44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2022 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is that the government has messed up. The government has failed to provide leadership when it comes to getting rapid tests out the door. The government has dropped the ball repeatedly.
Is the hon. member proud of the fact that his government delivered a third of the rapid tests that it committed to delivering to the province of Ontario? Is he proud of the fact that this government delivered fewer than a third of the rapid tests it committed to the province of Alberta? The numbers speak for themselves when it comes to this government's track record on rapid testing. It equals a total and complete failure, and the parliamentary secretary knows that.
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Uqaqtittiji, I appreciated the Minister of Health agreeing today that we cannot fight what we cannot measure. In Nunavut, out of the 25 communities, there is only one community equipped with lab technicians. Back in November, of the said eight lab technicians, five had resigned. Also, in January, the Government of Nunavut had decided to ration its testing for COVID-19 to only health care providers in Nunavut.
Does the member for St. Albert—Edmonton not agree that Nunavut residents deserve to have access to rapid tests? Qujannamiik.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for Nunavut for that question. I think she speaks to some of the serious problems that we have, in Nunavut specifically but also across the country, in terms of the lack of availability of rapid tests, which are a critical tool in managing COVID. In short, yes. I absolutely agree with her.
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Mr. Speaker, to my hon. friend for St. Albert—Edmonton, I am troubled. It is not by him alone, obviously, but by the notion that human beings, Canadians, parliamentarians and governments are in charge, and we can accurately predict what this virus is going to do next and therefore we should be able to provide a road map and timeline.
I would ask the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton this: Is he confident that the pandemic is over, and that restrictions should be abandoned everywhere?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, for that question.
No, the pandemic is not over. We will be living with COVID for a long time, but we are entering a new stage. COVID is endemic, and we need to come up with ways to live with COVID. That is why governments are lifting restrictions around the world. That is why provinces are lifting restrictions, and that is why public health officials are saying that vaccine mandates and other restrictions need to either be lifted or re-evaluated. If this government was following the science, it would move forward in that regard.
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Mr. Speaker, I will start this evening along the same lines as some of my colleagues. I wish my husband Niall a very happy Valentine's Day. I am very lucky to have him in my life, and I am sure that if he is not watching he will be following up with a clip later on. I thank my sweetheart, and I love him.
I believe that rapid tests are an important public health tool. I do not think that is a debate that I am willing to have. I am definitely not a scientist and I am not an expert, but I am a new mom. As a new mom, I was keen to seek out rapid tests when they became available in my community, and they were not easy to come by because the provinces were not getting their shipments in a timely manner, so there were some struggles. When my family did end up getting some rapid tests, we were pretty excited.
My family, like many families with young kids, came down with colds a couple of weeks ago. Having access to the rapid tests really protected our mental health because they allowed us to rule out COVID. Both my husband and I were symptomatic. We used our rapid tests, and they came up negative a few times. That allowed us to have some peace of mind as we were caring for our sick son.
Having a baby be sick for the first time is pretty scary, especially for new parents. It did not change our behaviours, and I want to make that clear. We did what we would have done had we had colds before COVID. We isolated, we stayed home, and we had friends and family bring supplies to our house to help us get through those times.
We did some things a little differently, but we were confident to treat it like a common cold. The phrase “know better, do better” came to mind in our case. Because my husband and I were both COVID-negative, we knew that likely meant that Eoghan, our little son, was also COVID-negative. When his breathing got to be a bit wheezy, we were more comfortable staying at home because we were pretty confident that it was a cold, so we treated him for a common cold. I am confident that had we not had those rapid tests available to us, we would probably have rushed to the hospital, which would have likely cost the health care system more money.
I share this as one small anecdote in a pile of stories as to why rapid testing can be a very useful tool, especially for people who are symptomatic. I am going to put this on the record, not that we necessarily need it, because everybody knows it at this point. If people are feeling sick, they should stay home. This was true 100 years ago, this was true 50 years ago and this is true today.
Having this bill pass today would not make any difference in how many rapid tests are available to Canadians tomorrow or this week, nor would it somehow end this pandemic. Parliamentary oversight in debates such as these, and having bills go through committee, are fundamental aspects of our parliamentary democracy and our democratic process as a whole. I fail to understand the urgency.
I understand that the member for Winnipeg has gotten up and shared about the busy parliamentary system. I appreciate that we have a lot of important bills that we need to discuss, and there are a lot of critical things that we want to try to get through before the end of this parliamentary week, when we go back to our constituencies for constituency week.
However, having a bill studied at committee is absolutely important, especially a bill for this amount of spending. We are talking about $2.5 billion. That is not a small amount of money, and it is not a small amount of money to my constituents. They expect that there is accountability, especially for a sum of money this large. They also expect that they are getting the best possible legislation from parliamentarians.
I have so many questions about this legislation that I would love to know the answers to. For example, is this too much? Is this not enough? Are the tests here? Who are the suppliers of these tests? Where are they being manufactured?
There are so many more reasonable and rational questions that deserve to be asked and deserve to be responded to in a committee setting. While I understand that Canada is currently in a struggle space, on this side of the House we want to see at-home tests available to Canadian families, Canadian families like mine. That would put us at ease.
However, we have seen failure after failure from the Liberal government on the COVID file, whether it be closing borders, opening borders, vaccine procurement, testing capacity and at-home test procurement, just to name a very few. Forgive me for wanting to push the pause button here for the sake of my hard-working constituents.
Canadians expect Canada's Conservatives to take our role as Her Majesty's loyal opposition seriously and to serve the public by applying a critical eye to all proposals and actions of the governing party. This is not something that we do simply to be difficult or obstinate. It is the role Canadians have conferred on us. Let that sink in. We are responsible to ensure that Canadians have the very best legislation available to them and that we are looking at both the intended and unintended consequences of the legislation.
We very well might not agree on what the path forward would be, but we deserve to at least be able to have the conversations to ensure that we have the best legislation. What I am asking for, and I would implore, is to slow things down just the smallest bit and give us an opportunity to have further study on this bill. Give us some time to hear from expert witnesses. As has been stated multiple times, the Senate does not return until Monday. We have the capacity to give this some further study.
Furthermore, this bill is retroactive to January 1, 2022. Even if this was delayed, I am not quite sure how that would impact this bill, compared with a bill that only comes into force upon proclamation.
I am imploring everyone in the House to just hit the pause button and allow some additional oversight to ensure that we are providing Canadians with the best possible legislation, because they deserve our attention and our care.
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Mr. Speaker, I also heard from many constituents in my province when omicron became a very grave situation at the end of December, prior to the holiday period, that the availability of rapid tests was an issue. The province had just started to give them out to citizens.
I know for a fact that many citizens went and got those tests. They stood in line in -10°C or -30°C weather to get those rapid tests because the holidays were coming and they wanted to make sure they did not infect anybody. They wanted to take the necessary precautions. They also said that they did not want to be in that kind of a situation again.
I also know that in about three weeks, in my home province, it is going to be spring break. I know that things are loosening up in my home province. People are going to want to have those rapid tests in the event that they become symptomatic. They are going to want to have them. Are we supposed to tell them we are sorry but we needed to study a piece of legislation that is literally two lines?
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Mr. Speaker, I wish I had been able to have tests before Christmas. I really wish I would have. Many of my constituents and people across my province of Alberta wished they could have had them. Quite frankly, it was not always possible. I know we did not find availability for rapid tests in my home community of Fort McMurray until sometime in early January. I would have happily waited in -40°C in a line to get them, but it was not even an option.
We are not debating whether we should have stuff. What we are debating right now is simply having a little extra oversight. The bill is retroactive to January 1, 2022.
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Mr. Speaker, I too heard our colleague from Kingston and the Islands answer a question earlier about why the government did not include the amounts for rapid tests in Bill C-8.
He said that it was because there was no omicron variant when Bill C-8 was drafted in December, at the time the update was done. However, we did have the delta variant and a pandemic, and we knew it was not going to be over any time soon.
Does my colleague think that there is a certain lack of predictability, a lack of vision and, in this case, a lack of medium-term perspective from the government, which is rushing us to pass a bill that will not even be looked at by the Senate until next week since the Senate is not sitting this week?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.
I think she is absolutely right. When it comes to COVID‑19, the Liberal Party has not been transparent enough, especially on vaccine procurement. I think she made a good point. This is just one other aspect of the problem.
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Mr. Speaker, what price would the member be immediately comfortable with so that parents across Canada could have the same peace of mind that the member enjoyed to make sure that their kids are healthy?
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Mr. Speaker, it is very important to state that it is not necessarily simply about the price. It is about making sure that there is a bit of oversight and that it goes to committee.
I am not against this bill and I want to make that exceptionally clear. This is an important public health tool that Canadians should have access to. The member for Nunavut very clearly outlined why rapid testing is very important in her region. I thank her for bringing that up because it is so important in many of our rural and isolated communities. It is not necessarily about the dollar figure. It is a question of having oversight.
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Mr. Speaker, on this Valentine's Day evening, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île. I would also like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to my partner, Yanick Thibault. We have been together for 26 years, and I thank him for sharing me with all the people of Laurentides—Labelle.
We have spent several hours today talking about Bill C‑10, which provides for a one-time payment of up to $2.5 billion to the provinces and territories for expenses incurred on or after January 1, 2022, for tests. The money is to help the provinces and Quebec absorb additional pandemic-related costs.
The government upped health transfers by $5 billion in the previous Parliament. That included $4 billion for urgent health care system needs and $1 billion for the vaccination campaign. We all agree that was necessary, but that money is completely separate from requests to increase the federal government's share of health care costs to 35%.
It has to be said. The Liberals will try to make themselves look good by saying that the billions of dollars they spent went directly to fixing the problems in health care. However, the Bloc Québécois is duty bound to point out that, despite the $60 billion or so that has been injected, the Liberals have not exactly done anything out of the ordinary. This spending was necessary to deal with this pandemic, which is an exceptional situation.
I am sorry to see the government using these sums as an excuse not to increase funding and to put it off until later, possibly 2027. This does not make sense because the problems will remain after the pandemic.
I want to be very clear that our voice will be heard over and over again, speaking for the Quebec government. I will continue to illustrate that this issue is crucial to getting through the pandemic.
The federal government stands alone on this matter. We cannot forget that the Quebec government and the Bloc Québécois have called for an increase in health transfers to cover 35% of health care costs. The federal government wants to postpone the issue of funding until after the pandemic, possibly until 2027. Not only is this completely out of touch with reality, but the federal government is also the only one to think that way.
The Bloc Québécois wants a society that has a universal, public health care system worthy of a G7 country. Without that, we cannot properly deal with health care problems.
In fact, that money could bring in alternative measures for the entire nation. For those watching us at this late hour, on Valentine's Day, remember that the federal contribution went from 50% of health care costs in the 1950s and 1960s to 22% today.
The division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces in 1867, which was quite a while ago, is quite simple. In 19th-century terms, if the issue directly affected people and how they organize their society, it fell under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. This included civil laws that codify interpersonal relations, the organization of society through social, health and education programs, and also cultural issues. If an issue did not directly affect people or the internal organization of their society, it could fall under federal jurisdiction. This could be monetary policy, international trade, and general trade and industry regulations.
To compensate for the withdrawal of the federal government's investment, Quebec and the provinces had no choice but to scale back services and run the system at full capacity.
The system broke down. Our young people, seniors, parents, business people and health care staff will not agree to lockdown indefinitely to protect the health care system. That is exactly why we need to start rebuilding our health care system immediately.
It is unacceptable. We know more money will not fix everything overnight. However, without funding we cannot start building our ideal health care system. That includes mental health services available to everyone when they need them; good working conditions for nurses and all other health care workers; training to hire staff, who are so invaluable; and support services for people dealing with addictions. This list goes on.
Once again, the government is completely alone on this issue. All of the opposition parties and the premiers of the provinces and Quebec—and that is big—are calling for an increase in health transfers, as are the health care unions, Canada's public health authorities, the majority of medical and patient associations, and even one of the government's own MPs. That is not to mention the fact that, on February 2, a poll showed that 87% of Quebeckers and Canadians were also calling for an increase in health transfers.
I urge the Prime Minister to acknowledge this consensus and to immediately meet with his counterparts, as he did today on another matter, to negotiate an increase in health transfers and get things moving. The federal government needs to stop arguing over jurisdictions. It is time to rebuild.
Since I have a little time remaining, I would also like to talk about vaccination in developing countries, because this pandemic will not end until that happens. Until all countries have adequate vaccine coverage, there will always be a risk of new, more contagious, dangerous or resistant variants.
The Bloc Québécois is calling on the federal government to take four actions to contribute to global vaccination coverage. Canada must provide logistical assistance to transport and administer doses; provide its surplus doses to developing countries on a predictable basis; support the waiving of vaccine patents; and participate in global vaccine outreach efforts to ensure that the vaccination campaign is a success around the world. It is important that people learn about the benefits of the vaccine, which is a challenge that both Quebec and the rest of Canada are facing.
In closing, I would like to take this opportunity to respond to a number of people who have contacted me recently about the Conservative motion we voted on today. The motion called on the government to table a plan by the end of the month, by February 28, that includes reopening steps. That is what the Bloc Québécois supported.
It is important to make that clear because some of the people who contacted me were misinformed. What the Bloc Québécois supported was calling on the government to govern and plan. Asking for a plan is the same as asking the government to govern, which is the least it can do. Nobody is asking the government to get rid of all public health measures by the end of the month. We are not even asking it to make an announcement on February 28 about a precise date when all public health measures will be lifted. All we want is a plan and some predictability.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague spent her 10 minutes talking about some very important subjects, but I did not hear her position on Bill C‑10, so I would like to know if she will support it.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, there are several conditions for success. Of course, to make something happen, it has to be repeated. That is what I have learned from federal politics. I tell my kids that they have to do a thing a thousand and one times.
That is what we are doing. Many things are important, such as providing rapid tests and injecting one-time payments to meet a need. Those are part of it, but for the future and going forward, I will never stop calling for an increase in health transfers to 35% until that happens.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague on her speech. I think she gave a very accurate and compelling case for why the federal government needs to increase its Canada health transfers to the provinces. I think we all, on this side of the House, in the NDP, join in that feeling that the 22% share of federal health spending in this country is not sufficient.
I know the NDP and the Bloc Québécois have, to some degree, a difference of opinion on the jurisdiction of health care in this country. We also know there are conditions in the Canada Health Act. There are five major conditions that every province has to meet in order to get that funding.
I am wondering if the member would describe to the House what kind of accountability she would have the provinces demonstrate in exchange for that money from the federal government. Does she accept that the provinces should have to at least show that they are spending the money in health care, and maybe account to the taxpayers of this country how that money is being spent, or does she think there should be absolutely none of that whatsoever?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
I would say, essentially, that jurisdictions must be respected. In other words, trust the expertise of each province when it comes to what services are needed.
When we talk about health transfers, obviously they must be unconditional, because it is the provinces that have the expertise, not the federal government. The provinces have everything it takes when it comes to both education and health care.
I tell people that it is important for everyone to mind their own business. It is often when we do not have enough to do that we interfere in other people's business.
In the context of a pandemic where there are global challenges and a critical situation, I think we all need to mind our own business.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his inspiring speech.
We are debating a bill. However, contrary to what my colleague from Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne was saying, just because we are debating a bill does not mean that we cannot consider items that are not covered by the bill but that are very important to us.
I would like to put a simple question to my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle, who has been asked about jurisdictions.
Since today is Valentine's Day and I love my country, I would like to know what she thinks would happen if Quebec got to keep its own money. Would the situation be the same?
Would we be dependent upon a government that wants to spend money in any area of jurisdiction and that is not meeting the people's needs? If we had full control of our own funds, would the health care system in Quebec not work a little better?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I heard the words “predictability”, “expertise” and “jurisdiction". We must trust the people who have been saying for several months that they would have done things differently. Instead of crushing and pressuring the health care system, which broke down in Quebec, I believe we could have already introduced new solutions.
In the end, with predictability and money, we would clearly have done things in a completely different way.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑10 establishes a one-time payment of $2.5 billion to Quebec and the Canadian provinces for expenses incurred since January 1, 2022, in relation to testing.
We agree with that, but the main problem, and my colleague spoke at length about this before me, is that cuts to federal health transfers are compromising the health care system in Quebec and in the Canadian provinces. From our Quebec taxes that we send to the federal government, the money transferred to Quebec for health care formerly represented 50% of the funding for that sector in the 1970s. We cannot say it enough. Despite being increased a few times, like when the Bloc Québécois obtained a $3.3‑billion increase in transfers in 2007, Ottawa's share of the cost of health keeps going down. Today, the transfers represent only 22% of health spending.
Just before the election in 2011, the Bloc convinced Ottawa to catch up and to keep increasing the transfers by 6% over five years. Unfortunately, the Conservatives decided that starting in 2016, the transfers would stop keeping pace with the increasing costs and capped them at 3%. However, health care costs have been increasing by roughly 5% a year, due in part to population aging. In Quebec, where the population is aging faster than the Canadian average, we are being hit hard. That is what we call the fiscal imbalance. We are paying nearly half our taxes to Ottawa, but most of the public services are being provided by Quebec or the Canadian provinces, while the federal government does whatever it wants.
At the end of the day, Ottawa is undermining Quebec's finances, and Quebec taxpayers are paying the price and receiving fewer and fewer services. According to a study by the Conference Board of Canada, with the current transfer method, in 20 years, the federal government should rake in a $110‑billion surplus, based on this calculation method, but the provinces will run a combined deficit of $172 billion. That is how the federal government can afford to interfere in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.
If the trend continues, federal health transfers will drop from 22% of health care expenses to 18% within a few years. It is no wonder that Quebec and the Canadian provinces are calling for the federal government to increase health transfers to cover 35% of health care spending, which would be more than $6.5 billion for Quebec. The government's position of putting off discussing the funding issue until after the pandemic is completely out of touch with reality.
I have been a member of Parliament for the Bloc Québécois since 2016. The one thing that struck me when I came to the House of Commons was that the Canadian government is always quick to interfere in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the Canadian provinces, but it does not step up when it needs to take care of its own business, in its own jurisdiction.
The federal government must not continue to use these payments as an excuse to increase its funding and interference in areas under provincial jurisdiction and put off discussing health transfers. The Bloc Québécois will continue to make the point that increased health transfers are a necessary part of getting us through this pandemic, and it will be even more difficult to rebuild and stabilize our health care systems.
The needs are urgent in my riding of La Pointe-de-l'Île. The proportion of people aged 65 and over is higher than in the rest of Montreal. Life expectancy is lower than the average. Approximately two in three people aged 65 and older in La Pointe-de-l'Île have at least one chronic illness. Lung diseases and respiratory illnesses are more common in La Pointe-de-l'Île. Quebec's health care challenges are not strictly a management issue. The refusal by the Liberals and the other federal parties to increase health transfers to 35% is a prime example of predatory federalism.
Quebec is the one providing health care services, and we are in the middle of a pandemic. Quebec pays close to half our taxes to Ottawa, yet provides the lion's share of the services.
The Bloc Québécois succeeded in passing a motion to increase health transfers even though the Liberals voted against it. We know more money will not fix everything overnight, but without higher health transfers on an ongoing basis, we cannot start building the health system we want. That includes services available to everyone when they need them, good working conditions for nurses so we can retain them, training to hire more nurses and doctors, and support services for people dealing with addictions.
We cannot make these decisions and achieve this vision unless the federal government agrees to give back the money it takes from our taxes to fund the health care system. Health transfers must be restored urgently so we can breathe life back into our system.
I would also like to emphasize a key point here. While it is up to Quebec to choose the specific health services it wants to provide, respect for jurisdiction is quite simply an essential condition for respecting democracy. There are provincial jurisdictions and federal jurisdictions. If that is not respected, when people vote for a government in Quebec, that means they are voting for any old thing because we do not have the power to fulfill our commitments.
Quebeckers need to be given the right to determine their specific preferences with regard to health. The Bloc Québécois is against the federal government's centralist tendency. Ottawa is using the pandemic as an excuse to interfere in all sorts of domains, including long-term care institutions, mental health services and pharmacare. These elements are provincial responsibilities. Since Quebec and the provinces know what their people need, they should be the ones to determine how this money is allocated.
As we have pointed out, the government is completely isolated on this issue. My colleague said so earlier. All the opposition parties are calling for an increase in health transfers. All the provinces are calling for an increase in health transfers. All the premiers of the provinces and Quebec are calling on the federal government to increase health transfers. A 2020 survey found that 81% of Quebeckers want the federal government to increase its health transfers. That should be clear enough, but it is never clear enough.
We ask questions all the time and remind the Liberal members of this, and we are told again and again that funding has increased during the pandemic and so on. An increase in health funding during a pandemic is not a recurring increase. If health transfers are not increased, the federal share of health care spending will steadily decline, and our health care systems will be under enormous pressure. The provinces cannot make cuts to hospitals. We are asking once again, and we will continue asking, that the federal government increase health transfers. It is urgent.
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