Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak today to my constituents and to Canadians on this issue and to share my thoughts. This is an important issue and worthy of serious, substantive debate. There has been far too much partisanship on this issue, including today, on all sides.
Like most issues before us, this is a grey issue. It is not black and it is not white. There are Canadians who feel very strongly that all mandates and all restrictions should be dropped, and there are many other Canadians who completely disagree with that premise.
I had the opportunity to speak in the emergency debate, and while a lot has been said today about the protests and the blockades, I want to say this. Peaceful assembly is a constitutional right. Blockades disrupting trade, businesses and people's lives are not. To those blockading, please go home. I call on all levels of government to provide police the support and resources needed to immediately end these illegal blockades. The rule of law still needs to exist in Canada.
With respect to the issue before us today, a pandemic is an unusual situation. This is the first one we have seen in our entire lifetime. Governments have done their best over the last two years. When I say “governments”, I mean all governments: international ones, the federal government and the provincial governments. They have to listen to science and then make decisions. The virus has evolved and things have changed. Governments always need to adapt and communicate. They do their best, even though we do not always agree with their decisions.
One of the reasons that Canada has a much lower death rate than the United States is we have a slightly different conception of freedom. We know that freedom and liberty are important, but they also come with responsibility. When one's freedom clashes with someone else's, it sometimes needs to be limited. Someone absolutely has the right to remain unvaccinated if that is what they choose, but do they retain the right to work with the frail and elderly? These decisions are not easy ones to make. It is up to elected governments to make them.
Canadians throughout this pandemic have at various times been unhappy with measures taken by their federal and provincial governments. I, myself, at the beginning of this pandemic, protested outside a long-term care centre in Quebec when the Quebec government declared that caregivers and family members were no longer able to visit their frail, elderly relatives. I knew that my dad, in that long-term care facility, would not be adequately cared for, no matter how hard the staff tried, if his family, wife and sons, his caregivers, could not be with him. The policy was a harsh one. When I finally saw my dad months later, he had not been taken out of bed for months. Before the pandemic he could walk. He could walk the length of the floor, from one side to the other. After the pandemic he could not walk.
I have heard from Canadians who have kids with mental health issues because the schools were closed. I have friends who own gyms and have a friend who owns a basketball league. Sports are so important to the mental and physical health of Canadians. How do I justify to them why these are closed when other businesses that are comparable are open? How do we explain to our churches and synagogues why they need to close when other things can remain open?
Most of these are provincial restrictions; they are not federal. However, there are federal restrictions that have greatly impacted people. People could not have their loved ones come visit them in Canada for over a year, and people have to be tested multiple times, even though they are vaccinated, when they want to cross the border.
I want everybody to understand that I really heard what demonstrators and other people have said. I understand there are people who are deeply upset, especially after living through this for a couple of years. However, I have also heard from health care workers who have been working heroically with almost no break over the last two years. We had more people in hospitals in January 2022 with COVID than we did throughout the entire course of the pandemic. They are warning us that without any restrictions to slow down transmission, our health care system could break. I also hear from many vulnerable seniors who would be afraid to go to indoor spaces if everyone is not masked and vaccinated.
I say this because it is hard. Governments at all levels need to balance the freedom of individuals with caring for the vulnerable and nurturing our health care system. They must balance physical health versus mental health. We need to follow the science, but we also need to use our own judgment, listening to Canadians to determine what level of public health measures best balance those factors.
I personally agree that the Government of Canada, the same as various provincial governments, needs to come forward and explain when and under what circumstances some restrictions will be lifted. Measures such as this are exceptional, and we need to make sure that Canadians understand why they are in place and when they will be lifted.
In my view, the very first restrictions that need to be revisited are the ones that impact vaccinated Canadians. When will the travel advisory recommending against international travel be lifted? Do we really need testing at airports for vaccinated travellers who already had a COVID test before departure? I hope that we soon hear what the plans are with respect to these types of restrictions.
However, I also do not agree that each and every mandate and restriction now needs to be lifted. Vaccinations are key to getting us out of this pandemic. People who are vaccinated are less likely to infect others, and less likely to paralyze our hospitals, because there is less chance that they will get very sick, have to go to ICUs or die. There are vaccine mandates, which remain important, and there are requirements to wear masks in indoor spaces, which are important because we know that the virus is usually transmitted in poorly ventilated indoor spaces.
To simply call for ending all restrictions and all mandates all at once is not following the science. I agree that we need to move forward with easing restrictions, but we also have to understand that if there is a highly transmissible and deadly variant that emerges, measures may need to be reinstated.
What I do agree with is that every level of government needs to effectively communicate with the population what its plans are with respect to all restrictions, and needs to explain why they are there and at what point they will be removed. That is the important thing that all levels of government need to do.
I want to conclude my speech with one additional point that is important and that has been raised by many of my colleagues today, and that is surge capacity in our hospitals. One of the reasons why we have had to resort so many times to measures, such as the curfew in Quebec, that were highly unpopular and highly disruptive to the population is because we do not have the surge capacity that other jurisdictions do. Our hospitals are overwhelmed when they reach a certain number of patients, both in the regular wards and in the ICUs.
The federal government needs to show leadership. The member for Calgary Nose Hill gave a very good member's statement last week. I concur with her that the federal government needs to work with the provinces, in the same way we did to create national standards on long-term care, to create standards on surge capacity. The federal government needs to help fund the provinces to do that, because only when surge capacity increases in our health care institutions will we not have to worry about imposing so many restrictions.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight.
