Debates of March 8th, 2023

Online Streaming Act

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

Madam Speaker, it appears to me that my hon. colleague from Lethbridge suggested, and I listened to all of her speech, that creators did not need this bill and that Canadian culture did not need any help from the Canadian government. The larger aspect of what she said suggested that she would like to see the Canadian government relinquish the entire space of protecting Canadian content, relinquish Canadian content to the gentle mercies of Hollywood to decide that Dudley Do-Right represents Canada and that our own authors and creators here are not to be protected.

They need protection. The Writers Guild of Canada and the Canadian Media Producers Association have said that this bill, while flawed, is essential for the industry to thrive and maybe even to survive.

I put this to my colleague. Does she think she may have taken her argument too far?

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, again, I would just remind the House who said that. A big union said that, at the behest of traditional broadcasters. Of course they want this bill. It supports them. It results in dollars in their pockets. It results in keeping them alive. Of course they want this bill.

Is it artists who are saying that they want this bill? Nope, they are not. Individual artists do not want this bill.

The House resumed from October 17, 2022, consideration of the motion that Bill S‑209, An Act respecting Pandemic Observance Day, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Pandemic Day Act

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, today I rise to speak to Bill S‑209, an act respecting pandemic observance day—

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I respect your decision, but you never called my riding by name. You looked my way, and I—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I cannot call on a member unless they stand up to be recognized, and unfortunately the hon. member did not stand up to be recognized, so I recognized the hon. member for Montcalm.

The hon. member for Montcalm has the floor.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Clearly, this was just an oversight by the member. I believe, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to return to the individual who was supposed to speak, the member for Edmonton Manning, so he can continue.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I can look for unanimous consent, but I want to remind members that they need to stand to be recognized. If they do not stand, then I do not know that they want to speak and I cannot recognize them.

Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member for Edmonton Manning to do his speech first?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for the motion.

The text of this bill claims:

it is fitting that March 11 of each year be officially designated as “Pandemic Observance Day” in order to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic, to remember its effects and to reflect on ways to prepare for any future pandemics.

Certainly, it is fitting that we take time to remember the effects COVID-19 had on our lives. More than 55,000 Canadians died COVID-related deaths. That is a sobering statistic. This number is more than die each year of heart disease and about four times the number of people who die accidentally each year.

We do not remember statistics though. We remember husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and grandparents whose lives were shortened by the disease. Each one was an individual. Each one was loved. Behind each death, there is an intensely personal story. Their loved ones remember them every day. They do not need the government to set aside a designated day for that purpose.

Do we need a pandemic observance day to give the Canadian public an opportunity to commemorate the efforts to get through the pandemic? Communities came together in innovative ways to deal with a situation no one had prepared for. It can be inspiring to think of the ways individual Canadians reached out to others for the benefit of all. It can be said that Canadians showed their resilience in the way they supported each other through that very trying period.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the Canadian people together. It was a shared experience that brought out the best in people. It also brought out the worst of the government's performance. The most memorable stories of the COVID-19 pandemic are not those of individuals coming together but of a government out of control, out of touch with reality and showing itself to be incompetent, corrupt or maybe both.

As the pandemic was unfolding, the government sent 16 tonnes of badly needed personal protective equipment to another country: 50,118 face shields, 1,101 masks, 1,820 pairs of goggles, 36,425 medical coveralls, 200,000 nitrile gloves and 3,000 aprons. In doing so, it left our country without sufficient supplies for our own medical personnel. Canada was unprepared for the pandemic. The government failed in its duty to protect the Canadian people. It apparently believed the virus was not going to come here. It kept that attitude despite the fact that it had been warned.

In 2004, the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health presented its recommendations to the government. Canada was unprepared for the SARS outbreak, it said, “because too many earlier lessons were ignored.”

SARS made hundreds of Canadians sick and killed 44. It paralyzed a major segment of Ontario's health care system for weeks, and thousands were placed in quarantine. Overworked health care workers felt mental and emotional stress. Does that not sound just like the COVID-19 pandemic?

It was sadly obvious that the Liberals were unprepared for COVID-19. If they had paid attention to the SARS report, they would not have been giving away the very materials our health care system needed.

Given the Liberal track record, Canadians have no reason to believe the government will, as this bill suggests, spend any time reflecting on ways to prepare for any future pandemics, unless it is reflecting on finding ways to enrich its friends during a time of crisis. This will happen at the taxpayers’ expense, of course.

As unprepared as they were, the Liberals did see some opportunities as COVID-19 cases mounted in Canada. This is something all Canadians should remember.

We can think back to March 2020, as the first COVID cases were being reported in Canada. After giving away the PPE equipment our health care workers needed to fight the pandemic, the Liberals decided that they needed sweeping new powers to tax and spend without parliamentary scrutiny. When that did not work, they shut down Parliament to avoid being held accountable.

Faced with a global health emergency, their first response was an attack on democracy. They did not want Canadians to be informed of what was going on. They did not want to have to answer questions in Parliament.

They hoped no one would notice when an organization with financial ties to the Prime Minister’s and finance minister’s families were chosen to receive millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money through sole-sourced contracts.

The public service has considerable expertise and experience in administering government programs. Instead, the Liberals tried to funnel the money to their friends. When the wrongdoing by the former minister of finance was discovered, at least he was honourable enough to resign, unlike the Prime Minister, who has apparently never done anything wrong in his life.

Apparently, the Prime Minister has not even read the Ethics Commissioner’s reports, which is perhaps not surprising. The pandemic has shown that the Liberals are, at best, ethically challenged. They do not understand the rules, even simple ones, such as that we do not give government contracts to our friends.

After the Ethics Commissioner found that the Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development had broken the rules, she apologized. However, she has not offered to repay the money that she had her department give to her friend.

There was also the former Liberal MP whose medical supply company was awarded a $237-million contract for 8,000 ventilators, at $10,000 more each than what is paid in the U.S.A. Once again, a contract was awarded without competitive bidding, this time to a company that had never made ventilators before.

The government spent $1.1 billion for 40,000 ventilators. Most of them were not needed because COVID was not as bad as forecasted, and now they are just gathering dust in warehouses.

When Canadians remember the pandemic, they will remember the Liberals investing $130 million of taxpayers' money in a vaccine that was being developed by a Canadian firm partially owned by a tobacco company. Was there no one smart enough to ask whether such a vaccine would be acceptable to the World Health Organization? Apparently there was not. It was no surprise to anyone, except perhaps the Liberal government, when the WHO failed to approve the vaccine because of the tobacco company involvement.

Canadians do not need a special pandemic observance day to remember the most out-of-control government spending. There was billions of dollars in handouts, no accountability and no determination as to whether the funds were really needed.

Canadians will have no choice but to remember the biggest government spending spree in our history because they will be paying off the debt for decades. My unborn grandchildren will be paying off the Liberals' debt. They will wish they had nothing to remember.

Canadians remember the incompetence of the government as the pandemic became endemic. As travel became possible once more, those lucky enough to get a passport endured chaos at the airports. The Liberal government could not even figure out how to make the system work.

Inflation rose to record levels, and the government responded by tripling its carbon tax instead of providing relief for Canadians struggling to make ends meet. Canadians will remember that every day; no special day is required. Canadians do not need a pandemic observance day to remember their loved ones, nor do they need this legislation to remember just how incompetent and corrupt the Liberal government was in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise this evening to speak on Bill S‑209, an act respecting pandemic observance day.

This bill officially designates a day that has been recognized as a national day of observance since 2021. Indeed, the World Health Organization declared March 31, 2021, as a national day of observance.

March 11 was designated by proclamation as a national day of observance in 2021. The Quebec government chose to organize a national day of observance in 2021 and 2022.

This is an important subject, and it goes beyond any form of partisanship. We were all hit by the pandemic, regardless of where we lived or who we were.

The Bloc Québécois will support this bill since the goal is observance, which allows us to highlight and remember the solidarity, the generosity, the sense of duty and the resilience of all those who worked to get us out of the pandemic.

Additionally, it is an opportunity to never forget those who were affected in any way, shape or form by the pandemic, as well as all those taken by this disease.

I want to take this opportunity to extend my deepest condolences to all of the families who were left in mourning by COVID‑19 and its disastrous consequences. Over 16,000 people died in Quebec, 45,000 in Canada and 6.5 million around the world.

In our societies, when we institute a day of remembrance, a day of commemoration, it is usually to mark the end of a socially harmful event. To build the future, we need to remember the past. That is why Quebec wisely chose “Je me souviens” or “I remember” as its motto.

Fortunately, it is human nature to try to turn a bad situation into something good, something ugly into something beautiful and something negative into something positive. That is a survival mechanism that has allowed us to be, to exist and to move forward again and again, hardship after hardship, and grow stronger. Humanity always emerges stronger from tragedy. We always find a way to do so.

When I was young, I read history books that talked about the epidemics and pandemics that ravaged humanity as though they were novels. Sometimes my grandparents would tell me about when they were young and about how they saw a staggering number of people dead in the streets from the Spanish flu. I would listen, shivering in horror, and tell myself that, thanks to modern medicine, that sort of thing would never happen in our time. Like many other people, I was fooling myself.

When the epidemic was declared in mainland China, who would have thought that it would transform into a global pandemic and that we would experience such tragedy and horror? Who would have believed it?

Beyond the armchair quarterbacks who always know better than anyone else, after the fact of course, what should have been done, beyond all the shortcomings, blunders, the actions that did or did not succeed, which we are assessing because we must always learn from our mistakes, beyond all that, we need to simply celebrate the memory of those who passed away.

We must celebrate the courage and humanity of those who suffered, celebrate those who fought in their own way to get us through the pandemic and to let hope and light emerge from the bleak times in which we were living. We must remember all that.

It is during these pivotal moments in history, which are so brief but so intense at the time, that we see the beauty and the strength of our societies.

We also have a duty to note and highlight everyone's invaluable contributions to the fight against this pandemic.

That is why I immediately think of all the health care workers who, also struck by an unknown and devastating virus, stepped up to hold failing health care systems together with the sole purpose of saving lives, saving our loved ones, our friends, our neighbours, our spouses and partners. Health care workers are the ones who never stopped making a difference. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, ambulance attendants, cleaning staff, support staff, and so on. They have all been on the front lines, one battle at a time. We can never do enough to say “thank you”.

It is also important to acknowledge the work and dedication of our guardian angels, the asylum seekers who provided patient care at the height of the COVID‑19 pandemic and to whom our governments have committed to regularize their status. We owe them a great deal, and we must not forget them now.

Where would we have been without them, but also without the many other essential service workers, those without whom we would not have made it through this pandemic? They proudly held down the fort and ensured that our basic needs such as electricity, food and medicine were met, despite their own worries and fatigue.

Let us not forget to acknowledge the incredible resiliency of our young people and their extraordinary ability to adapt when they were asked to go against their very nature to protect the rest of our society. Even though we did not want to, we had to make them put their life on hold and they will never get back those moments that they missed. These young people suffered, but they have recovered and they now have even more lust for life than they did before. Despite it all, they remained strong and ready to fight. These young people are our future, a beautiful future.

I am talking about young people, but I also want to talk about our seniors, who suffered so much and who were the most hard hit by COVID‑19. We asked a lot of our young people, but what can we say about the sacrifices that our seniors had to make? They, who were already vulnerable, were the main victims of this pandemic. They experienced social isolation, sickness and heartbreak. Today, when I see them recovering from the effects of the pandemic, when I see them smile with their resiliency that will become legendary, I am proud. I applaud them, and this day of commemoration will make it possible to honour them for their outstanding courage and endurance.

In closing, it is also vital to talk about everyone's resiliency. I am talking about those who had to give up their activities and stop living life to the fullest, those who lost their jobs, those who lost their business, those who had to watch their business go under or their loved ones die, suffering and alone. These are all the sacrifices, great and small, that we need to remember on this day of commemoration.

We often say it, but this time we proved it to be true: If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, as always, it is an honour to stand in this place and represent the constituents of Edmonton Strathcona.

Today, we are talking about Bill S-209, an act respecting pandemic observance day, which is a bill to make every March 11 a day to remember the COVID–19 pandemic. I know all of us in this House remember the day that we were here in 2020 and it was announced that the House was rising and we were all going home. None of us expected at that point that it would be years before some of us came back, or that we would be dealing with the pandemic even to this day.

As I reflect on this bill and the need for it, it is very important, as members have said before me, for us to take a moment and remember all of the people who died. More than 5,600 Albertans have died from COVID–19 to date. I think it is also important to recognize that people are still dying from COVID–19 in this country.

In 2021, the last year that data was available, COVID killed more Albertans than heart disease, lung disease, strokes or Alzheimer's disease. More than 50,000 Canadians lost their lives across this country. Each one of those people had a family, had friends, had loved ones. It is a loss, and I think the opportunity for us and for all Canadians to acknowledge that and remember those people is very important.

Everyone we know has either lost somebody they loved or knows somebody who lost somebody they loved. I think about the grandparents who were lost, the friends and the families. In my own riding of Edmonton Strathcona, more than 100 people lost their lives, at least 50 of whom were in long-term care.

I think about what we have lost in our communities: the loss of wisdom, the loss of love and the loss of laughter. I think about Edmonton entertainers. As I have said many times, Edmonton Strathcona is the heart of the entertainment sector in Edmonton. Entertainers like Victor Bird and Ricky Lam will never again step on stage. They will never enchant audiences again.

I think it is also relevant to remember that it is not over. In fact, COVID–19 continues to take lives and continues to have long-term impacts on so many people.

There is a woman in my riding named Kath. She is a powerhouse and an incredible individual. She works very hard to find homes for pets without homes through Zoe's Animal Rescue. She was incredibly active before she got COVID, and now she is facing fatigue and other symptoms and has to use a walker to get around. I think it is important that we have this moment to do this.

I also think it is important for us to take a moment to think about health care workers and teachers. Remember what we asked our teachers, educators and the staff at our schools to do, and what we asked nurses, paramedics, firefighters and doctors to do. Remember the danger we asked them to put themselves and their families in. I cannot help but think this is a wonderful opportunity for us to remember those sacrifices and what those people did to keep us safe.

It was not just those people. We also have to remember that in Alberta there were folks who put their lives on the line and lost their lives because we were not good enough at taking care of them. I do not know if members remember that at Cargill, the meat-packing plant in southern Alberta, workers lost their lives because they were not protected and we did not do enough to protect those workers.

That brings me to the next comment I want to make. The bill is an opportunity for us to remember all those whom we have lost and an opportunity for us to celebrate the heroes who helped us get through the worst days of COVID-19. It is also vitally important for us to learn so that, when we see a future pandemic, we do not make the same mistakes or do the same things wrong.

I am worried that we have not learned some of those lessons. I look at long-term care. The privatization of long-term care resulted in our loved ones, our cherished seniors in our communities, living in unbelievable conditions and dying because we have a system in place that privileges profit over the care of our loved ones. We saw what happened across the country in long-term care. None of that seems to have changed. We have not fixed those systems. If we had a pandemic tomorrow, I am not sure that anything would be different. That is very disappointing, and it is something we need to think about.

We need to think about how we provided support for people within our communities. I think the CERB was a lifeline. I remember people phoning my office desperate, and being able to provide that support was perfect. It was a lifeline for so many people.

It was not perfect, but we were trying to do what we could very quickly to get support out. We were pushing the government, and the government was trying to do things. However, as we look back on this, we have to think about the ways that it did not work for certain people. We have to think about the ways that we privileged certain groups.

Corporations were able to get money very fast, within days, but for people living with disabilities, it took much longer to get support. The House of Commons unanimously supported students not having to pay back their student loans during that time. That was a unanimous motion that I brought forward, which every member of the House supported, but the government never implemented it.

The other piece that is a worry for me is how we worked as part of a global community. I stood in this place many times and talked about vaccine equity and how we have a moral obligation to protect people around the world to ensure they have access to the same level of care as people in Canada did. It was not just a moral obligation because, of course, every single time we refused to share our vaccines with other populations, with other people in the rest of the world, variants developed. I do think that is an issue that we have.

We have not fixed the systems like the TRIPS waiver. We have not fixed things like Canada's Access to Medicines Regime. These are things that are still broken. Given another pandemic, I do not believe that the government has learned the lessons to make sure that we do not make the same mistakes.

As we go forward, a national day for pandemic observance should not only be a time to remember and honour, but also a time to plan and an opportunity to learn, because if we do not learn, if we do not take this opportunity, we are doing a disservice to the memory of those who lost their lives.

[Sylvie Bérubé, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to debate Bill S-209, an act respecting pandemic observance day, although it would have been better if we had never gone through this dark period in our history and never needed to commemorate it.

I want to begin by acknowledging International Women's Day. I congratulate the women who broke glass ceilings, and I have a special thought for those who are no longer with us as a result of the violence they suffered.

I want to come back to Bill S‑209. To give some background, the text of the bill designates March 11 as “Pandemic Observance Day”. Bill S‑209 was introduced in the Senate on November 24, 2021 by Dr. Marie‑Françoise Mégie, a senator from Quebec, and introduced in the House last June.

It is important to note that the bill does not create a new statutory holiday. March 11 was chosen as a day of commemoration because it was on March 11, 2020, that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. As we all know, this pandemic, which is still not over, has unfortunately created many victims. The current death toll is very high. There have been about 6.5 million deaths worldwide, including more than 47,000 in Canada and more than 17,000 in Quebec.

On March 11, 2023, Canada offered its condolences to the victims through statements from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health. Quebec also designated and organized days of remembrance in 2021 and 2022 to honour the victims of COVID-19, their families and their loved ones. Quebec also acknowledged the invaluable contributions of all the tradespeople and members of civil society on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.

March 11, 2021, was marked by an invitation to observe a minute of silence at the stroke of 1 p.m. The white rose was designated as a symbol of remembrance, and commemorative ceremonies were held. The March 11, 2022, commemoration was more sombre and was marked by symbolic gestures such as the lowering of the Quebec flag to half-mast at the Quebec National Assembly and in several cities.

Memorialization is important, but we must also learn from this pandemic. Establishing a pandemic observance day is a response to the 27th recommendation of the Quebec ombudsman's special report, entitled “COVID-19 in CHSLDs during the first wave of the pandemic: Identify the causes of the crisis, act, remember”.

This report focuses on COVID‑19 in long-term care facilities. Here is the recommendation: “Propose that there be an annual day of commemoration for the COVID‑19 victims and those who worked with them directly or indirectly, in order to remember what they went through during the first wave of the pandemic and the suffering and loss experienced by these sorely affected people.”

The Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with all those in Quebec and Canada who were directly or indirectly affected by the COVID‑19 pandemic. My Bloc colleagues and I want to take this opportunity to offer our condolences to families affected, and we want to respectfully thank health care workers.

As we know, the few pandemic years we just experienced were difficult for each of us. Obviously, they were even harder for some, including health care and frontline workers; people who lost a loved one or who had to care for or are still caring for a loved one; people who were harder hit by the COVID‑19 virus.

Each day, we would wait impatiently for the Prime Minister of Canada and the Premier of Quebec to give their press conference. Often, they would announce new guidelines to slow the spread of the virus. Things changed quickly. This was uncharted territory for us. Luckily, our scientists provided explanations, they enlightened our debates, and they answered our questions and our concerns throughout the pandemic. We are lucky to be able to rely on them, not to mention the scientists who developed a vaccine at lightening speed.

In those days, we had to get used to wearing a mask and sanitizing our hands often. We had to gather in smaller groups, which impacted our birthday and holiday celebrations. We also had to isolate during lockdowns. It was a very difficult time for single people and couples who did not live in the same home or the same country.

I really feel for the young and the old. We know kids had to make big sacrifices. They had to isolate from certain family members and friends. They had to do school at home, which was not always easy. We know how important it is for young adults to have in-person social contact during their school years. Students were less motivated to do well in school because of the pandemic. Being with parents and other family members 24-7 and, for many young people, not having access to a quiet place to study or a fast, reliable Internet connection also affected their motivation and their academic success during lockdown.

The pandemic also had an impact on young people's mental health, finances and ability to work. Teenagers were disproportionately affected by the psychological impacts of the lockdowns that were put in place to halt the spread of the virus. According to experts, they are coming out of this pandemic in pretty rough shape. Youth are experiencing higher rates of anxiety and often have symptoms of depression. We know that youth tend to get their information from social networks rather than from traditional sources.

In summary, young people have had quite a difficult time. They have experienced a great deal of sadness, isolation, loss of motivation and disruption in their daily routine. Despite the many problems they encountered during the health crisis, most young people have shown resiliency, and we can only be thankful for that.

I also want to talk about what seniors experienced during the pandemic. According to some studies, seniors who lived in retirement homes during the first year of the pandemic suffered more from the isolation than from COVID-19 itself. Seniors need social interaction and social support networks to stay healthy, maintain a sense of well-being and feel satisfied with life.

During the first wave, seniors were confined to their apartments or rooms. For several weeks, they were not allowed to eat in the cafeteria, walk around the residence or even receive visits from their loved ones. They were even prevented from taking their own cars out. Isolation and loneliness among seniors are common and have a negative effect on their physical and mental health.

I would like to talk about my mother, who passed away in 2020, during the pandemic. She was living in a residence because she had been losing her independence, and she was confined to her room. I could not even visit her, and she did not understand what was going on. I talked to her regularly on the phone. She was bored and often cried. She hated the isolation. She passed away, and her funeral was private because of the pandemic.

I could only see my children from a distance. I had to spend the holidays without them and could not celebrate their birthdays with them. We wondered if things would ever go back to normal. Who would have thought that one day the whole world would come to a standstill because of a virus?

In closing, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill S-209, in part because this bill enshrines in law a day that has already been established as a day of commemoration since 2021.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Vancouver Centre has five minutes for her right of reply.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank those members in the House who spoke so passionately and eloquently in support of this bill. The bill was brought forward, as was said, by Senator Mégie, who is a fellow physician from the Senate. I then brought it to the House.

The need to remember is very important. With Bill S-209, we want to remember, and we want to learn. Remembering means that we learn from our mistakes. There are so many things we did wrong. We need to learn from them for the next time there is a pandemic, and there are going to be more pandemics because we are now a global world in which everyone travels. Everyone moves from place to place, and therefore disease can spread globally very rapidly. Therefore, we need to learn from our mistakes.

We also need to learn from the things we did well; we should maybe do them sooner or deal with them differently. A pandemic is all about science. Science is all about evidence. There is evidence in this pandemic that we need to learn from. That is one of the reasons for remembering.

The second reason for remembering is that we need to honour the frontline workers, the heroes in this pandemic. They went out there, gave their lives and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. We now have a problem in our medicare system because all our frontline workers are burned out. They do not want to work anymore because they are so burned out by the trauma of going through this.

We also want to remember the victims, specifically all those people who died. We heard everyone speaking eloquently about the seniors, as well as about the youth, whose education was interrupted and who were alone and did not have anyone to turn to. We heard about all of the people who were not able to meet and the families disrupted. We need to remember that. We need to remember the 50,000 Canadians who died from this particular pandemic. We need to remember those things.

A day of remembrance is not unknown. We have Remembrance Day every November 11 because we want to remember World War II. This was the war we thought was going to end all wars, but it did not. As we are now living through the war in Ukraine, we remember what we should have remembered and should have learned to prevent some of these things from happening and to make sure they do not continue to happen.

Pandemics are like wars. They indiscriminately affect, kill and wreak destruction in the path of people. They do not pick and choose. Now that we are a world that is together, as my hon. NDP colleague said, we need to remember that we are now a global community. We are no longer isolated in our own little nation states.

The next time there is a virus, bacteria or something that is going to destroy us, we know it is again going to be a global pandemic. The World Health Organization remembers and recalls this pandemic. It is warning us about future pandemics to come. If we can learn, remember and honour, then this is what this pandemic remembrance day is all about.

I want to thank those who supported my bill from Senator Mégie.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to order made on Thursday, June 23, 2022, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, March 22, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

Health

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is kind of like Groundhog Day. I have come in here every week that we have sat this year to drag the government in here to talk about mental health and talk about this epidemic happening in our country.

It is not often that members will hear me quote the Bible in the House of Commons, but I want to talk about “The Parable of the Unjust Judge”, also known as “The Parable of the Importunate Widow” or “The Parable of the Persistent Woman”. According to Wikipedia, it is “one of the parables of Jesus, which appears in the Gospel of Luke (18:1-8). In it, a judge who lacks compassion is repeatedly approached by a woman seeking justice. Initially rejecting her demands, he eventually honors her request so he will not be worn out by her persistence.”

It is about what it takes to be persistent to get justice. Right now, we know that, in Canada, there is no parity between mental and physical health. In fact, there are a lot of people who are suffering and who are not getting the help they need. I will be back the next week the House sits to drag the government here, and I will continue to be in the House of Commons until we get parity between mental and physical health.

This is timely, because I got an email from a constituent of mine. He wrote me that his son is addicted to fentanyl. He cited that he is going to have to make a decision, because it is about $300 a day for his son to be in treatment. His son wants to get help. Obviously, his family wants to support him, but the father has to make a decision on whether to sell his home and give his son a fighting chance to live, or abandon his son. We know he will have to make a difficult decision. I do not even have it in me to call him. I am hoping the minister will actually call him. It is an injustice. If his son fell, broke his back, neck or leg and was hospitalized, he would be taken care of. His father would not have to consider selling his home. He would get looked after.

This is an absolute disgrace in a wealthy country like Canada. We know that countries like Britain and France are spending about 12% of their health care budgets on mental health. Canada has still failed to deliver on its mental health transfer. It is $875 million short, to date, of what it promised to spend. We still do not know the details of the bilateral agreements.

I am here to talk about a couple of things. I also want to talk about the frontline health workers who are working right now. It is really important that we think about them. It is in the minister's mandate letter to look out for those mental health workers. Right now, we know many of them are underpaid. I could spend all day talking about them. They are critical in delivering mental health services to people.

In fact, I was in the pool this morning and I met a woman who said that Ontario is spending about 3% on mental health. That is far shy of what my home province spends, which is about 9%. She said she is getting a 1% raise for the next four years, despite the fact that inflation is way higher. What does she get as a thanks? She gets a video from her executive director saying she has done a great job and she is appreciated.

This is absolutely abominable. We need to look out for our frontline service workers. I hope we will hear some answers today about the government and its promises.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Courtenay—Alberni for his advocacy for Canadians' mental health and for giving me the opportunity to talk about this important issue.

Canadians must be able to access timely, evidence-based, culturally appropriate and trauma-informed mental health and substance use services to support their well-being. Our government believes mental health is health, and we have made mental health a key priority.

We have already made unprecedented investments, including $5 billion in bilateral agreements with the provinces and territories, close to $600 million for a distinctions-based mental health strategy for indigenous peoples and $270 million to support the Wellness Together portal.

In 2017, our government invested $5 billion over 10 years to improve Canadians' access to mental health services, starting with an initial transfer of $100 million, which will be increased to $600 million annually until 2027.

The investment is being provided directly to provinces and territories via negotiated bilateral agreements to help them expand access to community-based mental health and addictions services for children and youth, expand integrated services for people with complex needs and spread proven models of community mental health care and culturally appropriate interventions linked to primary health services.

When the pandemic hit, we launched the Wellness Together Canada portal to give Canadians online access to information on mental health issues, mental health programs, instant support via text, and even confidential counselling sessions by phone, video and text with social workers, psychologists and other professionals.

We also fund the Hope for Wellness helpline, which offers crisis intervention services by telephone or chat. It is available in English, French, Cree, Ojibwa and Inuktitut.

On February 7, we announced an investment of more than $198 billion over 10 years to improve health services for Canadians, including mental health services.

Today, we have announced agreements in principle with nine provinces.

We continue to work towards tailor-made agreements with each of these provinces to reflect the needs of patients and workers, agreements tailored to their population and geography.

We believe that mental health must be an integral and integrated part of Canada's public health care system.

Section 3 of the Canada Health Act references mental health. Our government is fulfilling its commitment to transfer billions of dollars over the coming years to the provinces and territories to support mental health and addiction services through a combination of both increasing the Canada health transfer and through $25 billion for 10-year FPT bilateral agreements. This will include mental health as one of four shared priorities and will further integrate mental health throughout the health care system and workforce.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, across the country, governments are turning to trusted community organizations to cope and to deal with services around connecting and recovery. The demands are complex and they are high. They have been exacerbated by the pandemic. These organizations are struggling with underfunding, rising costs and labour market shortages.

The national organizations are looking for a “caring for carers” investment in the mental health and frontline community service workers in this budget. I hope the government would look to that as part of its recovery agenda. In that, they are looking for $100 million for evidence-based mental health supports for frontline community service workers, to expand immediate access to mental health and substance use health supports for staff, to fund research on best practices and to enhance organizational capacity building for psychologically healthy and safe workplaces.

I hope the government honours that in this budget.

Madam Speaker, we will probably see this when we get back, because the government has been failing on every promise it has made on mental health. Hopefully, it will deliver before then.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Madam Speaker, I, too, want to thank and congratulate frontline workers. I agree with my colleague that this situation is complex and critical.

Our government is delivering on its commitment to transfer billions of dollars to the provinces and territories for health and mental health care over the next few years. It will do so by increasing the health transfer and providing an additional $25 billion through provincial and territorial bilateral agreements over 10 years.

The new FPT bilateral agreements include an integrated inclusive approach to mental health and family health services, to the health workforce, as well as data and digital tools. These investments would support the health and mental health needs of Canadians and would require provinces and territories to produce detailed action plans.

This approach is the most efficient way to integrate mental health and substance use services into the health care system, including primary care, and to ensure transparency and—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for North Okanagan—Shuswap.

Seniors

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this House as the representative of North Okanagan—Shuswap. It is such an honour to have this opportunity to circle back to a question that I did not consider got an adequate answer when asked the first time and seek a response that would give hope to seniors, those struggling under the inflationary policies of the government.

On February 16 of this year, I put the following question through the Speaker:

...after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister's inflationary policies, seniors cannot afford food. Barry told me that 40 out of 120 attendees at the mission he works at were seniors. People who used to donate to food banks are having to go to one because they cannot afford groceries.

Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for seniors going without food, or will the Liberals get out of the way so the Conservatives can fix what they have broken and restore seniors' dignity?

The response to the question was shameful, claiming that the government has been there for seniors. The way the government has been there for seniors has been to allow its out-of-control spending to contribute to inflation rates that we have not seen in 40 years. Food prices are climbing so fast that so many seniors are going to food banks because they cannot afford groceries.

Another example of how the government has not been there for seniors came to light last week for me while talking to a restaurateur at home in the Shuswap. While talking to this restaurateur, I asked if she had been affected by rising food prices. The owner took a step back and gave me a look. She did not have to say anything. I knew what the answer was. She went on to tell me how she had built a lunchtime clientele from scratch by building the business for seniors. She built that business around seniors who often preferred a meal out at lunchtime so they did not have to drive at night or it was better for their digestive system than eating at night. She told me that lunchtime seniors clientele was drying up because of increasing food costs and because of the costs that she had to pass on to customers, prices like a case of cauliflower that used to cost her business $35 to $40 per case now costing $130 to $140, prices like green beans being $8 per pound, and these are wholesale prices. We are seeing even higher prices on grocery store shelves.

For the government to say it has been there for seniors is truly shameful. What we have seen in the past eight years from the Prime Minister is that the price of a home has doubled and average rent prices soared above $2,000 in our 10 biggest cities. Nearly half of all Canadians with variable mortgages will no longer be able to afford those mortgages in nine months. Canadians are grappling with 40-year-high inflation. A quarter of Canadians cannot cover an unexpected cost of $500.

Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for seniors going without food, or will the Liberals get out of the way so the Conservatives can fix what they have broken and restore seniors' dignity?