Debates of May 19th, 2022

Opposition Motion—Rules and Service Levels for Travel

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was not prepared for questions and answers, but I am grateful.

This comment reflects that at key moments, this House is one. It is one in my heart. We have our own parties and our own political vision, but that is what makes us strong.

There are times when we need to show the division and need to show Canadians the options that are available. That is a constructive way of engaging in democracy. However, as everyone can see, the friendships here are deep. The respect across party lines is deep. The respect for the House is deep here at home and abroad. I am deeply grateful to have served with all members. I thank my colleague for her comment.

As I said in my speech, I leave with a full heart, with many memories and with many friendships that I will carry with me, including with the hon. member across.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish my colleague the very, very best on behalf of all New Democrats.

The member and I are not on the same team, but I will say that when we speak together, we see things very similarly. I have enjoyed learning from him and working with him at the interparliamentary committee and the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association. I really cannot say enough about his patience, calmness and impartiality as the chair of the foreign affairs committee, which colleagues can imagine has become fiery on several occasions.

I want to thank him for his service to this country, and I also want to thank his family for their sacrifice and commitment.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for her service, her friendship and her vision of making not only Canada better but the world better. She and I share much common ground and many commonalities on the project that she is pursuing. I may not have been able to pursue it as vigorously within my own camp until now, but we share it profoundly.

I deeply appreciate her comments on behalf of the NDP. I look forward to remaining in close contact.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as a new member representing the Bloc Québécois in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and on behalf of all my colleagues, I would like to wish him the very best in his new endeavours at the United Nations.

In a world context that reminds us that we must work as much as possible across party lines to promote peace, I sincerely wish him good luck and thank him, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, for all his years of service.

I simply regret not having had the chance to work longer with him in the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for her service and her commitment to a better world, here in Canada and abroad. I am deeply grateful for my relationship with my Bloc Québécois colleagues, including the members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

I thank my colleague for her words of encouragement.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a wonderful thing to feel in this place a sense of deep respect that is shared by all colleagues on all sides of the House. I just want to send from the Green Party of Canada to my dear friend from Mississauga—Lakeshore the best wishes.

I have a genuine question, if he is able to answer it. What are his duties with the United Nations? Where is he going? Is he allowed to tell us? I want to stay in touch. I want to keep working together.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, briefly, first of all, I give a profound thanks to my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands and the Green Party.

The service is in a far part of the world. It is in the Asia region that deals with humanitarian and development issues. I will have more to say and will be happy to explain some of the details in person. I very much look forward to serving in that part of the world, a region that I have not worked in before. There is a whole host of challenges there that are facing the organization and its member states.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing here with a lot of mixed emotions. The member for Mississauga—Lakeshore is a very close personal friend. I met him in 2015. I really value the class, grace and intelligence that he has brought to the House and to each and every one of us, and the advice, level of respect and quality of debate that he has brought to this place.

I will be very, very sad to see him go. It has been an honour and a privilege to represent the residents of Mississauga with him over these past almost seven years now. I am really looking forward to bigger and better things from our friend and colleague, the member for Mississauga—Lakeshore.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Mississauga—Erin Mills for her kind comments. We were both elected in 2015. Team Mississauga is a tight-knit team.

I want to thank her for her service and for her incredibly important role and voice in the field of human rights, diversity and inclusion. She has done tremendous work. She is not just a leader in Mississauga; she is a national leader. I look forward to hearing much more from her in the months and years to come. I thank her so much for her kind comments.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I too arrived here in 2015 with the member for Mississauga—Lakeshore. I had the honour of knowing him before we were elected. I share a boundary with him; his riding is next door to mine.

Most politicians, in my experience, arrive here very impressed with themselves. The member, on the other hand, is very rare. He has the combination of a massive intellect and humility.

I want to thank him for everything he has done here. I thank him for being a good neighbour and, most of all, I thank him for being a very dear friend.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend and neighbour from Etobicoke—Lakeshore for his kind comments. Again, this is about working together. It is about collegiality. However, at the core, within our camp and across the aisles, it is about friendship. This is an example of a long-standing friendship.

There has been tremendous service on his part as a leader in caucus, as the Ontario caucus chair and in so many other ways. Yes, our ridings abut and our residents visit each other frequently and regularly. We share a waterfront. I look forward to remaining in very close contact with him.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as chief government whip, I want to speak on behalf of all Liberal colleagues in the House, and hopefully indeed all colleagues in the House, to say the member for Mississauga—Lakeshore represents the very best of us. He was a member elected in what will prove to be an incredibly productive class of 2015 in this place. He is going to serve Canada with great distinction, with great honour and, as my previous colleague said, with great humility across the world.

His respect for this institution and for the people in it is manifest today. I know he is a deep, abiding and lasting credit to the great institution that is the Liberal Party of Canada, and I know he will return to it often. I thank him.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the chief government whip, for his kind comments. Again, this is about service. In his case, it is long-standing service, not only in the House but also for our party, our vision and the values we defend. All colleagues look to him as somebody with tremendous experience, which he shares very openly and willingly. We all benefit from his accomplishments, his vision and his ability to pull people together across the aisles. I very much appreciate his words and friendship.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I really want to wish the member and his family all the best as they move forward. He has had a great career here and is going to have a great career going forward.

I know this is going to be his last question period, so I thought I would ask him a question just so he would have a chance to answer. What does he think of the lineups at airports?

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to work with my colleague and all colleagues on the Conservative side of the aisle. I look forward to resuming my service with the UN. It is a service that is very closely connected, as my colleague can imagine, to air travel.

I look forward to the lines shrinking as well, and looking ahead, I am proud of the work our government is doing to do that. We could always step on the gas a bit more. As officials who are part of the global commutes group that travels regularly between headquarters in New York and the field, I very much look forward to the full post-COVID resumption of air travel in every country, not just ours.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I first met the hon. member, who is now leaving us, when he and I both worked at the Privy Council Office. It was a great honour for me to be elected and be in the same chamber as him, and—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The member is not wearing a tie.

I will let the member for Mississauga—Lakeshore respond.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with the concurrence of the House, I would like to respond to the comments of my good friend from Vancouver Granville.

It was a pleasure and privilege to serve with him in the civil service. This goes back a number of years, to the early 2000s, but I think that experience as civil servants has really instilled in us not only an ethic but also a good understanding of how government works in a non-political way.

Civil servants across the country who are serving now, especially during the pandemic, represent the best of the best. I thank my colleague for his service in that regard, but also for his continued service as the member for Vancouver Granville and for his friendship.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

As all things do, good things must come to an end. I want to thank the member for his hard work in the chamber and, of course, wish him well in his future endeavours. He can always come back and visit any time he wants.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, that is a tall order to follow. Before I get into talking about the motion at hand, I want to take a moment to thank the member for Mississauga—Lakeshore for his service in this place. I am confident that his community is better for it, and definitely our country is better for it.

It took me down memory lane when he was talking about immigrating from Germany and his parents telling him and his siblings that they were coming to Canada.

I had a similar experience when my family and I were immigrating to Canada. My parents came in one day and said that we were moving to Canada. As I was a teenager at the time, that was obviously big, life-changing news. We probably did not understand the full impact of it, but it was one of the best decisions that my parents made for my siblings and me. Living in this great country definitely changed our lives.

I want to come back to this motion and speak about it. I think it is an important conversation that we are having in the House around the impact of the pandemic that we all have faced in our lives. Now that we are getting, hopefully, to the tail end of the pandemic, there are questions around how we get back to resuming our lives. As for all of the different functions that the government performs and that we had done before the pandemic, how do we get them to a normal place, as they were before?

I think it is important to note, and it is important to remind all of us, that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. I often hear debate in the House and it sometimes feels as if we have forgotten that the pandemic is not yet over.

We still do not have complete control over this disease. This virus has taken countless innocent lives from us, not only here in Canada but around the world. I believe that the number is about a million or so. I may be understating it, but it is a large number.

We are still in the midst of this global pandemic, so we have to be mindful about that particular important fact and be able to work together, not only as parliamentarians but also as members of the society of citizens of Canada, to put an end to this pandemic. That is why our government here in Canada, federally, and the provincial and territorial governments, in line with global governments around the world, took the important steps they took over two years ago to control the spread of this highly transmissible disease: the coronavirus.

As a result, we all recall, our entire system got shut down. It had to be done overnight. Nobody did that because that was what they wanted to do. Nobody did that because it was part of some grand conspiracy, which some people out there believe but is absolutely false. It was done so that we could protect lives.

Members can just imagine for a moment if those important steps had not been taken to shut down our airports, to limit travel and to make sure we worked from home as opposed to going into large, congregating settings. Members can imagine how many more lives would have been lost.

All of those steps, and all of those precautions, were taken on the advice of public health officials so that we could protect each other. There is nothing more valuable, as we know, than human life. That is why we all took those steps.

Thanks to our scientists here in Canada and around the world, and how quickly they worked to develop a vaccine that could then help us immunize ourselves from COVID-19, which is another remarkable achievement, a vaccine was created in a very short period of time. It got tested. It was proved that it actually saves lives. There was a massive effort here in Canada, which is ongoing around the world, to vaccinate ourselves so that we could fight this virus as well.

Can members imagine if that had not happened? How many lives have been saved because Canadians really stepped up and got vaccinated with both shots? The number for the booster shots is continually rising. Hopefully, more Canadians will get their third shot, as I have, and I am sure many members of the House have. That is being done so we can protect lives.

The question now is what do we do next? Perhaps that is the essence of this motion we are debating today as we are hopefully at the tail end of this pandemic. We have to continue to listen to the advice of public health experts, who are telling us that we cannot rush to lift the mandates when it comes to requiring people to get vaccinated, to wear masks or to make sure they keep a proper distance.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know I am in the far corner, but I am having trouble hearing the hon. member who is speaking due to some interruptions.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I could hear a few interruptions as well from a few members in the chamber.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as we look at next steps, we need to keep listening to the advice of public health officials because they are telling us that we cannot rush into ending the requirements for people to get vaccinated or to wear masks, or to ensure we keep a safe distance from each other. I again remind hon. members in this place that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. Just because we wish for it to be over, and I am sure everyone wishes that, including me, it is not done yet. We are not fully immune to COVID‑19, and we need to continue to work hard because it is about saving lives. This is not about politics or ideology: it is simply and purely about saving lives. We have to do everything in our capacity. That is what compassionate societies such as ours do to save lives. Therefore, let us make sure that the mandates with respect to travelling and vaccinations are maintained until we feel comfortable that we are all protected.