SoVote

Ms. Raquel Dancho (Kildonan—St. Paul, CPC)

Feb/1/22 4:54:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I ran to be an MP because I love Canada. I love our country. My ancestors fled tyranny and war-torn eastern Europe over 130 years ago to come to the Canadian prairies for the freedom and opportunity it represented. Their hard work and sacrifice created a better life for all of those who followed, including me. I am motivated every day to honour them, to do right by them and my constituents, and to contribute to a united and prosperous Canada, glorious and free. However, since I was elected over two years ago, I have grown increasingly concerned over the state of our national unity. Whether it has been the alarming rise of western alienation or Quebec separatism, or the increasing divide between urban versus rural, or the division on the COVID-19 pandemic, national unity seems to be at an all-time low. It is understandable in many ways, given the terrible two years it has been for all of us. Thirty thousand Canadians have tragically died of COVID-19, and thousands continue to suffer from long COVID. Thousands more have suffered from delayed surgeries. Few families, including my own, have been left untouched by the cruelty of COVID-19. As a result, millions of Canadians, and I have heard this first-hand, are terrified of COVID. They feel that it would be a death sentence to them or their loved ones. Many will never recover from this fear. I have spoken to them first-hand. Many constituents of mine have said that they will never take their masks off again in public or feel comfortable in large crowds, or even travel ever again. Thankfully, with incredible human ingenuity, COVID vaccines were developed at warp speed and rolled out worldwide to billions of people in a matter of months, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Thanks to the extraordinary health care workers, thousands of sick Canadians were supported throughout this pandemic. However, I do believe we have reached a point where we must make serious investments in transformative change and take the best practices from around the world for our health care system so that we will all be better prepared for a future pandemic. Every expert is telling us that this will not be the last one. There are more to come. We will go through this again. It is just a matter of time. The data tell us that during normal times, on average, our health care capacity operates at over 100%. Hallway medicine, eight-hour EI wait times, months for MRIs and critical surgeries for hip and knee replacements, and many other issues have been around longer than I have been alive. We know that our health care system experiences tremendous strain during flu season, let alone during the tsunami of sick people from COVID over the past two years. This is why governments say that they have needed to take extreme and extraordinary measures. It was because our health care system cannot handle everybody getting sick at one time. We were told we are all in this together, and we all stayed home. We all remember “two weeks to bend the curve”, yet two years later, we continue to live extremely restricted lives. As a result, hundreds of thousands of businesses that depend on public gatherings have closed, representing countless family dreams and all the jobs they supported being completely wiped out. Untold damage has been done to our mental health and the development of our children. The deadly impact of isolation on our elderly is immeasurable. There is increased alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, and depression. The list of the impacts of this goes on and on. As a representative of nearly 100,000 people, I have heard of these traumas first-hand. I have dealt with sobbing, threats, screaming and pleading, and their stories have haunted me. To describe the last two years in one word, I would say “trauma”. We have all experienced trauma, and millions of Canadians are at the end of their rope. They cannot take this anymore. The result of that is right outside this building. Honestly, from that perspective, I do not find all that is going on right now outside very surprising. It is like a pressure release valve has exploded after the last two years. I do want the truckers and all those who support the convoy to know that I hear them. I seem them, and I care about them and all of our freedoms. Watching the footage online of that convoy making its way across Canada, passing families of all cultural backgrounds along highways and overpasses, and the gatherings of tens of thousands of people on Parliament Hill, I have never seen so many Canadian flags waving in the wind. As a patriotic Canadian, I have to say it made me quite emotional. It makes me emotional now. I acknowledge, though, and this is important, that some people are angry. I denounce the evil people who seized this opportunity to display their ignorance and their hatred, and I denounce them fully. However, many more, thousands more, are expressing their patriotism for their country. They are expressing hope for the future and the excitement for change, which is honestly giving them the will to keep going and persevere through this incredibly difficult time. They just want to be heard by their government and have them look at other jurisdictions and what is happening in the U.K., the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway and many other advanced nations. They are opening up, moving past mandates and learning to live with this. We can do it, too. We have some of the highest vaccination rates, if not the highest vaccination rates, in the world. We have rapid tests. We have all put the work in. We have all the tools we need, and now is the time to move forward. To be honest, I fear that we may never get back to normal, especially when I see the hatred that has developed between Canadians. Treating each other with dignity, compassion and respect seems to have been forgotten long ago. I have to say, on a personal level, I understand the frustrations of some vaccinated Canadians toward unvaccinated Canadians. I hear them, too. I see them and hear from them. I get it. However, I want to share a couple of stories with everyone. When I was door-knocking during the last election, I met a single woman about my age. She was on her front step and her young son was clinging to her leg as she shared her story with me. She was a social worker. She said last year she received a hero of the year award for going above and beyond as a social worker to help the most vulnerable in our community. This is when she started to cry in front of me. She said that this year no one would talk to her. She said that she was going to be fired from her job. Do members want to know why? It is because she was too afraid to get the COVID vaccine. She was too afraid. She believed it in her bones and there was no convincing this woman otherwise. When the Province of Manitoba brought forward its strong mandates, there were articles in the local paper about nursing staff suddenly seeing a lot of anger, rage and tears from new people coming into get the jab. It seemed that some people in the public were surprised to learn this. Honestly, I did not find it very surprising that people who were forced against their will to get the vaccine, with their jobs hanging over their heads and who believed with every fibre of their being that it was not right for them for whatever reason, were angry and crying. I have talked to these people. They have reached out to me. I have made the time. They are my constituents and I have heard them out. They described to me their experience of getting the jab, so to speak. It was as if it broke them. It ripped away part of who they were and of everything they believed this country is. It took away their agency and their bodily autonomy. That is what mandates do to people. That is the reality. Of course, there were tears and rage. These are human beings. I will remind everyone that for the first year and a half of the pandemic, it was this Prime Minister who said there were vaccines for all those who wanted them. He must have said it a thousand times. With the drop of a hat he called the election, and within days of that he was yelling into a microphone at a Liberal rally, and saying that people had the right not to get vaccinated, but they did not have the right to sit next to someone who was. He said that. Shame on him for dehumanizing people that way. Canada is fracturing and the Prime Minister is winning votes on it. Whether it is the east versus west, urban versus rural, left versus right or now the pandemic, he has been dividing Canadians for six years. Uniting the country, leading freedom over fear, should be the number one priority of the Prime Minister. To be honest, I am beginning to doubt we can ever unite Canadians again, that we will ever get back to normal, and that people can make their own personal health choices and still be equal. During a particularly low day recently, and I think we have all had those over the last two years, I heard a story that gave me some renewed hope and motivation. I will share it with everyone. It is about President John F. Kennedy. In 1961, JFK had a decision to make. He wanted to call a news conference and tell the world that the Americans were going to the moon. This was a very risky decision for his reputation, because technically there was no way forward. The technology did not exist and it had never been done before. He needed to make a decision, so he went to the most brilliant aerospace engineer in America and asked him what it would take to go to the moon. The engineer responded with five words: The will to do it. The rest was history after that. What is it going to take to heal the trauma and division? What is it going to take to bring Canadians together again? What is it going to take to unite this country? It will take the will to do it. It will take courage and conviction. The will to do it will deliver the glorious and free Canada that we all rightfully deserve. I, for one, will work day and night to deliver that to my constituents and all Canadians.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Ms. Raquel Dancho

Feb/1/22 5:04:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed working with the member. We are setting some really important issues right now. Over the last two years, particularly since the Prime Minister called the unnecessary $600-million election that further divided Canadians, I have been concerned, as I am sure he has been as well, about the hatred from all sides. There is not nearly enough communication. I think it was a recent poll that said 20% of Canadians think unvaccinated people should go to jail. We are pushing this so far. I am seeing it. I have been door knocking for years, and during the election I saw so much hate, so much division and lots of tears. I appreciate the member's question, but I would say that we need to move forward and recognize we have done an astounding job. We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world and we need to move forward.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Ms. Raquel Dancho

Feb/1/22 5:06:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member on her first election. Absolutely, I do. As I mentioned in my speech, we need more investment in health care and we need transformative change. We need to be looking at best practices around the world. We are seeing other countries with far better surge capacity than we have in Canada. As I said, this is not the last pandemic and this is not the last wave. We need to prepare our health care system to have that surge capacity so that we do not need to do what has been done to people for the last two years and so that governments can no longer default to telling people they have to stay home for two years because our health care system cannot work. I do not want to hear that excuse anymore. I want to see transformative change so that we can usher in an era of health care that truly supports everyone. No more eight-hour ER wait times. No more waiting two years for a hip replacement. No more shutting down the economy because we cannot handle a surge. We need to build a robust health care system.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Ms. Raquel Dancho

Feb/1/22 5:08:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly support investments in health care, and greater investments seem to be needed. However, there is one point I want to make. I believe I read that Canada has one of the most expensive health care systems per capita in the world. Why are we spending so much and getting so little? Why are people waiting eight, 10, 12 or 14 hours in an ER? Why are they waiting years, in normal times, to get a hip and knee replacement or an MRI? We need to invest, look across the globe for best practices and transform our health care system to be more competitive and to better serve all Canadians.

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