44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/7/22 6:52:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe the NDP leader to be a compassionate man. I also believe that the NDP, with vigilance, fights for the marginalized. That is why I am bit surprised and would like his comments.
His party must be hearing about the damage that has been done to children and seniors in isolation and about job losses. The NDP is traditionally the party standing up for workers. We have seen workers lose their jobs because of their personal health choices. We have seen significant damage done to children, teenagers and the mental health of the nation. Alcohol and drug dependency has gone up. We can go on and on about the impacts that Canadians have felt as a result of government actions to address the pandemic, and I think what is happening outside is a result of the trauma that Canadians have experienced.
I would like the member's comments on that. I would like to hear some compassion for the eruption of trauma that we are seeing outside and across the country.
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- Feb/7/22 7:33:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
I am very glad to be speaking about this pressing issue that really has Canadians glued to their television sets. The convoy has been all over Ottawa and across every major city in Canada. We have even seen it spread to other countries around the world. I am very glad that after two long years of division on COVID that we are finally beginning to debate this important matter in this historic House of democracy.
I did want to begin my speech by talking about what kind of politician one has to be to make a difference in this place. I think every MP in the House has a bit of a different style. When I first arrived, I wanted to be a bridge builder. That really came from where I grew up and where I went to university. I grew up in a small farming community in rural Manitoba to four generations of Canadian farmers, so I had a very entrenched rural, Prairie upbringing and values. Then I went to McGill University in Montreal, a very prestigious, elite, liberal university. I met kids from all over the world with all different political views and world views and really got an incredible experience learning about how other people think about the world.
I have found that often, although parties will disagree, and someone will say I am a staunch Liberal or Conservative or NDP, there is actually a lot more that we have in common. Something I believe that all parties at their core have in common is a belief that all Canadians and all people of this world deserve to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. That is how I approach these divisive issues that we, as MPs, encounter all the time. They are never easy to talk about. They are very difficult issues. I look to try to build a bridge so that we can come together as Canadians and agree on a peaceful path forward. That is how I have been trying to look at the very divisive situation in Ottawa right now.
What I would really like to see is a Prime Minister who calls for national unity. Last week, I spoke in the House about a lot of the division that we are seeing in the country between east versus west and rural versus urban, particularly now during the pandemic. We have heard so much trauma from our constituents. If there is any member in the House who does not believe that Canadians have been through trauma these past two years, they clearly have not been doing their jobs and listening to their constituents.
It has been horrific, the things that I have heard. We hear about young children who are so depressed they do not want to eat. Eating disorders are through the roof. We have heard about seniors and elderly in our care homes who have opted for medical assistance in dying, rather than live one more month through isolation in care homes. I have had widowed, elderly women call and cry to me on the phone about how lonely they are and they do not want to go on. I have had grown men who have called me crying because their businesses are falling apart. Divorces, abuse at home, alcohol dependency and drug dependency, all of these terrible things are up in our country because people are just trying to cope and are breaking down.
From that perspective, I do not really see what is going on across the country as all that surprising. To me, it seems like an eruption of pain, trauma and frustration that has been simmering for two long years and governments have not been listening to that pain and trauma. Despite having rapid tests, vaccines and all the different types of tools and scientific knowledge, governments have repeatedly relied on harsh lockdown measures and divisive mandates to control this virus.
Meanwhile, we see the Prime Minister who today got up in the House and again othered Canadians who do not agree with him. This is the man who, for six years, has said that diversity is our strength, but if anybody does not agree with everything he says, they are in his bad books and they will not get a chance to be heard; they do not have a right to be heard.
Last week, I brought to the floor of the House of Commons remarks he had said during that $600-million unnecessary election. He said so many times before he called that election that there were vaccines for “all those who want it”, and it was a choice. He said that repeatedly. He must have said it a thousand times. Then, within days of calling that election, he was yelling into a microphone at a Liberal rally that people have the right not to get vaccinated, but they don't have the right to sit next to someone who is. In his remarks today he said, “This is not a fight against one another. It is a fight against the virus”. Those remarks suggest something very different.
When it comes to an election, scoring political points and winning votes, the Prime Minister is very happy to divide Canadians and pitch them against each other for their different personal health views. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing politicians use this as an evil wedge tool to rip Canadian families apart.
I cannot tell members how much anger and tears I saw in the last election six months ago. Now it is even worse. Neighbours will not talk to each other. With respect to Christmas family dinners, even if there were no lockdowns during Christmas, it is almost a nightmare to get families in the same room now if there is one person who does not share their views. It is a nightmare.
With respect to colleagues at work, last week I shared a story of a social worker, a young mom I met on her front step during the pandemic. She was sharing with me a story that she had received a hero of the year award last year. This year she went above and beyond to help people during a pandemic before there were vaccines. She stepped up as hero of the year for her job, and now, she said, no one would talk to her and she was going to get fired because of one personal health choice she made. As much as others have tried, there was no convincing this woman otherwise. I do not know how public health officials and public officials get behind policies that do that to Canadians.
We are one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, and the current government continues to use that to bludgeon people to submit to its policies. I never thought when entering politics two and a half years ago at a federal level that we would see a government that was so keen to divide Canadians on something so deeply personal.
As I have said before and will say again, I denounce any hateful and violent acts outside and whoever is up to no good. I say “Shame on you ” to whoever is up to that kind of mischief and hateful rhetoric and actions, but what I am seeing across the country is people mobilizing because their governments have not listened to them for two years. They have been experiencing trauma for two years and no one is listening to them, so what choice do they have left?
These people have all emailed their MPs. They have called them and they have been turned down by their MPs. I am sure there are members of the public from Papineau, from the Prime Minister's riding, who have reached out because they have a different perspective on this issue and have been traumatized and fired from their jobs for a personal health choice. There are millions of Canadian, millions, who have been deeply ostracized from society, and when we do not listen to those people, they mobilize. We have seen protests across this country for over a century, and rightly so, as we have a right to peaceful protest. I would ask the protesters outside to do their best to stay vigilant and stay peaceful.
We are seeing other governments around the world with lower vaccination rates step up to say that they have heard their citizens say they have been traumatized and are moving forward with a deadline and a plan to have no more mandates, no more masks and no more distancing. They are allowing them to travel, to live their lives and to hug each other again. They have provided them with a date, a plan and a threshold. We have had absolutely none of that in Canada from the Prime Minister. People have been traumatized and are mobilizing because they need some hope. They need somebody in this House of privilege to come down from our ivory towers and say to the little people that we hear them, that we apologize that we traumatized them for two years. We need somebody to step up and give them some hope and a deadline.
The member opposite is laughing. The people in this House are incredibly privileged. That member has kept his job. Thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs, and he is laughing about his own privilege. What has he done to serve members who are marginalized during this pandemic in his community except laugh at them in this House of Commons? Shame on that member.
I asked the government two years ago in the House, and I would ask it again, to do everything it can, to go to other countries to see what they are doing and what their best practices are. How is it that other highly advanced, developed nations like the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States, which have all the same tools we have, all the economic resources we have, whose citizens have done all of the work and made all the sacrifices, have a plan for hope as to when they will get back to normal and get their lives back?
Do members think the people outside want to be here? Those people do not want to be here. They want to be working, but that right was taken away from them. When is there going to be a plan from the current Prime Minister? When is there going to be compassionate leadership to say that Canadians have done the work, that we have the tools and that we are moving forward? Our public health doctors have told us as well that it is time to move forward, that it is time to revisit these harsh mandates and divisive policies.
I will end on this. I am very passionate about this issue, and I think we all are, from our different perspectives. I will continue to be a bridge-builder to reach out and try to understand where others are coming from. It would just be incredible if we could see members of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister do the same. It is time to build a bridge.
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- Feb/7/22 7:45:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member who laughed when I said that members of Parliament in the House have extraordinary privilege. We have been able to keep our jobs.
I am very proud of our leader for stepping forward today and putting forward a call to action of the Prime Minister. She asked him today if he will meet with members of the other parties. Will they get together, sit at the table and say this is an unprecedented demonstration in Canadian history, it is time to get together, put partisanship aside and work together to see how we are going to have a peaceful resolution to this.
As the shadow minister for public safety for Canada, I have grown increasingly concerned that without a peaceful resolution and compassionate leadership from the Prime Minister and that member of Parliament, that we are going to see this escalate. The Liberals are stoking the fires, pouring diesel on it, so to speak, and raising the temperature with their mean language and name calling when they should be responsible and lowering the temperature. I would like to see from Liberal members of Parliament and from the Prime Minister some compassionate leadership. It is time to get together at the same table and talk about solutions.
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- Feb/7/22 7:48:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member's question is incumbent upon all members of Parliament to stand up against violence, bullying and divisive rhetoric. I have seen that repeatedly.
I have done that repeatedly particularly when again we see a Prime Minister of this country who for over a year and a half said that vaccines for all those who want them and then within days of called a $600 million unnecessary election that further divided and wounded traumatized Canadians within days from saying vaccine is a choice. He said “you have the right not to get vaccinated, but you have no right to sit next to someone who is”. That is the kind of dehumanizing language that incites people and gets their temperature up and mobilizing. That is the type of language that is irresponsible that we need to bring down. The Prime Minister should not be saying things like that.
I am from rural Manitoba and we supported the NDP for decades. Why? Because it was the NDP who stood up for the marginalized, people who did not have a voice in this privileged House of Commons. Where has their voice been from the thousands of workers who have lost their jobs? Where is the voice for the social worker who is too afraid to get a vaccine and lost her job? Where is their advocacy for them? I do not know, I have not seen it.
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- Feb/7/22 9:49:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member who just spoke said blatantly on the record tonight that members on this side are conspiracy theorists. That is a pretty significant claim. We are here representing Canadians. He is calling what we have said conspiracy theories. Can he point to one example of our being conspiracy theorists?
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