Charlie Angus

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 27th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, Highway 11 and Highway 17 represent the Trans-Canada Highway across Canada. This is where all the economic goods of this nation travel. If we talk to anyone who travels this highway, they will tell us about the rising number of truck accidents, trucks going off the road and trucks going into oncoming traffic.

My question is about the lack of vision and rules about proper training and standards for insurance to hold companies to account so we keep the drivers of the trucks safe but also keep the people who are travelling the roads in northern Ontario safe. I have not seen that in this budget.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 27th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I represent rural natural resource workers. I sit here day after day and listen to this false conspiracy theory from the Conservatives that if we do not give them another couple billion dollars to build yet another pipeline, they are going to break up the country. They are willing to misrepresent facts time and time again.

It is not a conspiracy that the energy markets are changing. All of the major hedge fund investors said they were pulling out of Alberta and Saskatchewan because the right-wing governments there believe they are still in the 19th century. Let us look at Jason Kenney trying to blow the tops off the Rocky Mountains to get at coal. We can look at the transition that is happening with the four major oil companies taken over by shareholder revolts driven by the hedge fund operators because they are sick and tired of a nation, that includes Canada and the provinces, not taking the environment crisis seriously.

When I listen to this member trying to portray it as a rural versus urban divide, it is the failure of Conservatives to be honest about the need to get ready for a transition that is coming whether they like it or not. It is the 21st century; wake up.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member is entirely correct. We should not have people getting sick and dying this far into the pandemic. This is the result of the negligence of premiers such as Pallister, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford, who have completely ignored their obligations. They were not working without a road map. We knew what the problem was. We needed to fix it. Instead, they have left people at risk, particularly in far north indigenous communities.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I think what was so frustrating with the WE brothers scandal was that the government had asked every member of Parliament to work with it, in terms of getting jobs for students on the ground last spring. We had all done that work. It would have worked great, but instead we had over half a billion dollars diverted to the Kielburger brothers, who were not signed up to lobby. They could walk right into the then finance minister's office. We can see from the Ethics Commissioner's report that they would talk to staff in the then finance minister's office, calling and saying, “Hey, girl.” What kind of group gets that kind of insider access and then gets $500 million without a due diligence report? There was no proof that those guys could actually pull that scheme off.

We have gone through 5,000 pages of documents. We have not seen any due diligence reports. This damaged the Prime Minister dramatically. This program hurt students. There needs to be some accountability for how this thing went off the rails so badly.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I obviously support listening to our experts, but I feel like my hon. colleague is listening through Liberal ears and not to what they are actually saying. I did not hear the experts say that one dose was good enough. They have not said that. They said that we need two doses. The fact is the government does not have two doses. The experts are saying the next best thing is to get one dose into every arm until we get two doses. Yes, totally: Let us get one dose in. Until we have two doses, we do not get to reopen. We do not get to be safe.

Look at the United States. I have talked to people across the border who are going to events now because they have had two doses. They have had two doses for some months.

Again, it is due to the negligence of the government not delivering those two doses when they were needed that we are still having lockdowns and are still being held back.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, it is always an incredible honour to rise and speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay.

I think if anybody had said in the House last March that we would still be in COVID now, dealing with lockdowns and the crisis of this terrible pandemic, it would have been impossible for any of us to even imagine finding a way through.

We are getting through this pandemic, but it is really important to point out that there are still serious gaps and problems, and I think many lessons that should have been learned have not been learned.

I was reading an article this morning that talked about the political malpractice that has occurred in Canada at the provincial and federal levels, with leaders refusing to look at the crisis of the pandemic and recognize what we are dealing with. We remember Premier Kenney dismissed COVID as less harmful than influenza, yet we see the ICUs in Alberta being overrun and 25,000-plus deaths in this country. Premier Doug Ford promised to use an “iron ring” to protect seniors in long-term care. The only thing he did was put an iron ring around the investors to keep them from being charged for the horrific negligence that caused the deaths of our loved ones, parents, cousins and grandparents in long-term care facilities. There needs to be a day of reckoning over these issues.

I raise this because people in my region are very tired. They are dreaming of being able to sit on a patio and have a beer with their friends. They are counting the days. The people of Canada have carried their weight. They have done an incredible job of following the rules, being responsible, doing what was necessary and taking on incredible emotional, psychological and economic burdens. The longer we go without a way of saying we can truly put this behind us, the harder it is going to be, and I am very concerned that many businesses will not be coming back.

This past weekend there were 128 new cases of COVID in the region of Timmins. We have cases at the Monteith jail. We have cases now at the OPG centre in Cochrane. We have multiple cases at the Detour Lake mine site where contractors are going in and out. We have 17 new cases in the Fort Albany First Nation, and I understand there are now cases in Attawapiskat. This is deeply concerning, given that we have many communities on the James Bay coast where sometimes 15 or 18 people live in a house and there is no place to do proper self-isolation. When I see 17 new cases over the weekend in Fort Albany, big alarm bells go off. The City of Timmins is now under a state of emergency because of COVID. The community of Moosonee has 38 cases with a very small hospital. It is under a state of emergency.

I am asking the federal government to commit the resources necessary to help our communities get through this. We need the surge capacity that was promised to be on the ground now. We need to be able to put the supports in place for the health units, hospitals, doctors and front-line workers who are dealing with people in very marginalized situations and do not have proper places to stay. I think of the staff at Living Space in Timmins who work with the homeless. They are on the front lines of the medical catastrophe that is unfolding in our communities and we need to have supports for them. I am asking this of the federal government, and will be following up with the Minister of Health, because we need that support there now to keep people alive. All of us who have come through the three lockdowns and the 15-something months of this crisis with hope on the horizon agree that we cannot lose any more people to this.

I see the government pat itself on the back again and again on the vaccine rollout, but let us be realistic. Right now only about 2% of our population has had the second dose. Until a person has had the second dose they are not free of COVID, so this idea of a one-dose summer is ridiculous. We need to have enough people with two doses to ensure that we can safely go back to living the lives we have all been missing for so long and see the loved ones we have been unable to see.

It raises questions about the decisions that were made. I know those in government do not like to be accused of making a wrong decision in a time of crisis, but we have to look at the fundamental problems that happened with this pandemic. We were fundamentally unable, as rich a nation as we are, to make our own PPE. The government and our Prime Minister, who I believe is the last of the Davos defenders, believed the free market and big pharma would look after us.

We saw the United States and the U.K. invest heavily in their domestic vaccine production. We have some really wonderful vaccine companies trying to get off the ground now. The lesson we need to learn from this is that never again can we be in a situation where we are dependent on big pharma and other countries to try to meet this nation's needs.

With Connaught Labs, we had a world-class vaccine facility that served us for 100 years. Brian Mulroney got rid of that. I never hear the Conservatives talking about what a brilliant idea it was to sell off such a national treasure to their friends in private business. If we had Connaught Labs right now, I bet many more people would have their second dose. There are lessons to be learned from these issues.

In terms of Timmins—James Bay, some very positive steps have been taken, which are really important to recognize.

I want to say congratulations to the Franco-Ontarian community in Timmins on the construction of its new cultural centre, the Centre culturel La Ronde.

That organization plays a key role in developing the Franco-Ontarian community. I am very proud that the federal government has invested $2.5 million in the construction of this new building for the Centre culturel La Ronde.

In addition, the federal and provincial governments have invested $2 million to support the Fire Keeper Patrol in its efforts to combat the opioid crisis in our region, particularly in downtown Timmins.

There are many, many good things we have seen with investments. On FedNor, the Liberal government has finally agreed with the position the New Democrats have taken for years: We need FedNor as a stand-alone agency. FedNor is the only economic development agency that has been the poor cousin. It has been a project of the industry department. What we needed all along was a stand-alone agency, because the economy of northern Ontario is as different from the economy of southern Ontario as the economy of Alberta is from Toronto's. We are resource-based and need to have investments coming back.

I applaud this in the budget. People think I am just going to get up here and beat on the Liberal government. On any given day, that makes me get up in the morning, but we have to recognize that when we make good investments we should be talking about good investments. The investment in FedNor is really important. It has been a lifeline to many of our businesses. It has kept our communities going through this time.

I pushed and worked with the federal government on the fire keepers proposal. We are being hit by a massive opioid crisis, not just in Timmins but across the country. A great program came forward in the Fire Keeper Patrol, where indigenous people work on the streets 24/7 to deal with the homeless and the opioid crisis. That funding is essential right now. Marginal populations, such as those who are homeless, are a vector for COVID, so the fire keepers are on the ground doing this.

I would like to point out we received a record $2 million in funding for Canada summer jobs. That will hire over 526 students this year in communities from Attawapiskat in the far north to the farm belt down in Earlton. This is all important.

The Liberals always ask me why I was so angry about the Canada student service grant they signed off on with the WE brothers. We worked with the federal government. Every MP in the House worked with the federal government to put in place a plan to get students hired. We could have had those students hired last summer. Instead, the program went to the WE brothers, fell off the tracks and has been a disaster ever since.

I am glad to see these investments to hire our young people. I am glad to see the work going on with FedNor and the fight against the opioid crisis, but I am begging the government for help. We need help right now to deal with the crisis of COVID hitting our communities, working people, young people and indigenous people.

[Points of Order, May 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I want to thank you for keeping everything calm. This has been a very tense session. I think you have done an excellent job so far. I am sure you will give me some leeway in the future if I stray off the beaten track that I try to stay on every day.

[Ethics, May 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, well, the Ethics Commissioner's report on the WE scandal is a doozy. This is way beyond whether or not Bill Morneau should have recused himself. What we have learned is that the office of the finance minister of a G7 country used its enormous influence to open doors to further the private interests of the Kielburgers. Liberals were intervening right down to the municipal level to help their friend Craig, and then the Liberals put the WE brothers in the driver's seat of a $900-million deal with no competition. That is what got them into trouble.

When will the government end this blatant insider access for their cronies and their pals?

[Privacy, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien is raising serious alarm bells that Bill C-11 would undermine the fundamental privacy rights of Canadians. As a case in point, Clearview AI broke Canadian law when it took millions of photos of Canadians without their consent for its controversial facial recognition technology. The Privacy Commissioner is saying that Bill C-11 would actually protect the interests of companies like Clearview over the rights of Canadians.

Why are the Liberals using Bill C-11 to rewrite the privacy laws and stack the deck in favour of corporate outliers such as Clearview over protecting the rights of Canadian citizens?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. colleague about the need to establish a national dental care plan. I talk to people all the time who are unable to get their teeth fixed and the huge impact that has on families, workers and people's health.

We know the Liberals have promised many things like pharmacare and failed to deliver, but on the issue of dental care, we have been told that it is doable, that is not overly costly. Could my hon. colleague explain how practical it is to establish a national dental care plan that would have such an impact for so many people?