SoVote

Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River—Parkland, CPC)

Dec/6/21 12:32:45 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-3

Mr. Speaker, my grandmother works at the hospital. We have seen the intimidation during these protests. Could the member speak to the importance of ensuring that we stand behind our health care workers during this very difficult time?

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Context: House Hansard - 11 - Dec/6/21

Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River—Parkland, CPC)

Dec/6/21 2:12:27 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, since the flooding began in British Columbia, Canadians have stepped up. The heroic efforts of first responders, members of the Canadian Forces and just regular people have helped save lives and protect property. Faith groups and civic organizations have also stepped up in a big way to provide food and shelter to evacuees. As we work to rebuild the Fraser Valley, Canadians want to know what is going to be done to ensure something like this never happens again. They want to know why critical infrastructure that could have prevented this disaster was not built. They want to know that the government will have their back and will act proactively to mitigate these disasters in the future. Whenever trouble arises, Canadians never fail to live up to our reputation. We are a generous people, always ready to help those in need, even when it means putting our own lives at risk. Conservatives are committed to a team Canada approach. We will work hard to rebuild and to protect British Columbians for generations to come. It is time to get the job done.

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Context: House Hansard - 11 - Dec/6/21

Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River—Parkland, CPC)

Dec/6/21 3:07:29 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were shocked to learn that the government failed to engage the Americans through the International Joint Commission to find a solution to repeated flooding in British Columbia. The flooding of the Nooksack River in Washington state has spilled over into Canada, resulting in billions in damages to British Columbians. Reports indicate that a mere $29-million investment could have prevented this damage. Why did the Liberal government fail yet again to engage our closest ally to protect Canadians from this disaster?

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Context: House Hansard - 11 - Dec/6/21

Mr. Dane Lloyd (Sturgeon River—Parkland, CPC)

Dec/6/21 6:52:28 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-3

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and debate this important motion. I want to break it down because it really should be two bills. We are dealing with a Criminal Code matter and also a paid sick leave matter. I listened with some amusement when a Liberal MP stood and said these bills should be connected because we are talking about protecting hospitals, but people also get sick and they need sick leave, so really it should just be one bill. By that justification, maybe we only need one bill in the House for the whole session because everything deals with money, so just one bill is needed. That is an aside. This legislation is important. I will start off by saying that our doctors, our nurses, the clerks and all of the staff at hospitals work incredibly hard. I have a lot of family in health care. Both of my grandmothers were nurses and my father is a nurse. Having a safe workplace is a right for all people. During the last election, we heard a great deal of rhetoric in this country over the issue of vaccines. This rhetoric led to unacceptable activities. People crossed the line from peacefully protesting whatever their viewpoint was on a subject. We have the constitutional right to peaceful protest protected in this country. I was pleased to see language in the bill that emphasized that Canadians have a right to peacefully protest: they have a right to take placards to events to state what they believe. That is a fundamental right in this country. However, when someone is harassing or intimidating health care workers, and in some cases we saw that health care workers were assaulted, that really crosses the line. We have Criminal Code laws that deal with this, but it is critically important that this legislation sends a strong message that this is unacceptable activity. Thankfully, we have not seen these protests continue in recent days and in the weeks since the election ended, but if people feel the need to forcefully protest, I invite them to come to my office. I am a politician. We are here in the House, and this is where we make the decisions. It is not the nurses and the doctors who make the decisions, it is the politicians. Whatever my stance is on a subject, come to my office. People can protest at my office. I will invite them any day. I will argue with people. I will debate with people. That is what democracy is all about. Come to my office and leave the health care workers alone. That is a really important part of this bill. We also have to talk about unnecessary rhetoric leading into this thing. We just need to lower the rhetoric on this situation so that we can bring Canadians together again. We had a divisive election. The pandemic crisis is causing people to suffer from mental health issues. This has been talked about by all members in the House, and I think we need a lot more understanding. A lot of times when I listen to the Liberals, it seems like they are not understanding or recognizing the fact that they say in the House all the time that there is a mental health crisis, there are people who are feeling left out, there are people feeling lonely and there are people who have lost their jobs because of this pandemic. There is not a lot of understanding coming from the government. It does not mean that I agree with the stances that people take, but when we have a government that is raising the rhetoric and demonizing individuals, it is no surprise that we see unacceptable activity like this happen. We need to talk about uniting Canadians again. On the Conservative side, we are focused on uniting Canadians. The second part of this bill is talking about paid sick leave. We have heard a lot about 10 days of paid sick leave in the House. I was perusing the Internet, and the wonderful thing about the Internet is that once something is on there, it never really goes away. The first time I could find the government talking about paid sick leave was May 26, 2020. For those who were not here, that was a couple of months after Friday, March 13. I remember that day. I was giving an S.O. 31. That is when the Prime Minister's wife contracted COVID. That woke everyone up in the House to the fact that the pandemic was a really serious thing. It was starting to hit us and we needed to take action. There was a lot of scrambling. People did not understand what was going on. It was just a couple months later that it was recognized. The NDP fought for this and said that people needed 10 days of paid sick leave in Canada because people felt like they needed to go to work, but they might be sick with COVID, and the NDP did not want these people going to work and spreading that sickness around. It was also around the same time that we were talking about bringing in a virtual Parliament. The NDP stood up very strongly and said they were not going to approve this virtual Parliament unless the Liberal government supported 10 days of paid sick leave. Here we are, well over a year later and in an entirely different Parliament, and we are debating this piece of legislation. It is literally just one page. How difficult was it for the government to come up with this legislation? In the May 26 article, the government said it would be implementing this without delay. It has been over a year and a half. We have had an election, and we have had two throne speeches. The government has still not implemented the legislation. We are just targeting it now. The Liberals were saying they had to work with the provinces about this. I do not see anything in this legislation to indicate why it would take the government over a year to negotiate with the provinces to get 10 days of paid sick leave. Now we have this one-page document, which is not even important enough to the government for it to warrant its own legislative number, as it has been grouped with a Criminal Code amendment. Obviously, it was not that complicated. Why did it take the government over a year to implement paid sick leave? I think it is a bit ridiculous that it was talking about this May 26, 2020, and it is now December 6, 2021. There has been an election and two speeches from the throne. Now that we are talking about this in the House, Canadians are finally seeing action.

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