Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time this evening with the member for Parkdale—High Park. Even though the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would like me to speak for 20 minutes, unfortunately it will only be 10 minutes this evening. I note he still has not invited me on the podcast he touts so much when he is in the House. I am still waiting for my invitation. Do not worry. I am not checking my email three or four times a day looking for it or anything.
I am very glad to participate in tonight's debate and am going to take the opportunity to present some facts, because I think facts are extremely important. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and it would be beneficial to put on the record some of the facts.
It has been said once tonight, but I will expand on it slightly, that 90% of truckers have been vaccinated. I drive from Kingston to Ottawa and back to be here, and on both occasions of making that trip since this protest began, I have seen countless truckers working. They are working right now as we speak, travelling up and down the 401, or whatever major highway in the country they might happen to be on, to move goods around our country. Some 90% of truckers are vaccinated.
I believe this protest, this convoy, probably started from a place that was genuinely about truckers and the concerns they had. Unfortunately, we have seen this morph into something else as it has been hijacked by other groups. As was so well pointed out by one of my Conservative colleagues in a tweet over the weekend, whatever the objective was, it has been lost by those who have hijacked the protest. Unfortunately, that is the reality of the situation we are in.
I heard the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and a number of Conservatives talk about these mandates this evening. His words were that these mandates need to end. The mandates that relate to proof of vaccination and the mandates that relate to hospital workers are all provincial mandates. It is ironic that opposition members would encourage protesters in front of this building to protest something that at least in Ontario belongs in Queen's Park, but they do it anyway. As a matter of fact, the only mandate the federal government has in place says that people who cross the border into Canada, including truckers, need to show proof of vaccination. Guess what? The United States of America has the exact same mandate. Before someone has to present their proof of vaccination to a Canadian border officer on their way into Canada, they will need to show it on their way into the United States when leaving Canada. That is the irony of this.
That is the mandate the federal government has in relation to this particular protest. It is where all this angst began, and my concern is that the opposition continues to throw fuel on the fire. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan kept saying “these mandates”. He knows full well that the mandate for truckers crossing the border applies to the U.S. just as much as it applies to Canada.
I heard someone from across the way ask why we should do it. That is the whole point of working with our G7 partners. It is the whole point of working with the United States. It is so we have fairness and equality in relation to what the rules are to move back and forth. That is what makes this work so well.