44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/14/22 2:50:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as our economy continues to recover from COVID-19, Canadians from coast to coast to coast, including in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, understand that competition will be a driving force behind innovation, efficiency and adaptability. Now, more than ever, effective and modern competition laws and enforcement are necessary to promote affordability for middle-class Canadians, foster growth and entrepreneurship and maintain resilient supply chains.
Could the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry kindly update the House as to how the government is modernizing our competition regimes?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this wonderful House and speak on behalf of the residents I represent. I will be sharing my time with my friend and colleague, the member for Kings—Hants. I wish him well when his opportunity arises.
We are here speaking about the urgency of getting to Bill C-10 and ensuring Canadians, and the provincial and territorial governments, have the tools they need as we continue the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic but also as we continue to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. That is exactly what we are doing.
We procured vaccines. We procured personal protection equipment. We have now procured literally hundreds of millions of rapid tests. I wish to give a shout-out to my friend from Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, the minister responsible, for the Herculean efforts that the minister and her department officials have made on the file. I wish to thank them. Again, this is another tool in the fight against COVID-19. It is also another tool so that Canadians can gradually and safely return to normality in their lives. That is what we in the House all want, to again have normality in our lives, but we can only do it gradually and safely.
It is Valentine's Day and I do want to give a shout-out to my wife. I thank the hon. member on the opposite side who I am friends with for that applause. I wish his spouse the same greetings as well.
I am grateful for the opportunity to rise in the House to speak to the urgency of Bill C-10. As Canada emerges out of this omicron wave with vaccines widely available and promising therapeutics like Pfizer's Paxlovid starting to roll out, the focus of our planning will naturally shift towards recovery and a more sustainable approach to managing the ongoing presence of this virus.
We know the virus does not have an end date. My opposition colleagues may think that, but it does not. We need to be prudent and gradual, and do the right thing for Canadians while protecting our health care system. This is where the importance of testing comes into play. In spite of all the promising gains, in terms of vaccinations and therapeutics, COVID-19 is still with us. We need a strong system in place in order to manage the virus, now and in the future, to prevent increased caseloads and hospitalizations as we reopen our economy and to prepare for possible future waves and new variants of concern.
Testing complements and builds on the existing health response to COVID. Informed by science and the advice of public health officials, the Public Health Agency of Canada has developed guidance and tools regarding public health measures to help manage COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. This public health guidance is developed jointly or in consultation with Health Canada or other federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, health authorities and public health experts.
As the evidence and understanding of COVID-19 has evolved, guidance has been adapted in turn. Provinces and territories also have guidance specific to their jurisdictions. This may include legislative regulatory policy and practice requirements, as well as professional guidelines. Their recommendations may differ, reflecting their local realities. Guidance developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada complements these provincial and territorial efforts.
As COVID-19 continues to circulate in Canada, we have seen epidemic waves crest and fall, and numerous public health measures, testing strategies and personal protective practices deployed in response. It has been a multi-layered approach. This multi-layered approach taken on by our government in conjunction and working with all the provincial and territorial governments is to protect our health care system and make sure we can emerge safely from the pandemic.
The Public Health Agency is working with provincial and territorial partners to plan for a sustainable approach, an approach that includes using testing to identify and isolate even more quickly cases of COVID-19. Canadians have become accustomed to terms and practices, such as using a layered approach to protecting themselves, which may include physical distancing, masking and avoiding poorly ventilated spaces.
Testing will become a crucial component of this layered approach, especially as testing spreads more and more into workplaces. Canadians have been doing what it takes to collectively get us all through the various waves and have pulled together when it matters most. Through our ongoing sacrifices and efforts, many infections and severe outcomes have been averted.
PHAC scientists have analyzed data and completed modelling from Canada that shows that, in most jurisdictions, implementation of public health measures was associated with reduced transmission of COVID-19. Studies have also shown that the public health measures that some jurisdictions have implemented, such as school closures, social distancing, stay-at-home rules, quarantine and masking, have reduced the severity of the pandemic. These measures, alongside our high rates of vaccination, have resulted in decreases in daily case rates, rates of infection, hospitalization, daily ICU admission rates and deaths.
I would be remiss if I did not give a shout-out to the wonderful residents of my riding and the region that I represent, York Region, where 90% of individuals have received their vaccine and the third dose rate is continuing to increase. That is great to see. Thanks to Canadians' willingness to follow these effective public health measures and to roll up their sleeves to get vaccinated, our outlook for the next several months continues to improve.
Public health guidance will remain a critical tool to address how we respond to the virus in the months ahead and, as the guidance shifts to include testing, the Public Health Agency of Canada will continue to work with partners across the country and around the world to learn more as well as to evaluate the emerging science to inform public health advice and guidance for Canadians. In order to support Canadians to make the best decisions for their personal protection, the Public Health Agency of Canada has developed web-based tools, such as My COVID-19 Visit Risk, that enables Canadians to better understand the factors that affect the risk of getting COVID-19 when visiting or gathering with others.
If Canadians are also able to use rapid tests to determine whether they are infected they will be able to make better, more-informed decisions to determine their risk of spreading COVID-19 and will be able to trust more that others are doing the same so that all Canadians can better protect their communities from further transmission. This is incredibly important when we go to visit our loved ones in long-term care facilities or seniors' residences or other vulnerable populations.
Rapid tests will be critical and crucial as we move forward and finish the fight against COVID-19, but we know COVID-19 will continue to be with us and we need to be prudent. Testing and general public health measures all fit together to stop the spread of COVID-19. Wearing the best-quality and best-fitting mask or respirator available, having access to rapid tests to determine infection and following the various other measures are important in the context of variants of concern, particularly for vulnerable populations who have the highest risk of severe outcomes or experiencing the broader negative impacts of the pandemic.
Recognizing that further waves will occur, longer-term sustained approaches and capacity building are required. As restrictions are gradually lifted in response to local epidemiology, approaches will concentrate on preventing severe cases of COVID through vaccination, supporting Canadians to use personal protective measures and making testing readily accessible. The longer-term, more sustained approach as we fight this virus will leverage all tools to balance the need to manage COVID-19 while minimizing societal disruption and enabling recovery.
We all want to go to our favourite restaurants and gather with a large group of friends. I know we want to baptize my four-month-old and we want to invite all our family and friends there. We want a gradual reopening as well. We know that, and rapid tests will be a critical piece of that. As restrictions ease, ongoing updates to guidance and web tools posted on government websites continue to support Canadians in making decisions for their protection based on personal risk assessments.
I would like to finish by reaffirming that this pandemic has demonstrated that we need a range of measures in our public health tool box, including vaccines, PPE and social distancing, to continue to fend off highly infectious diseases. That includes testing. To fight this pandemic, we have already made vaccinations readily available. Again, 90% of individuals in York Region are vaccinated. That is wonderful. We still have more work to do, but we are getting there. Now is the time to make testing readily available. With members' support of Bill C-10, we can give Canadians a better chance to manage their own health, to remain vigilant and to support each other throughout the remainder of this pandemic.
I wish to say that we all need to work collectively, collaboratively and in the best interests of all Canadians to get through this pandemic. That should be the focus, that should be our end game, and we should not lose sight of that goal.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South. He replaced a very good friend of mine, so I liked the prior member a bit more but I know he is doing the best job he can to represent his constituents. I congratulate him.
I will say this. Obviously, I do not know the expiry dates of the rapid test kits. My understanding is that they are quite lengthy. What is important is that, once they are received by the provinces, much like in the province of Ontario, they are distributed very quickly to the population and, most importantly, to vulnerable populations.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question.
If I understood the question from my hon. colleague correctly, the first and most important thing we need to do to help developing countries is to get them the vaccines to make sure their populations are vaccinated, because we know we can only fully emerge from this global pandemic globally, with all countries working together. Canada continues to do that and we will continue to go along that path.
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Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague. He is absolutely correct. If we look at what the pandemic has caused and how we have tried to protect our health care system from the waves that have overwhelmed it, we know that most of those waves have been caused by unvaccinated individuals. Therefore, when we think about freedom, we need to think about both our collective and individual responsibilities, and we have a collective responsibility to get vaccinated and do the right thing to ensure the protection of our families.
Here in the province of Ontario, much like in British Columbia, literally tens of thousands of surgeries have been cancelled in order to ensure we protect our health care system from becoming overwhelmed. Those frontline workers who, for the last two years, we have asked so much from, I want to thank them for everything they have done.
Just to add very quickly, over the holidays my parents visited me from Vancouver. I had to take my father to the hospital twice. Thankfully, everything turned out all right, but just being there in the emergency room watching the frontline workers attend to people and do what they do every single day was proof that they are the real heroes of this pandemic.
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