44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
- Feb/14/22 2:51:55 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I have a little more of a serious question. Members of all parties have outlined in the House that British Columbia will need additional funds to recover from the recent disasters and to plan for future disasters. B.C. is appreciative of the collaboration with the federal government thus far.
Will the upcoming federal budget include specific line-item funds for dike and flood infrastructure, flood preparation and planning, and forest fire mitigation?
75 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, before I begin debating this motion, I will briefly comment on the opposition motion we just voted on.
In my riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon and across this country, Canadians are losing hope. They do not know what to do anymore. They have been triple-vaxxed, they have followed all the rules and they are just looking for some transparency from the federal government so they can get their lives back. Canadians urgently need a plan to get us out of this pandemic—
89 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it would be irresponsible of me not to look at what happened in the House earlier today with this motion for closure the Liberals put forward. For two years, Canadians have been living with COVID-19 restrictions. There have been two years of lockdowns, of not being able to visit loved ones and of not being able to travel. There have been two years of isolation that has inflamed a mental health crisis and hurt Canada's vulnerable populations.
When it comes to lockdowns and mandates, we are seeing the evidence and public health advice for change. Last week, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Teresa Tam, said that all existing public health measures needed to be re-evaluated so we could get back to some normalcy. Just last week, we saw two Liberal MPs challenge their government for being so political about how it was treating the pandemic, and the response the government was taking to dealing with COVID-19 across our country.
Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Israel, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Spain and Denmark are all moving to end restrictions and mandates. Many provinces in Canada are doing the same thing. Today, we come to the House and the government does not want to debate Bill C-10: It wants to debate stopping debate on Bill C-10. That is very problematic.
It was on December 14, if I recall correctly, that the government tabled Bill C-8. One of the key provisions of Bill C-8 was $1.72 billion for COVID-19 tests. We just debated that bill last week and the week prior. Canadians were looking for a plan in that bill. Liberals stood up time and again and said that they had a plan and were moving forward. For us to be here today, talking about Bill C-10 in the same context, which would see another $2.5 billion for rapid tests, I wonder what the House leader for the Liberals is doing.
Why do we have two bills that were tabled within four parliamentary sitting days of each other on the urgency of rapid tests when, in my province, the public health officer is telling us that, for the majority of the population, they are not needed anymore?
Dr. Bonnie Henry said that, in most cases, if someone is triple vaccinated, as I am, they can skip getting a test. If someone has COVID, they need to stay home and self-isolate. We are treating it like the regular flu. She is only recommending testing now for people who are currently hospitalized, pregnant, at risk of severe diseases or who live or work in a setting with others who are at an elevated risk of a severe illness.
Already, British Columbia is saying that we do not need to go to the Ag-Rec Centre in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon anymore and take a morning off work with one's two-year-old to get a swab up their nose. No. We just need to isolate them at home and move forward with our lives.
Now we are here in the House of Commons, having a debate about not having a debate on rapid tests. My big question is, where was the government a year ago? Where was it when parents had to take time off work? It costs parents an average of $250 for a week of day care, and then they had to take more time off work because of that. I know for a fact that if we had had rapid tests, parents would not have lost so much money. That is shameful.
Canadians were asking for rapid tests so long ago. Other countries, such as the U.K., the Netherlands and other European Union countries with similar GDPs to Canada's per capita, were able to navigate the virus in a much more efficient way because their governments were more responsive. All we get from the Liberal government is Bill C-8 on December 14, and then Bill C-10 on January 31, saying that we need to pay for rapid tests now.
I cannot help but be cynical knowing that the Prime Minister called an election that was really divisive for all of us. Liberals called an election because of the urgency to deal with COVID-19 and various approaches to doing so.
Here we are, so many months later, debating a bill not to have a debate on something that should have been done two years ago, or at least a year and a half ago. My constituents are upset. They are upset that they have to continue living with these lockdowns, but they are also upset with the incompetence of the government to move strategically on rapid tests, which is something that everyone agreed on, much earlier. That is shameful. It has impacted so many families and so many businesses.
Last week, I met with one of the largest sound companies in North America. It is based in my riding. It was ranked the number one sound company in North America in 2013, and the number one in Canada for many years. It is the only outfit in the province of B.C. that is capable of equipping BC Place stadium for major concerts. Company representatives came to my office, and were pleading with me for some type of path back to normalcy: some type of path to get their business going again. What they said to me was that they had taken advantage of the high-risk loans and they had taken advantage of the business loans. They were thankful for them, but they had come to a point where the Government of Canada was driving independent, private-sector small businesses into oblivion.
Yesterday, I received an email from Mr. Howes at Traveland RV. I went to school with his kids. The company is a major employer in Langley, throughout the Fraser Valley. The tourism sector does not know what to do this year, again. The supply chains are so impacted that the tourism industry does not know how to plan yet another year. It does not know where its revenue is going to come from. The tourism sector is asking for a plan. It is asking for some way out of this.
All we got from the government on December 14 and January 31 were two bills, both related to rapid tests. Frankly, they could have been the same bill. I do not know why they were done differently. Maybe someone could answer that in debate. All the tourism industry is looking for is a plan to get people back to work. All it wants to do is hire more people again. All it wants to see is a plan to end the mandates and to get people their lives back. It is not too much to ask.
Everyone has been vaccinated. We have a super high vaccination rate in Canada, but everyone has also gotten COVID. A lot of people who are triple vaxxed are getting COVID, and that is why some of our public health officials have changed their tune recently.
Omicron has evolved, and the government needs to evolve in the way it is approaching this new endemic stage of the disease.
1218 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the member for Kingston and the Islands is misrepresenting what I said.
For much of the pandemic, when someone got COVID or thought they had it, they had to take time off work to get a PCR test. Frankly, we should have had rapid tests then, when that was the requirement of the Province of British Columbia. We are past that, but now the government is coming forward to say it will give people all these rapid tests. I wanted tests so that my wife did not have to take time off work. My neighbours wanted rapid tests so that they could go to work. That was the same in every community across the country.
Do not dismiss the public health officer of B.C., Dr. Bonnie Henry, who is changing her approach to dealing with the pandemic. Rapid tests still have a role to play, but not for the majority of the population, who are likely vaccinated and can likely self-isolate if they have symptoms of COVID-19.
177 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the New Democratic Party really does not think independently anymore. They just side with the Liberals on every single piece of major legislation.
What is also important to point out is that Dr. Bonnie Henry in British Columbia is not even counting the number of COVID cases anymore because it would not be accurate, for some of the reasons I have already listed. That is in the news.
It is time. The disease is entering an endemic stage. It is time for the Government of Canada to change its approach, and it is time for the NDP and the Liberals to wake up, stop wasting taxpayer dollars and start giving people their freedom back.
120 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Liberals have done everything in this pandemic to avoid accountability. I would be remiss if I did not recall one of their first acts in March, when the pandemic started two years ago. They wanted to shut down the House of Commons, because they did not want us to hold them to account. They threw it out there in the public, seeing what they could get away with.
At every stage of this pandemic, they have done as much as possible to avoid accountability, and that is why we cannot agree to closure. We need to study bills and respect taxpayer dollars.
109 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
