Madam Speaker, that is not a problem. I will not use things that excite the members, when they are unable to control their emotions in this House. I will move on to the rest of the point, because I clearly upset the members opposite.
What I will speak about is simply the fact that the Conservatives have not based policy decisions in this House on experts, on science or on the testimony we heard at the health committee, when I was a member of that committee. We stand here today and members opposite talk about listening to the science. Time and again we heard experts. Our chief public health officer, Dr. Tam, was personally attacked by Conservatives when they disagreed with her expertise.
I find it a bit rich to stand in this place and to hear the Conservatives say, “Bring out the experts; bring out the testimony.” When we do that, when we table that information, when we have witnesses at committee, when we have reports and when we have that expert testimony, the Conservatives make personal attacks against our chief public health officer. I notice that the heckles went silent, because the Conservative members know it is true, that there are those on their benches who made personal attacks against public health officials who disagreed with them.
In addition to that, we talk about the mandates or any protections across the country throughout the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, we constantly said that there is no silver bullet and that vaccines are the safest, most effective way for us to get through this pandemic, but there are also layers of protection, and that is crucially important. Those layers of protection are going to help prevent people from getting severely ill and clogging up our emergency rooms and hospitals, and that is what the Conservatives do not understand.
There are layers of protection, not only to protect the most vulnerable, but to protect businesses by not having to enter lockdowns. If we remove every layer of protection throughout this pandemic and businesses have to close, where would the Conservatives be to defend and support those businesses? I know Conservatives did not support them when we moved measures in the budget and in Bill C-8. They voted against the supports those businesses needed.
We put in place layers of protection to help ensure, as the pandemic unfortunately is not over and COVID is still around, that we protect society, protect individuals, protect businesses, and protect our health care workers and our health care system. These are the very people those members call heroes and then attack at committee and try to discredit on social media.
I find that, while the Conservatives might try to position or package some of their motion to act like they are on the side of people, throughout this pandemic they have flip-flopped consistently whenever they felt the political mood suited them.
I turn to some of the comments I heard in this place earlier that accused the government of simply trying to punish people who have differences of opinion or who want the freedom to have a different view on things. I find this incredibly rich, considering what we all saw last night. Among the Conservative benches, they do not have the freedom to listen to science, and they do not have the freedom to speak out and have their own opinions. I heard heckles yesterday when members of our side voted in a free vote. The Conservatives criticized our members for having free votes, yet yesterday the member for Abbotsford rightly pointed out the dangers the member for Carleton was spreading about our democracy and the independence of the Governor of the Bank of Canada. What happened to the member for Abbotsford? He got the boot.
When it comes to Conservatives, the only freedom of choice they have is to listen to whatever leader happens to be running the show at the time. Therefore, it is really hard to take the Conservatives seriously when they talk about mandates, the health and safety of Canadians, and freedoms, when the Conservative benches do not even have freedom of opinion or freedom of speech. Frankly, the member for Abbotsford spoke truth to power, and he got booted to the backbench.
It is really hard to sit here and listen to Conservatives try to defend the health and safety of Canadians when they themselves are not open to listening to experts and scientists or understanding the layers of protection in place to help keep Canadians safe, keep businesses open and keep travel available. They speak about restrictions around the world, but Canadians going even to the U.S. still require testing. There are protections there. There is nothing wrong with the Canadian government doing everything in our power to ensure that there are no lockdowns in this country, that businesses can stay open, that Canadians can remain safe and that our health care heroes can have the ability to keep our health care system functioning well.
The key here is that, if we truly believe in freedom and supporting Canadians across this country, then we should not be listening to the Conservatives, who block freedom of speech and ignore when their own members speak truth to power.
