.

I am very concerned about committee resources, and so that is really the amendment the CPC has brought. We have seen there has been a lot of trouble at committees getting interpreters and committees not being able to extend their hours when there are important issues because there are just no resources. A valid concern brought by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle was that we want a guarantee we are not going to be shortchanged at committee. Perhaps at the end of the day, that is what the government is trying to do, which is to escape the examination it gets at committee. In a minority government, we can actually try to get to the heart of the issues the government would like no transparency on.

The amendment that has been brought forward is a good one. Overall, I have seen an erosion of our democracy. I think this motion is fundamentally undemocratic, but I would add it to the list of attacks on our democratic rights and freedoms in this country.

We talk about freedom of speech, but we have seen a continual onslaught against it from the government through Bill C-10, Bill C-36 and Bill C-11, including when it comes to freedom of the media and freedom of the press. We have Bill C-18 at the heritage committee right now, and I have lots of concern about that bill. There is an erosion of freedom of religion in this country, from hiring a consultant who is an anti-Semite to advise the government on anti-racism, to having 15 Christian churches burn down in Canada, yet crickets are coming from the side opposite.

I am very concerned. I see the rise of Chinese influence in our elections. There are three police stations that China has claimed in Toronto. What is the government doing about any of this? Nothing.

This motion is just another in a long line of motions eroding our democracy, so I am certainly not going to support it. I cannot believe that the NDP is going to support the government when previously the New Democrats said this kind of motion was fundamentally undemocratic. I understand in no way why this costly coalition exists. The NDP got in bed with the Liberals to get 10 sick days, through legislation that was passed in December last year and was never enacted, and dental care for everybody, which they got for children under 12 and poor families who are mostly covered in other provincial programs, with nothing else coming until after the next election. On pharmacare, there are crickets.

Why is the NDP supporting the government on this draconian anti-democratic motion that is intended to take away the accountability of government? I have no idea. I am certainly not going to support it, and my Conservative colleagues will not either.

Government Business No. 22Government Orders

6:35 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering whether the member can explain something to those following the debate. The Conservatives say they want to speak to legislation and are provided the opportunity to ensure there will be more time to speak to the legislation they want to speak to, but they are opposing the ability of their caucus colleagues to speak to legislation. It does not make any sense to me. Many would see it as being somewhat hypocritical.

Does the member believe that there might be some merit to that argument, given that the Conservatives are in opposition to a motion that would give them more time to speak?

Government Business No. 22Government Orders

6:40 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Mr. Speaker, actually, we are not looking for more time to speak. We are looking for more time to debate. That means we bring up points about what is wrong with legislation, and the government hears them and negotiates with the various parties to come to agreements about how to fix bills that are bad. Speaking into the air when there are no members of the government here, because there is no quorum required per this motion, is not debate.