Damien Kurek

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to simply give the opportunity to the member for Kingston and the Islands to actually talk about the recommendations, which he referenced at length but did not actually talk about.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, it is certainly incredibly troubling to hear the member opposite suggest that somehow Conservatives would like Canada to fail in procuring vaccines when that means that somehow he is suggesting that Conservatives would want to see more Canadians die.

That is absolutely absurd reasoning that the member opposite—

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, as much as I appreciate the diatribe coming from the member opposite, I fail to see the relevance, which is a point he often brings up in the House. I fail to see the relevance and how this relates to the report that is being discussed in the House currently. Certainly, he is talking at length about how Conservatives somehow are not contributing to the conversation. I find it ironic that he would speak at length about that, which has very little relevance to the report before the House that is to be discussed at this moment.

I think it would be a fitting reminder to the member for Kingston and the Islands that when rising to speak on a subject, it should be related to the point at hand.

[Canada Elections Act, May 10th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, it is good to enter the discussion on this important subject. We are seeing a debacle of epic proportions on Bill C-10, a bill that the minister obviously does not even understand. There are a lot of questions that Canadians have around Bill C-19 and its effect on what is one of the key things that the House is required to do, and that is to be the custodian of Canada's democracy.

Are there any parallels between the debacle that is currently unfolding with Bill C-10 and what is possible with Bill C-19, especially if the bill goes to committee, and now that the Liberals have limited debate and discussion on Bill C-19?

[Natural Resources, May 7th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, last night the House had an emergency debate on the pending shutdown of Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline. From the tens of thousands of jobs immediately affected to the energy insecurity that could lead to dangerous fuel shortages to the stress on the already limited market availability for western crude, this is an emergency.

The Liberals say a lot of the right things, but their actions show a different story, and I have observed a typical tactic that they employ when they have failed. They claim to need a team Canada approach, and to avoid questions they simply accuse the opposition of playing politics. We see through that charade. In this case, the evidence the evidence shows that they did not take it seriously, and they set a precedent with how they handled KXL. The result is that Canadians could be left in the dark.

This is not about Conservatives versus Liberals or left versus right. This is about standing up for Canadians, and the government, after six years, has shown it is not capable of that. Canadians deserve better.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 6th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's speech. I am curious as to her thoughts about an increasing challenge to Canadian society, which is inflation. When inflation takes place, generally the only people who benefit are those who are wealthier and who own assets. Regular Canadians, especially those who are middle- and lower-income, are those who most often face the most significant consequences from inflation.

Does the member opposite share those concerns about the circumstances that would see growth in the inflation rate in our country?

[COVID-19 in Alberta, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I have two quick comments.

First, a highly successful pilot project regarding rapid testing in Alberta was cancelled a number of months ago by the Liberal government. Does the member agree with that?

Second, we have all talked about how important vaccines are, but I was interested to note, as I checked a few minutes ago, that the member voted against the Conservative motion last week to have a plan to get vaccines to all Canadians as soon as possible.

[COVID-19 in Alberta, May 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I am not an MLA; I am a member of Parliament. However, I have a strong relationship with the five UCP MLAs whom I share a jurisdiction with. I have heard time and time again about how frustrated they have been with the lack of leadership at the federal level. Just to correct the record, because I know my friends in the UCP would ask me to do this, there were no funding cuts to health care. That is misinformation, to clarify the record.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that the third wave came at a time when we needed to be three, four, five or six weeks ahead of schedule on vaccines. We have smart people across the country leading the way. In fact, there is a vaccine manufacturer in Calgary. However, it just announced that it may have to leave Canada to be successful.

Canadians are innovative, resilient and able to rise to the challenge. I have certainly seen that within my home constituency, my home region. Given the opportunity, we could have done better. However, the problem is that we have seen failure on the part of our national government to lead us through this.

[COVID-19 in Alberta, May 5th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member remarking on the intelligence of Albertans. I agree with him. There have been some tremendous advances that our province has pioneered. That may be why there are no Liberal members of Parliament from Alberta these days.

There is a lot of introspection being done. In fact, I listened to the premier talk last night. The government members say that the Government of Alberta has to take responsibility for not being able to deal with the vaccine situation. However, it has been made very clear that the issue was not about the ability to distribute vaccines and get needles into the arms of Albertans. The issue was that there was no supply.

Certainly we need to continue to have a lot of conversations about this, but when we look at the failures and what this third wave is about—

[COVID-19 in Alberta, May 5th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Midnapore.

As I enter into the emergency debate related to the crisis that is taking place here in Alberta, I want to acknowledge that there are a number of friends of mine currently in the hospital. It appears that they are going to pull through, but it has been a challenging time for many Albertans and many, many Canadians. Certainly it drives home the seriousness of what we are discussing in this place. I also want to acknowledge the 24,000 or so Canadians who have passed away because of COVID and COVID-related complications. I was reading an article earlier today about the so-called “COVID long-haulers” and the challenges they have.

On the other side of that issue are the millions of Canadians who are facing significant impacts, as well as businesses. As I was getting groceries earlier today, a business owner came up to me asking if there was anything I could do to help him get support as his business fell through all the cracks, in terms of qualifying for support. It did not quite meet the income threshold on the months that were prescribed, but had zero income in certain other months. It speaks to the significant challenges that all Canadians have faced in the last year and a half.

When I learned that this debate would be taking place, I thought of a couple of main subjects that I want to touch on: one, the challenges that many Canadians are facing as this third wave has gripped Alberta and gripped our country, and to ensure that there is some context provided with some of the challenges that certainly my constituents are facing in Battle River—Crowfoot, and then to talk about some of the other challenges and the reason why we are here.

I found it very interesting listening to some of the Liberal members. The Prime Minister was asked a number of weeks ago whether there was anything he regretted. There have been a number of analogies used in this debate this evening, so I will use another one: When a sports team, be it someone's favourite hockey team or favourite football team, makes some mistakes, the people who take responsibility are the captain of the team and the coaches. They take responsibility for their mistakes and they commit to do better.

I heard for the first time a number of Liberal members admit their failures, because the captain of their team, the leader of this country, refuses to admit mistakes. Unfortunately, it is not surprising. I have been a long-time political observer and a member of Parliament for a year and a half. Seeing the Prime Minister's personality, it is unfortunately not surprising that he refuses to take responsibility for some of these clear failures.

Then we see the members opposite trying to pivot the blame. They say that Conservatives spread the misinformation. I have dozens of pages of clear examples, numerous examples of inconsistent messaging and changing direction. The fact is that even the member for Kingston and the Islands said very clearly that had we gotten more vaccines, we would not be having this debate. A number of the Liberal members opposite have said things like “Well, we only want to talk about vaccines.” Well, it seems like the Liberals only wanted to stop talking about vaccines when their failures on the procurement of those vaccines became widespread. Then, all of a sudden, Canadians were seeing the consequences of that, and we see that now. This truly is the Prime Minister's third wave.

I think back to the beginning of the pandemic, when I, among many other Conservatives, started asking questions about securing our borders. They were valid questions about what was happening with this virus, which we did not know very much about, and we started asking about measures being taken. I remember the public safety minister stood up and said that the government had put in enhanced border measures, yet I would talk to constituents who had just returned home who said that they did not see any border measures. I talked to some constituents who saw those border measures, and literally, and I wish this was a joke, the enhanced border measure was a check mark on the immigration form. As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”, and I think that is the reality we are facing, with tens of thousands of lives lost and other significant challenges that we face.

I say often that the government is all style and very little substance. Unfortunately, that has been the case throughout this pandemic, and I would suggest the last five and a half or so years as well, as has been highlighted through the many other failures and tragedies of what this Liberal government has done.

I was speaking to somebody who closely follows the National Research Council, and even some of the regulatory changes that the Liberals brought in right after they were elected actually put Canada further back in terms of being set up to succeed in the case of needing to see rapid investment in emerging health technologies, like vaccines. This was a number of years before the word “COVID-19” was even known to the world, and that really comes back to the issue of good governance.

The Liberals will say, “Well, it is easy to be an armchair quarterback and speak from hindsight.” This is what the Liberals like to talk about to try to pivot away from their failures. However, we see time and again with the current government that truly it has been a failure of good governance. We see things like ministerial responsibility, which, in some cases, appears to have been abandoned. The Liberals simply use it as a way to cover up their scandals but then do not provide the oversight. I have filed hundreds of ATIPs since getting elected, and some of the things I see and do not see are astounding.

I have a couple of minutes left here to talk about some of the things that my constituents have brought up over the last number of months, such as the border issue that the government brought in. Conservatives were critical of the border hotels, especially when the minister himself said that there was no evidence that would work. There could have been other measures that were more effective.

On mental health, we have seen the government support a Conservative motion for a 988 number, yet it has done virtually nothing since. It has made some announcements in terms of dollars in its yearly budget, which was released a couple of weeks ago. Again, it is promising dollars but no action.

A great example is the Service Canada office that is located down the street from my constituency office, where I am currently giving this speech. A sign was put on the door saying that it was closed, and there was a website on it. Hundreds of people sought help from my office, because constituents could not be served by the government. Again, on good governance there was a lack of responsibility.

As I have mentioned, we see businesses falling through the cracks. We see mixed messaging on vaccines. This has been a big challenge. I have had phone calls this week, and people are asking what to believe and who to believe.

There is certainly much more I could say, but it has been good to participate in this debate. Hopefully I highlighted some of the issues that my constituents have brought forward to me over the last number of weeks and months, and in the last year.