Debates of Feb. 10th, 2022

Opposition Motion—Federal COVID-19 Mandates and Restrictions

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today. I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Limoilou.

Let me get one thing straight right out of the gate: We will support the Conservatives’ motion, but with certain reservations, which I would like to discuss today. To begin with, I would like to address the current political climate.

This week, there were two events that summed up the current political climate. We saw the member from Louis-Hébert speak out. I would like to thank him, because I thought he had a measured, non-partisan tone. He made a lot of people feel better.

We also heard from the member from Carleton. I heard him yesterday in the debate on Bill C-8, and he barely spoke about the bill. His speech sounded like some kind of rallying cry pitting freedom against the pandemic. In my opinion, when a public decision-maker draws murky comparisons between freedom and a pandemic, there is something wrong. I say this because it reminded me of U.S. politics.

I do not know if my colleagues pay attention to that stuff, but there is one particularly despicable Republican, Ms. Taylor Greene, who made a problematic association between what is happening in the United States and the Nazi regime. Instead of saying “gestapo”, she said “gazpacho”. Perhaps we appreciate culinary delights a little more than she does. Perhaps we are a little more cultured; we know what it is.

I mention this because it seems to me that Canadian politics are becoming more and more Americanized. That is what scares me. When I read the Conservative motion, I saw it as an attempt to unite the discontented. I can understand why people might be discontented. I have family members and people around me who are not happy about the current situation. Even if they are looking for someone to blame, they can see that the government is responsible for its actions, but nobody created the pandemic. I think it is irresponsible to unite the discontented who are proposing solutions to the crisis that are even worse than the current measures. Unfortunately, people's positions are very polarized right now, and I think that is the worst thing we can do during a crisis.

I am a great admirer of Camus, and this reminds me of something he wrote, “Servitudes de la haine”, or slaves to hatred, which was published in Actuelles II. To put it in context, it is from the end of the Second World War. I will read the passage, and then I would like to unpack it. Camus wrote:

...the truth is something that must be constructed, like love, like intelligence. Nothing is given or promised, but anything is possible for those who take initiative and take risks. That is the wager one must make when one is being suffocated by lies, when one's back is up against the wall. The wager must be made with equanimity [that is worth emphasizing] and implacability, and doors will open.

Camus was a great proponent of moderation. There is a concept in Greek philosophy called “hubris”. It is essentially about excess. It seems to me that there is a little too much excess in Canadian politics. People are using the pandemic to score political points. As I said, I found the comments from the member for Louis-Hébert interesting because he was trying to be reasonable and rational and point out that his party might need to make some changes.

What I would like to see from the Conservative Party is reasonable and rational people who are willing to say that they cannot support all of the protesters' demands because the pandemic is still affecting our health care system. I would not be surprised if the protesters I saw flouting physical distancing rules this week put additional pressure on our health care system in the coming weeks.

I think it is irresponsible to appear alongside the protesters and take photos with them, to use them for political purposes and commend them for what they are doing, while knowing full well that this is not the way out of the crisis. It demonstrates a certain level of political excess that is becoming increasingly common. Not to be unkind, but I could not help but notice some degree of excess in some of the statements made by the member for Carleton.

I am talking about excess because the motion moved by my Conservative colleagues refers to something Dr. Theresa Tam has said. We have heard from her quite a bit throughout this crisis. During the first wave, she provided some guidance that I heard several of our Conservative colleagues question. Now they are using Dr. Tam's words to call for the various measures that have been put in place to be lifted.

Over the past few weeks, we have once again seen plenty of examples of this ideological excess. Protesters demanded that all measures be lifted, but half of the restrictions do not even fall under the jurisdiction of the federal Parliament. They are provincial responsibilities. It is the provincial health departments that decide to impose lockdowns. In the House, the specific measures do not necessarily concern lockdowns or restaurant closures. The provinces deal with that.

What is more, all of this is being done for political purposes. Unfortunately, I have repeatedly heard some colleagues from the Conservative Party talk about lifting all measures because that would please the protesters outside. I talked about the current climate. All of this makes me think of that ailment of democracy called populism.

The definition of populism is to propose very simple solutions to complex problems. A pandemic is complex and is not something that can be resolved by honking horns, reopening restaurants or yelling about freedom. To overcome the pandemic, we have to rely on science. The worst thing a public decision-maker can do is try to exploit science and use it for partisan purposes. Science implies a form of truth and does not mix well with ideologies.

In the motion moved by my Conservative colleagues, I get the impression that they are attempting to use science for ideological purposes by referring to Dr. Tam. They did not listen to her when she said that unfortunately, we needed to impose certain restrictions on our individual freedoms because of the pandemic. Now, however, they are listening to her when she says the opposite.

The worst thing a public decision-maker can do is use science for ideological purposes, which we are seeing increasingly today. I look forward to seeing my Conservative colleagues rely on science when it comes to climate change, which they have not done so far, unfortunately.

I think using science for ideological purposes is one of the worst things a politician can do, because it fuels public cynicism. Populism feeds off that cynicism, rejects the elites and breeds skepticism of institutions. Populism is on the rise in Canada, and I do not think my Conservative colleagues are too upset about it.

At the beginning of my speech, I said that the Bloc Québécois might support the Conservatives' motion, with some reservations. The main reservation is that our Conservative colleagues seem to be trying to use Dr. Tam for their own purposes. We will see where that ends. I look forward to hearing my colleagues' comments.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I will be honest. I was a little touched by the member for Jonquière's comments about moderation, accountability, nuance and combatting extremism and populism. I completely agree with him.

I think he chose the right words to express the idea that, because we going through this crisis together, it is important for us to stick together, listen to each other and respect one another, while we also listen to scientists and respect what they are saying.

I am also a fan of Albert Camus, and I am not looking for a quote here, but I would like to ask my colleague what Albert Camus would have to say if he were here in the House today.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, that was a fine way to turn it over to me, but I will decline. The minister will understand why.

I am pleased that it is the Minister of Health who asked me this question, because what the pandemic has shown us is that our health care system was ill prepared.

If we want to be honest and set ideology aside, the best thing to do is to reinvest in our health care system.

I am reaching out to the Minister of Health. A 35% increase would be fantastic, and I believe that Camus would agree with me on that.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his remarks, and I want to thank him and his colleagues for his support of our motion today. I also join him in condemning anything Gestapo, but as a former tomato farmer, I have to say gazpacho would be the way to go.

Chatham-Kent—Leamington is the home of tomato production in Canada, a huge greenhouse sector with half a billion dollars of annual farm gate production a year. It is being interfered with dramatically by the blockade. I will join my colleagues' voices today in calling for both the end of the blockade and an end of the mandates.

The mayor of Windsor, yesterday morning, called for federal leadership to resolve this. I would ask my colleague to comment on what he is looking for in the federal government's leadership to end the situation.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

In my opinion, there are two positions that should be avoided. The Conservatives roundly criticized the government for insulting the protesters. I agree with my colleague that we should perhaps avoid that, but we should also avoid flattering them.

By using “freedom” as a rallying cry, my Conservative colleagues are trying to flatter certain protesters, to encourage them while doing nothing to resolve the crisis. I believe that what we should do is take a measured position. We should not insult the protesters, but we certainly should not flatter them either.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, his words and the tone he used.

I am not very familiar with the works of Camus, but I listen carefully to Dr. Theresa Tam's statements. I appreciated my colleague's comment about how the Conservatives sometimes criticize what Dr. Tam says, but then support her at other times.

Dr. Tam stated that we should re-examine all mandatory measures and federal restrictions. However, today's motion does not propose a re-examination of restrictions, it comes to the conclusion that we should lift them immediately.

Does my colleague believe that the motion truly reflects what Dr. Tam said, or did the Conservatives jump to conclusions about what she was proposing?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I understand what my colleague means. I have some concerns as well. The decision to lift the mandatory measures must be based on the circumstances. If there is a new wave or problems that we did not foresee, unfortunately, we will have to leave the measures in place to limit the spread of the virus.

My Conservative colleagues could have been a bit clearer in their motion by saying that we would take circumstances into consideration. That could be worth adding, particularly since my colleague raised the same concern.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here today to debate a very important and interesting motion. However, this debate should not even be necessary. It should not be necessary to debate today's topic because it should have been part of a plan from the beginning. Unfortunately, Canada did not have a plan for dealing with the pandemic, despite the fact that epidemiologists had been telling us for 20 years that a pandemic was coming.

That is why we are debating a motion asking the government to table a reopening plan. I will talk briefly about the current situation, and I will try to answer two questions: Why is it important to have a plan, and what should be in that plan?

Earlier this week, I was saying that it is important to know where we are so that we can know where we want to go. The current situation is not great. No one is going to be surprised by what I am going to say in the next few minutes.

People are discouraged. They do not know which way to turn, who to believe, what to do or why certain things were or were not done. Some 35,000 families in Canada have lost one or more loved ones. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, sometimes more than once, particularly in the hotel, restaurant, transportation, tourism, and arts industries, all of which have been hit especially hard.

It is understandable that people would feel discouraged about the current situation and would rather not feel discouraged about the future. Discouragement is totally understandable. The elastic is stretched to the breaking point. All the elastics, actually.

Let us start with the elastic that represents people's resilience. Throughout the pandemic, Quebeckers and Canadians have been very resilient and very understanding, as we can see from vaccination rates. People believed things would go back to normal once they were vaccinated. That is the message that went out from coast to coast to coast, as English-speaking members are fond of saying.

Despite laudable vaccination rates, the situation has not gone back to normal, and we can see why people would be upset about that. Nobody can make heads or tails of all the measures. Everything is so contradictory, and it is so hard to understand everything on the news from one day to the next. The authorities say one thing one day, and the opposite the next, it seems. How are people supposed to figure it all out?

There is also the condition of the economy, which is not much better. People have had to make temporary or permanent career changes. Entire sectors of the economy are still in tatters. I referred to them earlier: transportation, arts, culture, tourism, hospitality and restaurants. These days, people tend to choose jobs they enjoy. When someone loses their job, it feels like something dies inside, and people have been dying inside for the past two years. It is not easy, and their anger, sorrow and distress are understandable.

Lastly, let us take a look at health. The current situation is complex, and the reasons behind some decisions being made right now revolve around the ability of Canada’s health care systems to withstand the additional burden of the pandemic. Even if Canadians are vaccinated, the health systems are not doing well. Workers are exhausted, if not sick. The health care systems need predictable and recurring investments.

The party in power keeps telling us that it has injected billions of dollars into the health care systems of Quebec and the provinces since the beginning of the pandemic. That is true, we have never denied it. However, it is the constitutional role of the federal government, in times of crisis, to increase its support to Quebec and the provinces. The crux of the problem is that, for the past 30 years, the federal government has made cuts to health care funding, while costs have increased year after year because of inflation and the ageing population. That has made health systems very fragile.

However, let it not be said that the federal government has not held up its end of the bargain; it is far better to stigmatize people and say that health care systems are vulnerable and failing because people are not vaccinated. I am being sarcastic, of course. Although I do encourage people to get vaccinated, it is a personal choice.

It is certainly not by stigmatizing people that our health care problems will be solved; the systems are fragile because the federal government has been underfunding them for 30 years.

In short, taking stock of the situation involves seeing with clarity and understanding what state our society as a whole is in, as well as admitting our mistakes. In the past, I was told to never admit my mistakes, because that was a sign of weakness. No. It is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of clarity. It means that we are prepared to work to improve a situation caused, in whole or in part, by our mistakes. That is what we must do, and that is what must be in a plan to lift restrictions.

When it comes to health transfers, mistakes were made not only by the party currently in power, but also by all parties that have been in power for the past 30 years. It is by clearly seeing our mistakes that we will be able to fix the situation.

Now, why make a plan? It all comes down to one word: predictability. We all need predictability. It is nice to look ahead, past the tip of our noses, even if some have longer ones than others. It lets us start planning for the future again, because it clearly outlines the steps needed to get through an unwanted and undesirable situation. It is so simple and makes so much sense, that it is surprising we have to ask for a plan and explain why it is needed. It is just common sense.

Is the motion calling for a full lifting of restrictions on February 28? No, because fully lifting all restrictions and mandates with no projections, no planning, is not a plan, it is a recipe for disaster. We need a plan with clearly defined steps. This leads me to talk about what a plan should contain, and that is a lot of things.

First, it should take stock of the current situation, including what works and what mistakes need to be corrected. Second, it should set identifiable and quantifiable goals and ask questions about the present and the future that need to be answered. Then, it must include milestones and concrete, verifiable measures for achieving those milestones, and there must be identifiable and quantifiable conditions for moving from one milestone to the next. Individuals responsible for carrying out and validating these actions must be appointed. In addition, this plan requires some form of responsibility and accountability to the public, as well as effective communication, evaluation and validation tools. Lastly, it must address possible obstacles and provide solutions for dealing with them.

In this particular case, we need to assess the measures currently in place, their rationale and effectiveness, and then determine when they should end. We also need to think about the conditions for ending the pandemic, which involves having Canada play an international role, not only as a supplier of goods and services, but also of education and intelligence. This role must be included in the plan to lift restrictions.

In conclusion, having a plan to lift restrictions will help determine what needs to be done for us to get back to some normalcy and what steps are needed in order to get there. Some steps will happen quickly and others will happen less quickly, but they need to happen. It is important. We are all fed up.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Bloc supports this motion, and I can understand the opposition and the public wanting some kind of plan and timetable. When exactly are we going to open the borders and no longer have to do tests? When can we get on a plane without having to wear a mask?

However, is the problem not uncertainty? What is going to happen with respect to variants in one month or two months? There will be other variants, but how virulent will they be and how contagious? How new will they be? In one month how full will our ICUs be? In two months how full will they be? We cannot say.

Does it not make sense to dial up or down the public health restrictions according to the risk at the time, not according to some preconceived timeline?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is exactly why I did not talk about a timeline in my speech, but instead about conditions to be met and steps to be taken. We are indeed living in a period of uncertainty, and it is difficult to force a timeline on uncertainty. However, having identifiable and quantifiable objectives and conditions lets us see what we are accomplishing and what we are able to do together.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Madam Speaker, countries around the world with lower vaccination rates than those in Canada are easing their COVID-19 restrictions. The trend continues in North America, where several American states are about to lessen their restrictions. Of course, we now know that several provinces are doing the same.

The World Health Organization recently stated that some countries can carefully consider relaxing the rules if they have high immunization rates. Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, opined that all existing health measures need to be “re-evaluated” so that we can “get back to some normalcy”.

Canadians have done their part. The good citizens of my riding of Brantford—Brant have done their part. They are frustrated. They are angry. For the last two years, they have had their lives impacted by job loss, economic uncertainty, isolation and depression. Now it is time for the government to do its part. It is time for the Prime Minister to be a Prime Minister—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou, for a response to the question.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with some of the points raised by my colleague. First, vaccination is important. Second, we need a phased reopening plan, as suggested by the WHO and Dr. Theresa Tam.

However, we need to avoid the trap of comparing ourselves to other countries, because we must first answer this question: Have these countries’ health systems been underfunded for the past 30 years? If the answer is no, then Canada cannot compare itself to those countries.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, there has been a lot of discussion today about who is covering the burden of this pandemic, and I cannot help but remind people about the thousands of health care workers right here in Hamilton Centre and hospitals across the country. Decades of health care underfunding and neglect under successive federal governments have left Canada without the surge capacity necessary to meet the current crisis. I reference what is happening right now in Denmark and Sweden, which have lifted their restrictions.

Does the hon. member agree that the federal government should commit to providing the provinces and territories with significant new, long-term funding to Canada health transfers to expand Canada's health care system capacity?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, the answer is yes. That is what we have been saying for a very long time, and we will keep saying it until this happens. Long-term recurring funding is needed. We are asking for 35% when the agreements call for 50%; that is a reasonable compromise.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Madam Speaker, on February 7, 2011, the member for Papineau said, “Enough of a Prime Minister who will not listen to anyone, anytime, anywhere.” Two years ago, the Prime Minister sent cabinet ministers to Smithers, B.C., for a dialogue with the hereditary chiefs, helping to end what many would consider disruptive nationwide protests.

Does the member recognize that the Prime Minister would do well to respect the science and support our motion to regain the trust of over half of Canadians, giving them a light at the end of this long tunnel?

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, that is what I was saying in my speech.

We need to move forward and have a plan. Having a plan to lift restrictions does not mean that, on February 28, everyone will be free to do as they please. It means that we will know where we are going, step by step, condition by condition. It makes sense to support this motion.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to address my colleagues in the House of Commons today to talk about the opposition motion. I will be splitting my time with the very articulate and intelligent member for Vancouver Kingsway.

I want to start off by saying what I know we all are aware of: The actual enemy, the enemy we are all trying to fight, is COVID-19. It is not each other; it is not convoys or individuals. It is a disease. It is a global health pandemic. We know that this global health pandemic has been incredibly hard for so many people. In this place, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that people have lots their loved ones. Almost 35,000 Canadians have died, and that is 35,000 families, parents, children, brothers, sisters and friends.

Over three million Canadians have become sick, and we still do not know what the implications of that will be for the future. We are hearing some specialists say that one in four Canadians will have long-term impacts from COVID-19. Three million Canadians have been sick. That is just to date and those are just the ones we know about. It is important to remember some of these things in this place.

People's livelihoods have been deeply impacted too. In my riding of Edmonton Strathcona, a number of entrepreneurs have tried to start businesses and they have not been able to get the support they need. There are the workers and people in the artistic community. Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the artistic community. It is where the Fringe Festival is and where the Edmonton Folk Music Festival is. All of these artists have not been able to earn an income and have not been able to do what they do for a living.

As terrible as that has been, we also need to consider what has happened to our teachers, who we are asking to go online and off-line, and consider the difficulties they have had to deal with if they have families at home they are trying to protect while also trying to protect our children. We have put an immense pressure on health care workers and other essential workers. We have an overwhelmed health care system. We have the opioid crisis and our mental health challenges. All of these things are terrible and we really do need to look at them, but we cannot lose sight of the real enemy here and the real enemy is COVID.

I understand the restrictions have been hard, but I honestly believe they have been necessary. A personal hero of mine is a doctor in Alberta named Dr. Vipond. He keeps saying that we are using the wrong word. These are not in fact restrictions; they are protections. Maybe that is how we need to look at this. Maybe that is a way we can look at this going forward, that these are protections.

We do not know how successful these protections have been. We do not know how many more people might have died if these protections had not been in place. We do not know how many more variants we would have had or how much longer we would be in COVID-19 if these protections had not been there. We know masks, smaller social gatherings, vaccinations and PPE help. All of these things make it easier for our health care systems to continue on and make it easier for us to keep our loved ones and ourselves safe.

As many members know, Alberta will be lifting all of the protections. Some of my Conservative colleagues enthusiastically cheered this earlier today. However, before people get out their “best summer ever” hats or “best spring ever” hats, I want to remind members in the House that since the best summer ever, thousands of Albertans have died. That is thousands of Albertan families that have been devastated.

Why is Alberta lifting restrictions? Alberta is lifting restrictions because a handful of angry men have blocked our border and the premier cares more about what those “truckers” think, and I use quotes very deliberately, than about the health and wellness of the people of Alberta. We have a premier who is more concerned about his polling numbers than he is about enforcing the actual laws that he put in place. Bill 1 was the first law Premier Kenney put in place. He is not interested in using it because that law was never intended to be used against people who vote for Premier Kenney. That law was intended to be used against indigenous people. That law was intended to be used against people protecting our climate.

COVID-19 does not have to be a death sentence, yet a person in Alberta is now more likely to die of COVID than heart disease, lung disease or any other single cause except old age. Why is that? In a word, it is because of politics. It is because we have a premier in Alberta who cares more about his poll numbers than about the health and well-being of Albertans.

Public health should not be subject to the whims of politicians. Public health must be guided by science and the science on COVID is very clear. Vaccines work. Masks work. Restrictions on indoor gatherings work. We should be using every tool we have to prevent the loss of life and the long-term impacts of COVID. Knowing that long COVID is with us, knowing that the impact will be with us for a long time, our health care system is going to be spending resources on COVID long after this virus is gone.

There are other solutions we can look at. I have stood up in the House many times and talked about vaccine equity. I have talked about how important it is for Canada to play a role. We all know there is no way we are going to get out of this pandemic in Canada while we fail to ensure that people around the world are able to get the vaccines and the protections they need. We know that, yet we have a government right now that refuses to donate the doses that are required.

The Liberals are proud of the fact that they have not even met the 50% mark of their promises almost three years in. They have continually failed to work with the WTO to have the TRIPS waiver signed so that countries around the world can access the recipes to make those vaccinations. It is so important to think about the fact that they do this to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical companies. These pharmaceutical companies are making tens of thousands of dollars a minute, and they developed these vaccines with public dollars.

I saw a quote yesterday on Twitter where someone made the point that having pharmaceutical companies be in charge of a vaccine rollout is the equivalent of letting oil and gas companies be in charge of climate change. Think about that for a minute. We are giving the ability to make vaccines that save people's lives to pharmaceutical companies whose entire reason for being is a profit margin.

We need the government to act more on this. We need it to change the CAMR, Canada's access to medicines regime. We need it to sign on to the TRIPS waiver. We need it to do more on COVAX, to actually care about those vaccines and care about getting them out the door. We need to support people around the world to have syringes, to have cold supply chains and to have PPE. It is not the same thing to try to vaccinate someone in a rural community in Uganda as it is to try to vaccinate someone in downtown Toronto. We need to support countries as they go through that.

In addition to what we can do around the world and the role we have to play there, we need to do more here. Our health care system in Canada has been decimated year after year. We should be having federal transfers that are 50% of the cost of health care. We do not have that anymore. That is not possible anymore.

I look at what the Conservatives are doing with this motion. They seem positively gleeful about removing all health restrictions, all the things that will ensure our ICUs can continue and all the protections for our doctors and essential workers. I try not to be cynical in this place and sometimes that is very difficult, but I do wonder: Are the Conservatives trying to destroy our health care system? Do they want to see our health care system crumble so that they can bring in the two-tiered American-style health care we have seen Jason Kenney and the UCP try to bring to Alberta?

We need to use science-based decision-making. We need to listen to experts. We need to see this pandemic as a global pandemic that requires a global solution. It is time to stop making this political. It is time to stop the empty words. It is far past time for us as parliamentarians to do the right thing for Canadians, for ourselves, for our children and for our parents.

It is way past time for us to do the right thing for people around the world.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was somewhat comforted by the fact that the Leader of the Opposition said that the truckers should go home, having given, in the last two weeks, aid and comfort to lawlessness in the name of freedom.

I wonder what the member's thoughts are on this spread of lawlessness, from Quebec to Toronto to Windsor to her own province, and the aid and comfort that has been given by the Leader of the Opposition and her colleagues, which has unleashed something that is counterproductive to any sense of who we are as Canadians.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am deeply ashamed that the first border crossing blockade that was in place was in Coutts, Alberta, and that our premier did not stand up and shut that down. What that did was empower people to shut down Windsor and to start to protest the Ottawa airport. If we had used the tools that we had in place to say that this is infrastructure that needs to remain open, that this is for the good of our country, our province and the people in our communities, if the leader of the UCP, Jason Kenney, had actually had the bravery to do that, I do not think we would have seen these convoys on other borders. I think that folks were watching to see what the response would be from the government, and it was non-existent. It was to roll over and lift the mandates. To be honest, I hold Jason Kenney to blame for a lot of this.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for bringing this back to the impact that this COVID-19 pandemic has had on people, and for changing the language to “protections”. I really appreciate that. However, I see in the motion before us today that there are no solutions for protections, and there is no talk of protections for people.

I wonder if the member could share a little more on the comments around privatization. I would note that, in the House earlier this week, there were some comments from across the aisle about the potential for private health care support in this kind of a fight. I would ask the member what her thoughts are on our health care system.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has been a tireless advocate for the care community and for workers across this country, and I thank her for all of her efforts in that regard.

In Alberta, this is not something new for us. We have been seeing some very serious attempts to privatize large swaths of our public health care system. Right now in Alberta, for example, we regularly do not have an ambulance that is available to respond to emergencies in Edmonton, Red Deer, Calgary and many rural communities. The testing systems that we have in place are becoming privatized. So much of our health care system is under attack, and I think Canadians need to understand how dangerous that is.

I do not believe that Canadians want a two-tiered health care system. I do not believe they want an American-style system that leaves so many behind. We need to be very vigilant as we go forward to ensure that we increase our health care transfers to the provinces, that we ensure that the Canada Health Act is improved and that we have things like mental health care, pharmacare—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I have to allow time for other questions.

The hon. member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

There is something a little odd about what we are going through. Obviously, like my colleague and all members, this morning, I cannot help but notice how frustrated people are. People are frustrated, fed up and tired of all the health rules and everything else.

What is especially odd is that Canada is one of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world, with the most stringent health regulations, and yet the number of cases was quite high until recently. Many countries are lifting health measures.

Quebec's health system is about to implode, despite all the measures brought in and the high vaccination rates. Clearly, increasing health transfers is crucial.

Does my colleague agree that it is time to hold a summit on health and health care, considering their importance, and increase health transfers to the provinces accordingly—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Order. The hon. member for a short answer.