44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 8, 2021 02:00PM
- Dec/8/21 5:29:43 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-3
Madam Speaker, on addressing the other point from the paid sick days on this particular piece of legislation, the minister is talking about the protection of individuals who are trying to access hospitals. In my riding of Kingston and the Islands, we saw protests, harassing comments and things being thrown at people going to and from a cancer clinic at Kingston General Hospital, of all places.
Could the minister comment on how important it is that this legislation get through as quickly as possible? Then people would not have to worry about this form of intimidation when they were trying to access a hospital, for example.
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- Dec/8/21 10:03:23 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is an honour for me to rise to speak to the estimates and then ask some questions about them.
I will speak for about four or five minutes. Then I will have some questions, in particular, for the Minister of Health and the President of the Treasury Board. The topics I want to bring up with them today specifically relate to health and our public service.
On health, I really want to understand where we are with vaccines in the country right now, but, most important, what we are doing to fight some of the misinformation on vaccines. Unfortunately, a lot of people are vaccine hesitant because of a lot of misinformation. We saw this start well before vaccines were even introduced and brought into the country, and were widely available. This has continued. This is misinformation does not just come from fringe groups, but also from some people who, in my opinion, we would not expect to hear that kind of rhetoric.
One of the key roles the government has to play in the fight against COVID is to inform people about the safety of the vaccines as well as how to treat a lot of that misinformation. The questions I have today for the Minister of Health, when I get to them, really focus on what we are doing about this and what recommendations have come forward from public health with respect to fighting the misinformation on vaccination.
I also want to talk specifically about the people in our public service and the incredible work they have done. Our public service has stepped up. Quite often, these people are in the background, doing the work that has been set out through the direction of the government and this Parliament on behalf of Canadians. We saw the way they stepped up at the beginning of the pandemic.
I really hope we take the opportunity to reflect back on March 2020, when there were so many unknowns out there. We did not know how the pandemic spread. We did not know what tools or resources would be needed time to fight it. However, the people in our public service went above and beyond at the time to ensure that they did everything they possibly could to support Canadians throughout the pandemic, both from the various financial programs that were put into place and made available, but also through the reassurances that the government had the backs of Canadians, that the government would be here to ensure that vaccines were available despite some of the misinformation that was spread by the other side of the House.
I think back to when the member for Calgary Nose Hill said that we would not have vaccines until 2030. I cannot imagine how that would make any Canadian feel good when a person in a position of leadership stands up and makes those kinds of comments. Back then, we were really looking for a team Canada approach, of everybody coming together to help fight this pandemic, along with the requirement and the need for everybody to work together, to have information like that.
My first question is for the Minister of Health. Could he elaborate on what we have been doing as a government to help fight and combat the false information that is out there that vaccines are not safe and that people should not be taking them?
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- Dec/8/21 10:09:01 p.m.
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Madam Chair, could the minister inform the House how many Canadians, in terms of percentage perhaps, have been vaccinated?
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- Dec/8/21 10:09:33 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I can only imagine that it is extremely important, as we encourage people to get vaccinated, that leadership is taken from those who are in a position to do that. When there are groups trying to promote misinformation and trying to suggest that it is against our civil liberties to encourage people to be vaccinated, such as the liberty caucus that has been formed on the other side of the House, how do those groups that aim to question science and question the validity of the health professionals contribute to the misinformation and to the overall objective of trying to get people to get vaccinated?
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- Dec/8/21 10:11:05 p.m.
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Madam Chair, on the same topic, I am curious if the minister, his predecessor or anybody in the Public Health Agency ever actually thought that it would not be until 2030 that people were vaccinated.
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- Dec/8/21 10:11:46 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I was going to ask the minister if he knew the percentage of Conservatives who were vaccinated, but I did not want to get overly rhetorical in my discussion today, so I sidestepped that one despite the fact that I had written it down.
I will shift to the public service now and to the President of the Treasury Board. As I said in my preamble, our public service has really stepped up, not just in taking care of Canadians, but in showing leadership themselves by being vaccinated. I am wondering if the President of the Treasury Board can expand and let us know how many of our public servants have been vaccinated, as well as perhaps a broader update on the mandatory vaccination of our public service.
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- Dec/8/21 10:13:15 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am wondering if the minister can further expand on how important it is for members of the House to be vaccinated in terms of showing our public service that we are willing to lead by example, not just to be vaccinated but to actually proudly stand and say that we believe in the health and science information; we believe that it is important to be vaccinated, and we are going to show that through leadership by doing it ourselves.
My question is specifically around our public service, which we expect to take direction from us. How important is it for us to be out front, leading and showing them as members of Parliament that we are willing to be vaccinated, and that we do it and display it so that everybody knows?
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- Dec/8/21 10:14:50 p.m.
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Madam Chair, to that end, as we talk about our vaccination efforts, and as we move forward, could the minister perhaps expand a bit on what it is we are expecting from this point, moving forward, and on how the reception has been from our public servants? How are they responding to mandatory vaccination more generally?
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- Dec/8/21 10:15:52 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is all the questions I have.
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