44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 10, 2022 10:00AM
- Feb/10/22 4:04:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Conservative motion before the House this afternoon calling on the government to finally come up with a plan to end the federally related COVID restrictions and mandates, including the government's punitive and discriminatory vaccine mandates.
When it comes to the mandates, the Prime Minister says he is merely following science. If he were really following science, he would listen to public health officials across Canada, including Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, who has stated that all existing public health measures need to be re-evaluated, including vaccine mandates. Make no mistake about it, the Prime Minister is not interested in science. He is interested in politicizing the pandemic, dividing Canadian society and demonizing Canadians for making a personal health choice.
Repeatedly, the Prime Minister has used incendiary and hateful rhetoric against his fellow Canadians for merely making a personal health choice. He even went so far as to say, “Do we tolerate these people?” Those are the words of the Prime Minister against his fellow Canadians. Needless to say, history will not judge the Prime Minister kindly for his recent hateful words or his recent actions.
The Prime Minister's mandates have not done much to keep Canadians safe, but they have destroyed lives, they have destroyed livelihoods, they have eroded personal freedoms, they have pitted one Canadian against another and they have infringed upon the rights and freedoms of Canadians including privacy rights. It is on the issue of privacy rights that I wish to spend the balance of my time.
In a free and democratic society, governments respect the privacy of their citizens. To underscore the importance of privacy rights, earlier this week when the Privacy Commissioner appeared before the ethics committee, he stated that privacy is a human right. In May 2021, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, along with all provincial and territorial privacy commissioners, issued a joint statement on what they contemplated would be vaccine mandates imposed by governments.
In the joint statement, the privacy commissioners warned that vaccine mandates would encroach upon civil liberties, that there were significant privacy risks involved and that the government should not proceed without careful consideration. Having regard for those significant privacy risks, the joint statement stressed the importance of the government doing its due diligence in seeing that, before any such mandate is introduced, all applicable privacy laws would be complied with and privacy best practices would be adopted.
I should further note that it is a federal government policy, pursuant to a directive, that when there is a program or activity of government that involves the use of personal information that directly impacts an individual, a privacy impact assessment be undertaken in respect of that federal program or activity and that such a privacy impact assessment be conducted before the program or activity is implemented. The purpose of such an assessment is clear: to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act and to address other privacy-related issues.
In light of the warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada, one would have thought the government would have reached out and worked with the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity before vaccine mandates were implemented. In light of the federal directive respecting privacy impact assessments, one would have thought the government would have worked on and completed such assessments before the implementation of mandates.
To learn more about what the government has done or has failed to do with respect to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians, my colleague, the hon. member for Oshawa, and I wrote to the Privacy Commissioner. The letter of response that we received is deeply concerning. It is clear in the Privacy Commissioner's response that the government did not consult the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at the earliest opportunity. Indeed, in many cases, the Privacy Commissioner was contacted at the eleventh hour. For example, with respect to the vaccine mandate that affects the public service, the Privacy Commissioner was given four hours to review it. That is unacceptable, it is unreasonable and it demonstrates bad faith on the part of the government when it comes to protecting the privacy rights of Canadians.
What about the privacy impact assessments? The Privacy Commissioner has confirmed to my office that no such assessments have been produced. I would remind the government that such assessments were to be produced prior to the implementation of the mandates. Here we are, four months later, and there are no assessments. What makes that even worse is the clear warnings from all privacy commissioners across Canada about the significant privacy risks involved.
Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a disturbing trend on the part of the government to disregard the privacy rights of Canadians. We learned recently, for example, that PHAC failed to work with the Privacy Commissioner in respect of the collection of mobile data from millions of Canadians without their consent. There is the case of Statistics Canada, which was caught with unjustifiable plans to collect the data of Canadians in respect of their financial transactions without their consent. One would expect to see this happening in Communist China but not in Canada, yet it is happening in Canada under the government's watch.
The continued systematic disregard for the privacy rights of Canadians by the government is leading us on a dangerous path. It is time to reverse course. It is time to end this massive overreach and restore freedom. It is time to end the mandates.
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- Feb/10/22 4:13:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, I respect the parliamentary secretary, and I say respectfully that I find it a little rich for the hon. member to be talking about rapid testing. For the past two years, the government has repeatedly dragged its feet when it comes to rapid testing. We on this side of the House, from day one, were encouraging the government to act with respect to rapid testing. Now, in year three, the government is finally getting serious. I say it is too little, too late.
The member talks about Bill C-8. What was completely absent from Bill C-8 was funding to increase hospital capacity in this country. When it comes to ICU capacity, for example, in which we had significant overcapacity problems part of the time during COVID, we have one-third of the ICUs the United States has and we rank last in the OECD, other than Mexico. Despite this, after blowing through another $70 billion of new spending, the government could not come up with new spending to increase hospital capacity so we could avoid the issues we have faced over the past two years. It is really a lack of leadership on the part of the current government.
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- Feb/10/22 4:16:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's final sentence encapsulates the issue: a lack of leadership on the part of the federal government. We have seen this throughout COVID with the lack of PPE, lack of capacity in our hospitals and lack of rapid testing. The list goes on. What we need to do now, in year three of this pandemic, is realize that we will have to live with COVID. We will have to develop strategies to ensure we can live with COVID and live in a free and open society once again.
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- Feb/10/22 4:18:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to give the short answer, it is because the Prime Minister sees short-term political gain in dividing Canadian society. The member noted that 90% of Canadians have been vaccinated. That is a good thing. However, if 90% of Canadians have been vaccinated, what is the government seeking to achieve with the continuation of these vaccine mandates, other than to punish Canadians and divide Canadian society?
It is time to get on with it. It is time to let Canadians take back control of their lives and, as a starting point, it is time to lift the mandates.
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