44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 6, 2021 11:00AM
- Dec/6/21 11:31:28 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill C-3
Mr. Speaker, during the pandemic, medical health professionals were really clear that they wanted us to social distance and wash our hands, but they also wanted politicians to implement paid sick days and people to get vaccinated. Here we are, 20 months later, and finally we have Conservatives and Liberals implementing paid sick days.
I think about the other health crisis that was happening previous to COVID, which is the opioid overdose crisis that is taking place in our country. Health professionals have been saying they want to see decriminalization and a safe supply as immediate first steps, and we need to listen to the sound advice of these health professionals.
Does my colleague agree politicians have failed in listening to medical health professionals and that we have lost lives as a result, whether it be by not implementing paid sick days or not implementing policies to address this overdose crisis happening in our country? I would like to hear his perspective on this.
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- Dec/6/21 11:48:08 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Mr. Speaker, throughout the health crisis we heard from health professionals who said two really critical things. The first was that people should get vaccinated. The second was that governments should bring in paid sick days, so that people were not making the difficult choice of not paying their bills or going to work sick and spreading sickness to their colleagues. As a result of this, people actually died.
I think about the parallel health crisis that is taking place: the overdose crisis due to fentanyl poisoning. Medical health professionals have made it very clear that the first steps are decriminalization and safe supply.
Would my colleague support moving forward with his own Health Canada expert task force on substance use and support decriminalization, or is the government going to wait for more people to die? The government needs to take action. It needs to listen to the health professionals giving it guidance on policy, and it needs to take action on the steps that are recommended.
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- Dec/6/21 1:12:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for talking about the importance of protecting workers.
I have asked other parties this same question. Throughout the health crisis, medical health professionals said the top two things that could be done to stop the spread of COVID were for people to get vaccinated and for governments to implement paid sick days. The government chose to drag this legislation out. Here we are 20 months later, and it is finally implementing paid sick days. In the meantime, people have lost their lives.
A parallel crisis is happening in our country: the overdose crisis. Medical health professionals are saying that we need to decriminalize the personal possession of illicit drugs and to provide safe spaces, which are the first steps to end the stigma against people who are using illicit drugs.
Does my colleague agree that the government has failed to listen to health professionals' guidance on the overdose crisis because of the stigma? Does she also agree that they can end it, and that we need to listen to health professionals when it comes to guidance to respond to emergencies much faster? People are dying as a result of inaction.
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- Dec/6/21 1:45:01 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the part of the legislation that protects our health care workers, and I appreciate the member speaking about it.
We know that the government has been guilty of outsourcing at a rapid rate, especially at Veterans Affairs, for which I used to be the the critic. The Liberal government promised to restore the jobs cut by the Conservatives in the previous government, yet it has continued to hire people on short-term contracts. Those who have been impacted by contract flipping practices could lose their paid sick days accumulated in their previous contract. That is what is going to happen to a lot of those workers.
Would my colleague be open to amendments that would ensure that all federal sub-jurisdictional workers have access to the 10 paid days of sick leave? Also, will the Liberals do something to stop their government from outsourcing?
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- Dec/6/21 2:33:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Public Health Agency of Canada reported an 88% increase in opioid-related deaths last year. The Prime Minister has repeatedly said we need to listen to public health officials to get through the pandemic. However, when it comes to the overdose crisis, he is ignoring those same health officials who are clearly saying that decriminalizing personal possession of illicit drugs and providing a safe supply are essential first steps in ending stigma and saving lives.
The stigma starts with the Prime Minister. It has been six years, and over 20,000 people have died from a poisoned drug supply. When will he finally take action?
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- Dec/6/21 3:52:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition today on behalf of residents from Cumberland, Courtenay, Parksville and Port Alberni. They are calling on the government to address the preventable opioid overdose crisis resulting from fentanyl-poisoned sources. They cite that regulating to ensure safe sources with proper measures and bylaws will reduce the criminal element associated with street drugs, that problematic substance use is a health issue and is not resolved through criminalizing personal possession and consumption, and that decriminalization of personal possession is associated with dramatically reducing overdose deaths in the countries that have modernized their drug policies.
Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the government, first, to declare the current opioid overdose and fentanyl-poisoning crisis a national public health emergency under the Emergencies Act in order to manage and resource it, with the aim to reduce and eliminate preventable deaths; second, to reform current drug policy to decriminalize personal possession; and last, to create with urgency and immediacy a system to provide safe, unadulterated access to substances so that people who use substances experimentally, recreationally or chronically are not at imminent risk of overdose due to a contaminated source.
I thank these constituents in light of this health emergency and the lives that are being lost in the communities of my riding.
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- Dec/6/21 5:10:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to this important bill, Bill C-3. It is great to see both the Liberal Party and, it seems, the Conservative Party coming around to see the importance of paid sick leave. I have talked about this in the House quite significantly and so has my party. In fact, the leader of my party raised this 22 times throughout the pandemic. Here we are, 20 months after the top medical health professionals in our country decided that outside of social distancing and washing our hands, the top two things we could do to stop the spread of the virus and combat COVID-19 were to get vaccinated and for governments to implement paid sick days. It is really great to see that everybody is coming together today to do that, to protect workers, so that people are not spreading the virus.
We talk about people going to work while knowingly showing symptoms of COVID-19 or being unsure whether they should go to work or not. For many of these people, their spouses have perhaps lost their jobs because of COVID-19 or are unable to work, or they are the sole breadwinners in their homes and are scraping to get by even at the best of times. Whatever their circumstances, they are worried about how they are going to pay their bills, like most Canadians. Fifty per cent of Canadians were within two weeks of insolvency prior to the pandemic. We can think about how many families were terrified at the beginning of and throughout the pandemic about missing any work at all and how they were going to pay their bills and feed their families. Paid sick days are absolutely critical.
There is one thing we have not talked about a lot here. I was really honoured to be the small business and tourism critic for the federal NDP for the last six years, and to stand up and fight for small business. We do not talk about how important paid sick days are, not just for workers but also for employers and small business. I was always mystified when Conservatives would not support paid sick leave, because they say they are strong defenders of the economy and small business. I know Liberals were always patting themselves on the back throughout the pandemic on the important needs of small business, but throughout the pandemic, whether it be on the CERB or another program, we had to fight to make sure small businesses would be included. Initially, proprietors were not even going to be allowed to collect CERB.
Initially, people were going to get $1,200. New Democrats were able to put pressure on the government so that people could get $2,000. We brought forward the idea of a commercial rent assistance program. Of course the Liberals bungled it initially. They made sure it was set up and designed so that people had to have a mortgage to be able to apply for rent support. It was landlord-driven instead of tenant-driven. It was a completely broken program. We found out that there were some Liberal insiders delivering the program for the government and we were glad to put pressure on the government to fix that broken commercial rent program. My colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby and I brought the idea to the government. I am glad to see that it finally fixed it.
When it comes to paid sick days, people were going to work unsure of whether they had the virus or not. They were terrified and governments at different levels did not have their backs to make sure people stayed at home instead of bringing COVID-19 to the workplace and possibly infecting co-workers.
Whether it is in the private sector or in government, it is extremely costly when people get sick and spread the virus in the workplace. One would think it would make economic sense to provide a social safety net, so that people who were sick would stay at home, not spreading the virus in the workplace or ending up having to close throughout the country and shut down government services to Canadians. We do not talk enough, not only about the workers, but also about the impact on businesses and the economy. That is a really important argument for why this is absolutely critical.
As much as we appreciate the legislation before us, there are flaws that are apparent in it, such as a person having to work for 11 months to get access to the 10 paid sick days.
The Liberal government said it would restore the cuts to the federal public services that the Conservatives made. I mean, we can look to Veterans Affairs as a great example. The Conservatives gutted one-third of Veterans Affairs Canada under the Harper government. As a result, the backlog has grown to over 40,000 veterans who have been injured serving our country.
The Liberals said they were going to fix it. What did they do? They outsourced and brought people back in on temporary contracts instead of hiring people and sending the message to veterans that they are committed to them in the long term and are going to end the backlog forever and not just outsource for temporary jobs.
The Liberals are notorious for this and do it all the time. They are outsourcing throughout the government, and this is creating a huge problem, because we have contract flipping going on. Obviously, we do not want this practice to continue. We want the government to hire people and make sure they have job security and benefits they can rely on so that the people they are serving, like veterans, can count on the services being delivered to them. We want to make sure the government is open to amendments that all federal subjurisdictional workers have access to the 10 paid sick days. It is very important that we cover that.
The other thing I have not talked about is the fact that women are being disproportionally impacted. With a lot of the outsourcing and temp jobs in our country, women have been disproportionally impacted by COVID-19. Social services have failed people across Canada, and the lack of child care has had a huge impact. CBC reported that 100,000 working-age women have completely left the workplace since COVID-19, which is 10 times the number of men. We talk about having an employee work approximately a month to achieve one paid sick day, but this is disproportionally going to impact women if it takes 11 months to accumulate 10 days' sick leave.
I really hope the government will consider amending this situation, because we know that people who have been working at a job need that security. Also, we do not want them coming to work sick. We do not want them spreading the virus. We are in the fourth wave right now, and we do not know what the omicron virus, which is spreading quickly, is going to look like. We want to make sure we have workers protected throughout.
We also saw how fractured the health care system became throughout the pandemic. I could speak all day about the things we saw that were highlighted in the pandemic. However, when it comes to paid sick days, it is absolutely critical. This is a victory today for health care workers, workers across this country and professionals.
We are going to continue to ensure that workers across this country have support from us as parliamentarians, but I question why it took so long. Why did Liberals and Conservatives sit on their hands against medical health professionals' advice? Members have heard me talk a lot about the government failing to listen to medical health professionals, like in the opioid crisis. The medical health professionals have made very clear and sound recommendations. Even the government's own officials are asking it to decriminalize and provide a safe drug supply, but it has not done that.
The government does not listen to its health professionals when it comes to sick days or to the other crisis that is happening, which has taken more lives than we have seen in generations. However, I am hoping the government will act swiftly, start listening to its health professionals when it comes to developing policy, and act with much more urgency in the future.
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- Dec/6/21 5:20:45 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, the reality is that we need people to get vaccinated, and not just to protect each other. For example, in this place I am thinking about all the staff: the security, the pages and the clerks who are here. It is our duty to protect each other.
One part I really like in the legislation is about protecting health care workers at their workplaces so that people are not protesting outside of them. This is also about their patients and ensuring that people get safe access to the hospitals or where they need health services.
It is absolutely critical that we stand up and defend each other, and make sure that people are getting vaccinated and that we are protecting health care workers along the way. I appreciate the point the member made.
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- Dec/6/21 5:22:08 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, it is a good question. There are a number of improvements. We want to ensure that workers do not have to wait 11 months to access 10 paid sick days. As I said, this would disproportionately impact women, for sure, and workers who have been outsourced.
With regard to ensuring that workers have access to their first day of sick leave after a continuous period of employment of at least 30 days, the goal of unduly delaying access to the first day of sick leave is not okay. The government needs to relax the requirement to provide a medical certificate so as not to discourage applications for sick leave. This has been supported by medical health professionals.
We need to listen to medical health professionals. The Liberals continue to not listen to medical health professionals in a timely fashion and it is costing lives. If they mean to table this legislation so that it actually benefits those whom it is targeting, they need to make sure they are listening to health professionals and need to do it in an expeditious way.
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- Dec/6/21 5:23:39 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague, as I have not had a chance to do that in the House.
I have articulated fairly clearly that women have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Again, women are disproportionately more likely to do temp work and to be outsourced. That being said, they are going to be recycled through this and will miss the opportunity to get 10 paid sick days if they do not work for 11 months straight. We need to amend the bill so that workers do not have to wait 11 months and so they can do the right thing should they have signs and symptoms of COVID-19 or be exposed to it. They should not have to wait six months.
We cannot afford this, actually, as a society, and their workplaces cannot afford it. Certainly no one wants to go to work and potentially infect one of their colleagues with COVID-19.
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- Dec/6/21 6:17:33 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for recognizing his own family. It is really important to recognize the service of people serving the public.
My colleague talked about urgency, and he talked about people's lives being lost. Medical health professionals, again, have decided that people need to get vaccinated and governments need to implement paid sick leave.
We have not heard from the Conservatives when it comes to whether they support paid sick leave. Are they going to stand up for workers or are they going to let them continue to go to work sick and make that difficult choice? When it comes to vaccines, we still have not received a clear answer from them on that, either.
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