44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 24, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/24/22 12:49:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke about vaccine mandates and about travel restrictions in particular. He spoke about travel restrictions and mobility rights, and he actually made our travel restrictions tantamount to the regime in the Soviet Union. However, I recall that just last year it was his party on that side of the House that was screaming for border measures to be implemented and for travel to be restricted for Canadians.
Did the hon. member refer to his former leader and his party as being equivalent to leaders in the Soviet Union, or is it just political talk today and amnesia about his own party's previous position?
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- Mar/24/22 1:11:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the revisionist party of Canada, also known as the Conservative Party of Canada, and its motion today to confuse and conflate what we are dealing with and every sacrifice that Canadians have made throughout this pandemic, as a way for them to try to save their floundering party and the division within it.
It is shocking to sit here and listen to the Conservatives today, although it should not be shocking after the last six years of being in this place with them.
Let us talk about the pandemic and the mandates across the country, in particular the fact that I do not think there is a single Canadian who has not been impacted by the pandemic and who does not want to see the lifting of these mandates. Everybody, on all sides of the House, wants to see a return of normalcy, but what Canada and countries around the world have done and what responsible governments around the world have done has been to implement public measures to keep people safe.
A recent Harvard study actually indicated that if it were not for vaccinations and strong public health measures, over 400,000 Canadians would have died during this pandemic.
I sat here today and listened to Conservatives scream and say they wanted their freedom back. What about the freedom of those 400,000 families that would no longer have that family member sitting across from them, or that employer who would no longer have that employee, or that young person who might have lost their grandparent before they had the time to have more cherished memories?
While the Conservatives say they want their freedom back, they mislead the House and they mislead Canadians with regard to the very real tragedies across the country. The actual number of Canadians who have sadly passed due to this pandemic has been over 37,000. It is a number that I find the Conservatives continue to gloss over.
They talk all about the inconveniences. Trust me, it is an inconvenience. It has been difficult not to travel like we want to, to wear masks and to have limitations, but the alternative has been losing lives, losing family members to this disease and having worker shortages across the country due to infection rates.
While the Conservatives scream and talk about freedom, they very much do not represent the reality of the over 37,000 Canadians who lost their ultimate freedom because they died due to this disease, and of the family members who have lost that opportunity to spend time with them.
With that said, obviously, the need to lift restrictions is inevitable. We have seen provinces and territories do it across the country, but what the Conservatives like to gloss over is the fact that, throughout the pandemic, over the last two years, every province and territory has experienced different things at different times. They have had the ability to adjust and put in place measures based on the risk profiles at the time. Leave it to the Conservatives to be out of touch and say they know better than provinces and territories what is needed in their local jurisdictions.
I come from Ontario, and we have had a very different experience than, for example, my friends and colleagues from Nova Scotia have. Does that mean that the Conservatives know best and they will just implement whatever they want, no matter the local dynamics at the time?
It is no wonder that Canadians did not trust Conservatives in this place to deal with their health care needs.
Let us talk about flip-flopping and changes in positions, because I have listened to the Conservatives. The member for St. Albert—Edmonton actually said in his speech, or in a reply to a question from me, that the Conservative position has never been to restrict Canadians' travel abilities. It was actually his former, former, former leader. I forget now how many they have had, as there have been so many. It was the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who in April 2021 slammed our government for not restricting travel more.
Also, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who I sat on committee with when I was parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, demanded that we put more travel restrictions in place, but then a few months later, once the Conservatives had another leadership convention, they changed their position back.
Let us talk about the ultimate hypocrisy coming from the Conservatives. Their former leader, the member for Durham, said in the last election campaign that anyone travelling with him or his family had to be fully vaccinated, yet for the rest of Canadians travelling on planes, buses or trains, that requirement was not there. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander, but we know that when it comes to members of the Conservative Party, they will take measures to protect themselves, but then try to stoke up the flames of the party's base.
Let us also talk about the fact that I have listened in this place to the members opposite say that they support science and that there is no science for these mandates. It is a little rich to hear members of a party still debating whether or not climate change is real say that Canadians should listen to them on their accreditations about science. Even without that, if the members opposite truly care about science and think that science is going to lead us out of this pandemic, which I certainly believe, then why is it that they still allow members, such as the member for Niagara West, to actually promote Ivermectin as a treatment? It is horse dewormer. I am sorry. The Conservatives are correcting me on the pronunciation. It is something that they have been researching and promoting.
Conservatives suggested that instead of vaccinations, Canadians should use horse dewormer. This has been widely proven to be false information, but those are still the voices in the Conservative Party that they want Canadians to listen to. They say they are the arbiters of science. There was also the member for Provencher who had to apologize in this place because he made the claim that double vaccines were 13 times more likely to kill people than the delta variant. The member had to apologize. He is still a sitting member in this place on the Conservative benches.
It is outrageous to think that Canadians should trust the Conservative Party of Canada with their health or with the decision of when mandates should be lifted. There is no question that all mandates will eventually be lifted, as they should be and as we have been doing constantly. As the pandemic has changed, so have our mandates because we have been following the science. What I think Canadians find truly offensive, and certainly I do after listening to the debate in this place, is the suggestion by the party of climate change deniers and horse-dewormer medication strategies that vaccines are not safe. It will not even disclose who is vaccinated or not, and its members continue to spread conspiracy theories on their social media and in this place. Those are not the people who Canadians have trust in to lift mandates and take care of their health.
The pandemic has been incredibly difficult for everybody, but we must never forget the lives lost and the heroes throughout this pandemic, such as health care workers who are still overwhelmed in hospitals and still care for residents in long-term care homes. We want out of this pandemic, but the only way to do it is through science-based decisions, not the revisionist type of conspiracy theory policies that Conservatives have put forward.
On this side of the House, we will continue to look out for Canadians, for their health and for the well-being of their families and the economy, and we will reject the politicized alt-right policies of the Conservatives.
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- Mar/24/22 1:22:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I never suggested that the decisions of provinces and territories, and the scientific advice they are following is not correct. In fact, if the member was listening to my speech, he would have heard that I said that as provinces and territories have made decisions about their particular situations, we, as a federal government, should listen to what provinces and territories feel is best in their particular jurisdictions.
However, that is not what the Conservative motion is. That member should know that the Conservative motion is saying that Ottawa knows best, and that it should tell provinces and territories how best to deal with this pandemic. We are saying we are going to continue to work with them and we are going to follow the evidence.
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- Mar/24/22 1:24:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I actually agree a lot with her statement that it is this all-or nothing proposal that we seem to be debating. In fact, I disagree with that.
For example, on April 1, there will be another federal restriction lifted when it comes to vaccinated travellers and testing requirements. As much as I wish we could provide a predictable plan, I think in the past two years of the pandemic, we have seen that there is nothing predictable about COVID except that it is serious and it is deadly. We need to make sure that we are agile to lift restrictions and ensure that Canadians can live as we always have, but that it is done with public health measures at the forefront and ensuring that we do not see increased spikes or increased deaths across this country, including in Quebec.
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- Mar/24/22 1:26:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague for Kingston and the Islands who has been a champion for his community and for us here in the House.
I think what is critical in this debate is the fact that the Conservatives, throughout this pandemic, have flip-flopped their way through the entire policy process. As I said, the example I gave in my speech of their former leader, the member for Durham, having a different perspective for him and his family than for the rest of Canadians says it all.
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