Pierre Paul-Hus

[Questions on the Order Paper, April 12th, 2021]

With regard to meetings between Public Services and Procurement Canada and either Health Canada or the Public Health Agency of Canada concerning the procurement or production of vaccines since January 1, 2020: what are the details of all such meetings involving officials at the associate deputy minister level or higher or ministers or their exempt staff, including the (i) date, (ii) title of persons in attendance, (iii) agenda items, (iv) summary of decisions made at meeting?

[Public Services and Procurement, April 12th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to come back to the vaccines.

For months, the Prime Minister stood in this House and told Canadians over and over that we had the largest vaccine portfolio in the world. The truth is that the Prime Minister has failed.

Yesterday the Globe and Mail reported that Canada had surpassed the United States for the first time in the number of cases per one million people. The United States is gradually returning to normal life. Here, provinces are having to tighten and add controls. Canadians are stepping up, but they are tired of living with uncertainty.

When will the Prime Minister admit that he failed in negotiating vaccine contracts, which is why we are still in the grip of the pandemic?

[Foreign Affairs, April 12th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will put this question to the government again because my colleague did not get an answer earlier.

Over the weekend, it was reported that funding for the Halifax International Security Forum would be cut because the forum wanted to award the John McCain Prize to Taiwan's president, a woman who is fighting for democracy around the world.

I would like to know if the government has changed its mind. Will it maintain funding for this important security forum?

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We want clarity, and we want the plan to be public or clearly laid out, because it has to cover all parts of Canada. Provincial jurisdiction notwithstanding, the federal government is the one making the decisions, and these decisions have a direct impact on the provinces.

The provinces do not all have the same vaccine distribution infrastructure or the means to put it in place. For example, Quebec and Ontario have many more resources than Manitoba and New Brunswick. There are weaknesses there. Without encroaching on provincial jurisdiction, the federal government needs to give the provinces the means and the tools they need to do the work and deal with this extraordinary situation.

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question.

The last thing the Conservative Party wants is to interfere in provincial jurisdictions. Unlike the Liberal Party, decentralization is what we are pushing for.

However, in a health emergency like the one we are currently experiencing, we expect the Public Health Agency of Canada to issue clear guidelines so that the provinces can do their job. When the guidelines are not clear, governments do not know what to do. That is problematic.

When we ask for temporary measures to be made permanent, we are talking about health measures that will be adopted by the provinces, and they can apply them as they see fit. It is the lack of clarity that is causing the biggest problem.

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, there is a simple answer to that question.

The pandemic has been going on for so long that the government should not even need the full 20 days because it should already have a plan. On November 12, 2020, workers in the airline industry on forced leave called for a plan. On February 19, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business called for a plan. On March 16, Unifor-Québec called for a plan. This is not the first time the government has been asked for a plan.

We are here to represent our constituents and to answer questions from them and from groups. We would like the plan within 20 days, but it should already be written. It is surely saved on a computer somewhere, so the government should hit send. If the government has not come up with any kind of plan in the past year, then we have a serious problem.

[Business of Supply, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to our motion.

A plan is basically very simple. When you have a plan, you give guidance and you know where you are headed. This situation is not an easy one. It is an extremely complex situation to manage. This has been the case around the world from the outset.

However, when someone is in a position of leadership and managing a government, they must be able to develop a series of plans and provide clear guidance. The problem we have had from the start of the pandemic in Canada is that, when it first hit us, we were all waiting. First, we were waiting to see how the government would react to a crisis that was rapidly coming into focus around the world.

We called for the creation of an emergency health committee, which met to start asking questions. I attended the January 31, 2020, meeting and I asked some very simple, basic questions. I asked the officials there about their plan and about what they were working on at that time. I asked them what measures they were taking under the Quarantine Act. They told us that they were getting set up and starting to look into it. I found that baffling. We could see how quickly things were moving around the world, yet in Canada, officials were telling us that they were starting to look into it.

We kept asking questions here, in the House, and in committee, but we never got any answers. We figured that maybe the officials were not quite sure where to go, but that at least we had a government, a Prime Minister, a few ministers and people in place to lead us. As a former member of the armed forces and business owner, I found myself thinking about what I would do in a global situation like this. I would create a council of war or emergency council that would meet 24-7 to make urgent decisions. During world wars and all emergencies, we expect the government to sit down and make quick decisions, and this situation is no different.

When we knew that the virus was coming, the first thing we expected from the government was a decision on the borders, a plan. In response, we were told that everything was fine, that there was no risk, no problem. We saw that the virus was starting to enter. Since the virus came from China, we were initially concerned about the flights coming from there. Then there was Italy and the flights from Europe. Every time we asked a question about public safety, we were told that there was no problem, that our officers were providing information.

That is okay, but we saw that other countries were taking draconian measures by closing their borders and putting control systems in place. Asking for a plan is nothing new. We have been asking for one all along. I want to mention that we knew that the situation was not easy to assess, we knew full well that it was an unknown virus with varying effects.

As the weeks went by, we saw countries get organized and react. Watching the news we saw that countries were moving teams on the ground and things were happening. In the meantime, in Canada, we were told that there was no problem. Looking back at our initial concerns, our questions were legitimate. In an emergency situation, we usually want a plan. We did not have one, we simply got inane answers.

Obviously, the virus got into the country. It spread, particularly in long-term care homes in Quebec at the start. The virus obviously attacked vulnerable people and, today, over 20,000 Canadians have died because of it.

The government says that it is easy for the opposition parties because all they do is complain and ask questions. It is true that it is easy to do that. However, when we have been asking the right questions from the start and not getting any answers, we have the right to be concerned and to think that there is starting to be a major problem. That has always been the case.

Then the financial measures were addressed. We had to help businesses and go into lockdown. The Conservatives agreed. We knew that it would cost a lot of money, but we wanted to do our job. We had to step back and help businesses and Canadians. However, we wanted guidelines to be put in place to prevent abuse and so that the money would actually go to businesses that had to shut down and to people who lost their jobs.

The government's response was that Conservatives were trying to block the process and did not want to help Canadians. I find that kind of response to legitimate governance concerns so insulting. We just wanted to ensure good governance in the midst of that very complex situation. We were not against helping people. We just wanted rules that would prevent problems cropping up later. We wanted to work as a team. The Leader of the Opposition even asked the Prime Minister to sit down and work as a team, but that did not work out.

Once again, that is how it has been for the past year every step of the way. Every time we asked for a plan, there was no plan. Financial support measures now amount to $400 billion, and there are some incredible questions being asked about how things were done that could have been avoided.

We are not looking to nitpick and identify minor problems. We are dealing with facts and situations that are blowing up in our face. Let us consider vaccine development. When these efforts began, we learned in oral question period that the federal government had conducted negotiations with CanSino, a company controlled by the Chinese Communist regime. Clearly, the Chinese government decided to thwart us and stopped the samples at the airport by prohibiting their export to Canada. We lost three months because it was not until three months later that we learned about the Chinese manoeuvre. We then had to renegotiate with other companies. We do not know the details of these agreements and we do not know what was negotiated. The only thing we are told is that Canada has the largest number of vaccine doses in the world, even though we know that the Canadian vaccination rollout is lagging behind that of other countries.

That is why we are asking questions about the planning process and about plans. When we see the decisions that were made, it seems to us that there were other ways things could have been done. If there is a problem, why does the government not sit down with the opposition leaders in private and ask them to make arrangements to figure out a solution together? Everyone would have been happy to do that because this was not a situation in which we were trying to score political points. It was not a situation in which we woke up in the morning and said to ourselves that we were going to ask the government questions to cause trouble for it. We were not there for that. We were all in the same situation. We all had to stay home and attend too many Zoom meetings. We are tired of Zoom meetings. We all want to be done with them. Business owners, residents, everyone in our ridings is fed up.

As a result, when we say today that we want a plan, we just want something to assess. The government needs to stop saying that the provinces bear all the responsibility, because we already know that they are responsible for administering the vaccines and screening people. All the Prime Minister needs to do is tell people when every Canadian will be vaccinated.

While the government says that we will all be vaccinated once by July 1, there is one small problem. One dose of vaccine is not enough, and a second dose is needed to be considered fully vaccinated. What happens then? If plan A is that everyone receives one dose of vaccine by July 1, this still raises the same concerns, the same uncertainty around the administration of the second dose of vaccine. If that is the plan, clarification is needed; otherwise, everyone will think they are free and clear and they can party beginning July 1, when that will not be the case. The government seems to be waiting to tell us, because it knows very well that this is problematic.

Political calculations are being made right now. However, the real calculations to be made should be about the mood of Canadians, their mental health and the disillusionment of businesses that have had to close. That is what is most important. When we ask for a plan, we simply want to be given the real story and told where we are headed. We will appreciate our government for doing that, but as long as it keeps this a secret, everyone has doubts, and that is where things go wrong.

[National Defence, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we are used to the Prime Minister always passing the buck and saying that it is not his responsibility and that others are dealing with it.

I would ask the Minister of National Defence to go back in time and to remember his days in uniform.

Would he say the same thing to his female colleagues if he was still serving today? Would he give them the same answer, yes or no?

[National Defence, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister approved a salary increase and a $50,000 bonus for the former chief of the defence staff, even though he knew in 2018 about the allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Women serving in our military must be frustrated with the Prime Minister's decision.

My question is simple. What message does this send to the women serving our country?

[Sexual Exploitation of Minors, March 23rd, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, this morning, at the opening of the sitting of the House, I did something important in Parliament. I acted as a legislator, but also as the father of two children.

I introduced Bill C-277, which seeks to combat the sexual exploitation of minors. This bill implements the recommendations set out in the report of the Select Committee on the Sexual Exploitation of Minors, which was unanimously adopted by the Quebec National Assembly.

I hope that my private member's bill will protect our children against sexual exploitation. Now, I also hope that the Liberal government will make this a priority. Our children must not become statistics. The select committee's report must not be forgotten or shelved.

I therefore urge all members, regardless of their political affiliation, to support this bill across party lines and help me give proper effect to its provisions. There is nothing more precious than our children. Let us protect them.