Alain Therrien

[Health, March 9th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer my question, but that is okay, I will try again.

By creating two sets of rules, one for air travellers and another for land travellers, the government is only taking business away from airports. The fact that hotel quarantines can be avoided by crossing land borders is so widely known that some companies are even openly offering this particular service to non-essential travellers. Circumventing the rules has literally become a commercialized service.

Does the government at least realize what a laughingstock it has become?

[Health, March 9th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, since the mandatory hotel quarantine went into effect, there has been a drop in the number of travellers returning by air. Oddly, at the same time, there has been a rise in people arriving at land borders.

That is because everyone has realized that it is possible to get around the rules. People fly to Burlington, take a bus or their car, cross the border, save $2,000 and return home without being subject to the mandatory quarantine. That is outrageous.

Why not apply the same rules to all non-essential travellers?

[Employment Insurance Act, March 8th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, we look at what the government is doing. News flash: The Bloc Québécois will never govern except in a sovereign Quebec. Maybe we will still be in politics and maybe we will govern. We shall see. However, we will never govern here. That is why we are trying to be and are, in my opinion, a constructive opposition.

It gives me no pleasure to talk about what I am seeing across the way. I am not happy to say that. I would have liked to say the opposite. I would have liked to say, “Congratulations, the government acted intelligently.”

If there was a party that collaborated in the beginning, it was the Bloc Québécois, as the Leader of the Government in the House can confirm. It felt like the government was saying that we were on a plane in flight that it was in the middle of building and it was asking us for help. It was something like that, even though it may not have described it that way. That is when we pooled our ideas. We had discussions and determined that we needed to protect our people. It was important. We needed to be good. We had no choice but to be good. We had to try to anticipate, be vigilant and proactive.

All I can say is that I am saddened by what I am seeing. I would have liked to praise the government's response to such a crucial, important and difficult situation, but it unfortunately does not deserve my compliments.

[Employment Insurance Act, March 8th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague.

He is absolutely right. I cannot explain something I do not understand. The Conservatives, the NDP and the Green Party voted for the motion. It is incomprehensible that the government and members of the Liberal Party did not automatically vote to increase benefits for the people most affected by the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over, when Liberal members are out for a walk and cross paths with seniors, I dare them to look those seniors in the eye and tell them that, as Liberals, they voted against something that would have helped them. We will see how they feel.

[Employment Insurance Act, March 8th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-24 has two main parts. The first extends the employment insurance benefit period to 50 weeks. My colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville explained that well.

The second makes tourists who travel south or anywhere around the world ineligible for the $1,000 benefit for people who have to quarantine. I would like to focus on this second part and confirm for anyone still wondering that we will support Bill C-24.

The word that comes to mind in a conversation about denying tourists and vacationers the $1,000 they might otherwise have collected is “finally”. We finally have a bill that puts an end to that ridiculous situation. If we look back at what happened, everything started last September with the unanimous passage of Bill C-4, which gave people with COVID-19 or in mandatory isolation $500 per week for two weeks, for a total of $1,000, to make up for lost income. Those people were doing what was best for society by self-isolating so as not to put public health at risk.

Bill C-4 came into force on October 2, and the problems started after that. If we look at what happened next, we got nothing but equivocation from this government, which has been flying on autopilot since the beginning of this pandemic. Actually, it is not even flying on autopilot, because that would require having a system in place. This government has been flying blind from the start, and I do not know how it can tell where it is going. We are waving flags to warn the government about the challenges ahead. However, this government is neither active nor proactive, but passive.

In a serious crisis like this, we need leadership and a government that is firing on all cylinders. In the past, great crises have produced great leaders. For example, the Great Depression gave us John Maynard Keynes, one of the greatest economists in history, who completely changed our way of viewing life in society.

In a crisis like this, the government should have been vigilant. In other words, when this legislation came into force, the government should have monitored what was happening with the $1,000 benefit to see whether it was being used properly and ensure that there were no issues. That is what governing is all about. The government should have been monitoring its actions and their consequences, but it did not.

Émile de Girardin said that governing means looking ahead. Unfortunately, this government is flying blind, as I was saying. Unfortunately, it is woefully lacking in foresight. If it had been vigilant, it could have protected the economy better. If it had been vigilant, it could have protected public health better. If it had been vigilant, it could have saved more jobs. If it had been vigilant, it could have saved more lives. That is what we must not forget about this government's unfortunate perpetual inertia.

I am not saying that as a member of an opposition party that thinks it can do better. Unfortunately, I am only noting that what seemed like a good idea at first later proved to be a very bad idea. With the emergence of variants like the U.K. variant, the government should have closed the borders promptly. Instead, the government waited and gave sanctimonious lectures, asking people to stay home and not travel anywhere.

The government told people that it would be best if they did not go abroad, but, if they did, it would give them $1,000 so they could spend two weeks at home when they got back. There was a contradiction in this message. The government should have been vigilant, noticed the contradiction and fixed it. Instead, journalists pointed it out on December 31. Journalists were the ones to point out that there was a problem.

We then saw the leader of the government claim that the Liberals had just realized there was a problem and that they had decided to end it as of January 3.

The Bloc Québécois immediately gave its unconditional support to the government. Actually, there was one condition. We promised the Liberals that if they wanted to move forward, we would do so quickly. Our only condition was that the measure was to be retroactive to October 2. As for the rest, we agreed with them, because we felt that it was important and that we needed to act quickly.

We did not get anything resembling a bill until January 20, when the government deked à la Mario Lemieux and almost, but not really, gave us something. Once we were able to get a look at the bill, we immediately noticed that it was not retroactive to January 3. We asked to rework the bill and make it retroactive to October 2.

The government panicked and immediately pulled back. For nearly two months, the opposition parties called on the government to bring its bill back. I know; I was there. I am my party's House leader, and I could see that the other parties wanted to help the government. I rose today and said that we supported the bill. It did not take long.

I told the government that we would go along with it if the bill were made retroactive to October 2, if it were done right. It took nearly two months for the bill to make a reappearance.

This bill fixes a mistake that was made. The government has often said that all of the parties were in agreement. Indeed, the parties have agreed on the principle of the bill from the beginning, but we do not manage the public service. If the Liberals do not want to govern, they should step aside.

The Bloc Québécois wants the government to be able to move forward, but carefully. In times of crisis, it is important to remain vigilant. Unfortunately, the government did not do that.

If we are in favour of this bill, it is because it should have been passed days ago, if not sooner. However, this will do. It is fine. We agree.

I would like to stress one thing. We have moved motions about this before, and my esteemed colleague spoke about them earlier. It is extremely inhumane to grant 15 weeks of EI benefits to someone who is fighting for their life, when people in other circumstances are given 50 weeks. It is unconscionable that this is accepted and tolerated when it means that, rather than focusing exclusively on healing and recovery, people who have been struck down with a serious illness that prevents them from working also have to worry about making ends meet. That does not make any sense.

Those who are listening to me speak know that I am right. If I were to speak one-on-one to my colleagues in the House about this, I cannot imagine that any of them would say that 15 weeks of EI benefits are enough for someone who is suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment. That does not make any sense at all.

All that is needed to remedy the situation is to amend this bill. That would remedy the situation until September 25, 2021. Then, if we wanted to make the change permanent, the solution would be to vote in favour of Bill C-265, which was introduced by the valiant Bloc Québécois member for Salaberry—Suroît.

We need to change history. We need to show some humanity. We need to be good.

[Health, February 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, since I knew that the Deputy Prime Minister would be answering my question, I should have asked her if she is ever tempted to take over as prime minister.

The government needs to do its job. We are in the middle of a pandemic. The government must get going and take effective action. The government failed to quickly procure vaccines, it failed to manage the border and it failed with the hotel quarantines. I could go on and on. It is a horror show.

The public needs an effective federal government. It is possible to work quickly and well.

When will the government get its act together?

[Health, February 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the government has completely abdicated its responsibilities when it comes to the hotel quarantine system.

However, what we are asking for is not complicated. We just want the government to set up a phone line that works. We want the government to ensure that once travellers get to the hotel, they follow all public health rules, they are kept safe and they do not contract COVID-19.

The feds had two months to prepare for this. It seems to me that Canada should be up to the task. The solution is not to cancel quarantines, but rather to show the kind of leadership that is worthy of a G7 government.

Seriously, does the Prime Minister still want to lead this country?

[Foreign Affairs, February 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we are not asking for the moon, we are asking for someone to answer the phone. That is what we are asking for. It is not that hard.

It took two months for the government to wake up. In the lead-up to Christmas, the government was asked to ban non-essential flights, but it did not. It was asked to impose a quarantine on people returning from abroad, but it did not. On January 29, it woke up and said it would institute a quarantine starting on February 4. That got pushed back to February 22, but there are flaws. It is a fiasco. When will the government wake up?

[Foreign Affairs, February 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the hotel quarantines are a fiasco that could easily have been avoided.

The government should have foreseen that by announcing the telephone booking system just three days before the quarantines were to come into effect, tons of people would be stuck waiting. There were 45,000 calls over the weekend, but only 2,300 people managed to make reservations. Some people were on hold for 25 hours, and only 5% of callers managed to book a room.

What has the government done since yesterday to change the situation?

[Health, February 22nd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we have known about the British variant of COVID-19 since mid-December. There were two ways to prevent it from coming here. The first was to quickly vaccinate the population, which has been a failure on the part of this government. The second was to impose mandatory quarantine on travellers arriving here. The government waited two months and ended up bungling things every step of the way. As a result, the British variant is now in our primary schools in Quebec. We can only hope that the lockdown measures will be effective.

Does the government realize that the public in lockdown is paying the price for its repeated mistakes?