Dany Morin

[Ebola Outbreak, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here this evening. I did not expect to be working until 11 p.m. on my first day back in the House, but it is always a pleasure. When I was elected three and a half years ago, it was to give a voice to the 100,000 people I represent in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord here in Ottawa.

I am so glad my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie asked for this emergency debate to discuss this transnational crisis, which has the potential to become a worldwide crisis. I would also like to thank the government for allowing us to talk about this issue.

I listened carefully to the speech given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, which was meant to reassure Canadians. I am relieved to hear there has not been a case of Ebola in Canada. I also understand that the Ebola virus is transmitted differently than the H1N1 virus and other kinds of infections that have frightened Canadians in the past.

However, we live in a world in which the spread of viruses and bacteria can be disastrous. Throughout our long health history, humans have developed antibiotics and vaccines to prevent certain diseases. However, the resistance of these viruses and bacteria means that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the right cure for these problems. What worries me about the Ebola crisis is that this problem should have been solved already.

I will come back to this later in my speech, because I do not want to jump from one subject to another, but we have reached a pivotal moment in the spread of the Ebola virus, and Canada must play its part. Basically, that is my conclusion.

I am the deputy health critic for the NDP, but I am not an Ebola expert. We must rely on the real experts who have been studying this virus for many years. I have complete confidence in the World Health Organization, or WHO, which has a plan that includes all of its global partners. I would really like to see the government play its part in different ways. I will expand on that a little later.

Canada's assistance should include increased efforts in the short term to eradicate the current epidemic, as well as a study of why this epidemic has been so difficult to control. I believe the Ebola virus has been around since the 1970s. In the past, the disease spread very much at the local and rural level, and the problem could be eradicated with quick, very localized intervention.

Now, we are seeing that this approach no longer works, which is why we need to move to the next stage, which involves increasing efforts in the short term to put an end to the current epidemic and looking at why this epidemic has been so difficult to control. The Ebola virus affects developing countries, and the environment there makes it more difficult to eradicate the disease.

I am very pleased with our Canadian researchers and health care personnel who are working in Canada and in the countries affected to eradicate the problem. All Canadians and all parliamentarians are grateful. The government needs to help them do their work. Many caring men and women are working passionately and compassionately and sometimes putting their own lives in danger to fix the problem.

We cannot forget that. There are a number of things that bother me, and one fact I mentioned in my question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health was that the government has cut $60 million from the Public Health Agency of Canada's budget.

The agency has a laboratory in Winnipeg that is working on Ebola. It is working on a vaccine that could potentially combat this problem. We still do not know whether it will work. However, I think it is a bad decision for the government to cut $60 million from a research agency. This could be debated at length. I do not necessarily want to debate too long over $60 million, but I think that the Conservative government needs to do some serious soul-searching.

I also think that the government should deploy the Disaster Assistance Response Team to respond to this epidemic. That was one of the priorities set out by our critic, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie. She spoke at length about why the government should do this. The ball is in the government's court now.

We are once again asking the government to move forward with this. I hope that it will listen to the member, who is very familiar with the file and is up to date on the situation, in order to help people in difficult situations around the world. We should not wait any longer than necessary to send the team. I hope that the government will move forward with this.

Even though there have been no confirmed cases of Ebola on Canadian soil, the epidemic is spreading in other parts of the world. If the epidemic does spread beyond the five countries currently affected, I do not want Canada to be the next step for this disease. Honestly, we must attack the root of the epidemic to eradicate it. It is important to put in place mechanisms and barriers to prevent the virus from coming to Canada, and it is important to have good protection and teams to isolate the victims if Ebola does arrive here. However, beyond that, the government must play a role in West Africa, where the epidemic is raging and becoming increasingly uncontrollable. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the government is doing enough.

I would like to talk about the aid that Canada has promised. According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, to date Canada has promised a little over $5 million on behalf of a population of 35.5 million people. The government is donating 14¢ per capita to the cause. I think it is being cheap. Fourteen cents is much less than the U.S. donation of 31¢ per capita, or $100 million for 318 million people. The United Kingdom is donating 62¢ per capita. For 64 million people, it is donating $40 million. Our 14¢ is a good start, but the government should loosen the purse strings in order to tackle this problem. As we often see with the Conservative approach, the government is sitting on its laurels. The situation gets worse and then we go into crisis management mode. Then we have to pay a high price in order to fix the damage that has been done.

Obviously, the Canadian Public Health Association is concerned about the budget cuts imposed on the Public Health Agency of Canada. I mentioned the cuts that were made over three years. In practical terms, the agency's budget was reduced by 14% over this period. The portion of the budget that is set aside for health promotion, disease prevention, public health infrastructure and health security, or in other words for monitoring and assessing populations, enforcing regulations and responding to emergencies, dropped by 26% in three years. We also know that the agency cut 483 jobs in 2012.

Not only could the government do more, but it has been slow to respond. More aid should be given. This was a result of the Conservatives' decisions and the savage cuts they made to health. We also see it in the cuts to health transfers to the provinces. Basically, Canada needs to get back on track and invest heavily in research, including research to fight the Ebola virus.

We see it in the cuts to health transfers to the provinces. Basically, Canada needs to get back on track and invest heavily in research, including research to fight the Ebola virus.

[Ebola Outbreak, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his excellent speech. I will gladly follow him in a few minutes, but I have a question for him first.

He was just talking about the Canadian government aid that will go to the WHO's road map. The WHO needed roughly $600 million and appealed to all its global partners for support. The United States gave $100 million, the United Kingdom gave $40 million, and Canada gave $5 million. According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health's lastest version, Canada may have possibly given slightly more than $5 million.

In any case, $5 million is a paltry sum in a $100-million budget, especially considering that Canada apparently weathered the recession best, according to the Conservative government.

If this government is in the best position economically, then why is it giving barely $5 million to a cause that needs $600 million worldwide in order to eradicate the problem?

Personally, I think this is no time to be burying our heads in the sand. If we do not manage to deal with this problem quickly, this could go beyond the five countries mentioned.

[Ebola Outbreak, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Conservative colleague for her speech. I learned some new information from that speech. This is what is important when we are in the House of Commons: having a dialogue, sharing information that others do not know, and raising the level of debate.

However, I find one thing absurd, and my colleague mentioned it briefly in her speech. The Public Health Agency of Canada has a laboratory in Winnipeg that has worked, and is perhaps still working, on Ebola. It produces a vaccine that has the potential to help us.

I would like to ask my Conservative colleague whether, in retrospect, she believes that making $60 million in cuts to the Public Health Agency of Canada over the last three years was a good idea. We know that money is the sinews of war and that research needs a lot of money, not only in order to be able to conduct experiments but also to attract highly qualified researchers.

Does the hon. member believe that, with those $60 million that perhaps we ought not to have cut, we could have made more progress and responded more quickly to the crisis?

[Ebola Outbreak, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the Public Health Agency of Canada does is research on disease prevention. Unfortunately, the Conservative government decided to slash that agency's budget in recent years.

I have to wonder how long that agency's team has really been working on the Ebola crisis. After all, news of the Ebola outbreak has been heard all around the world for weeks, if not months now.

Does my colleague think that Conservative cuts to the Public Health Agency of Canada may have hurt our ability to properly study this kind of disease?

[Health, September 15th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, a Toronto Star investigation has confirmed what the NDP has been saying for a long time: over the past six years, a number of Canadian pharmaceutical companies did not abide by laws regarding the safety of their products. What is worse, some of these companies are still allowed to sell their products, even though they willingly distributed defective medication. The complacency and lack of transparency at Health Canada is unbelievable.

How can the minister explain that the offending pharmaceutical companies did this under her watch and that they put the health of Canadians at risk?

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the question I would like to ask my NDP colleague is quite simple.

He clearly laid out why the New Democratic Party of Canada cannot support this type of bill. I am certain that he is very aware of the impact of cluster munitions on the lives of civilians who live in war-torn countries, especially failed cluster munitions, that is, munitions that do not explode and thus become landmines.

I would like to hear what he has to say about the fact that Canada, as represented by the Conservative government, feels no remorse in conducting missions with countries that continue the long tradition of sending these types of munitions to countries at war. The government is washing its hands of the consequences this can have on the civilian population.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I was touched by my colleague's remarks, particularly when he talked about children playing with unexploded cluster bombs. Unfortunately, they do not understand that these are dangerous weapons than can kill or maim them.

I would like my colleague to tell us more about the human tragedy happening in conflict zones where civilians find unexploded cluster bombs near their homes even after the conflict ends. Unfortunately, young people are being killed.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 18th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, 98% of cluster bomb casualties are civilians. That is why the world wants to ban these weapons.

Why does my colleague opposite not feel guilty about the fact that his government is collaborating and participating in missions with people and governments that use cluster munitions?

[Employment, June 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, no one can forget the Conservatives' employment insurance reform. It would be hard to come up with a more regressive policy. This unfortunate reform has weakened the economy in Quebec, the Maritimes and my region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, which is having a hard time getting back on its feet.

It does not end there. Every day, the Conservatives, who are the self-proclaimed job champions, are attacking the rights of Canadian workers and the gains they have made. They are attacking unions, labour-sponsored funds, the public service and local services.

Allow me to provide some examples. Bills C-377 and C-525 were sad attempts at overhauling labour relations in Canada.

Bill C-4, the budget implementation bill, was another opportunity for the Conservatives to quietly turns back the clock on decades' worth of struggles for decent working conditions and good jobs.

The cuts to Canada Post will further eat away at local services and wipe out quality jobs for Canadians.

In my riding, workers and unions are clearly saying that the summer will be hot and that the declaration of war issued by the members opposite will not go unanswered.

2015 starts now.

[Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague’s question is a good one.

When we make amendments to a bill, we must indeed put them in the right place and have the right definition for them. If we were talking about a specific amendment, I could answer my colleague’s question in greater depth. However, she reminds us of the importance of the principle of the convention.

Canada has a strange relationship with the convention it has signed. Of the 113 countries that have signed the convention, only 84 have ratified it. Canada signed the convention on December 3, 2008, and the implementing legislation was introduced in the House of Commons on December 15, 2012. Even though the government has taken some action, it is deplorable for it to be trying get out of it with regard to clause 11.