44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 24, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/24/22 2:44:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on Monday in the health committee, the Minister of Health said, “We want to apply the least disruptive measures in order to protect the health and safety of Canadians, and the conversation will evolve as the situation evolves.” The situation has evolved. We are asking the federal government to follow the science and remove federal mandates, as has been done throughout Canada in our provinces.
Does the health minister believe that all 10 provincial chief medical officers of health are wrong?
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- Mar/24/22 2:45:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, unfortunately that was a complete non-answer. The risks have changed as this pandemic has evolved. Canada has the most restrictive domestic travel mandates in the world. This is having a very real impact on families. I have been contacted by families in my riding who want to visit relatives who are in palliative care and who want to attend funerals. Vaccine mandates on travel have limited the ability of families to gather.
When will the health minister show some humanity and finally allow the transportation minister to remove domestic travel restrictions?
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- Mar/24/22 4:48:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to start by letting you know that I will be sharing my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.
Vaccine mandates have had a very real impact on the lives of Canadians. As the situation has evolved, governments have had to change. We have seen that as the case for governments across Canada, as well as governments all across the world. Sadly, what we have seen from the Liberal-NDP coalition government is that it has been slow to act. It was initially slow to close the borders. Then it was slow to get vaccines, slow to get rapid tests, slow to reopen the borders and now slow to end federal mandates.
On Monday, the health minister said at health committee, “We want to apply the least disruptive measures in order to protect the health and safety of Canadians, and the conversation will evolve as the situation evolves.” The situation has evolved significantly since the vaccine mandates on domestic travel were initially applied. It is worth noting that, when domestic travel vaccine mandates were first imposed, they were based on an idea that those who were vaccinated were much less likely to contract and therefore spread COVID. However, this changed as the omicron variant took over. As far as I can see, it no longer serves the original policy goal of preventing the spread of COVID. It just serves to needlessly divide Canadians.
Last week, I was contacted by a constituent. She was really devastated and she was really having a hard time. She is a nurse and she has worked throughout the pandemic, serving vulnerable Albertans as a registered nurse. She has been unable to be vaccinated because she has a medical exemption. She actually has an allergy to vaccines, and not just this vaccine but many vaccines. It is an anaphylactic allergy. It is something that is literally a life and death situation for her. All because of this, her employer, Alberta Health Services, has given her reasonable accommodations, so she has been able to continue serving as one of our frontline health care heroes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite having medical exemptions, the process to be able to get on an airplane was not simple or straightforward, nor was it very timely. While I understand that many members in this chamber do not understand the vastness that is the country of Canada, my constituent is from Ontario, which was 3,600 kilometres away. Driving was not really a feasible option. Her father, who was in Ontario, had just passed away sadly, and she really wanted to be there with her family at this really difficult time, to be able to mourn with her mother and attend the celebration of life for her father.
However, this is the problem with any kind of really strict rule. There will inevitably be people who are stuck in the margins and for whom those rules do not necessarily make sense. Those rules cause undue and unnecessary hardship. That was the case with these rules. I was able to help this constituent navigate through the bureaucratic nightmare and the red tape so that she could get on a plane in a timely fashion and make it in time for her dad's funeral.
However, as I was helping this constituent, it really made me stop and wonder about all the constituents who are not vaccinated, have a sudden death in their family and do not have a medical exemption. What are those constituents supposed to do? Why are we continuing to needlessly divide Canadians? Why are we continuing to stigmatize Canadians who are vaccine-hesitant, who are unable to be vaccinated or who, for any number of reasons, whether they be religious or otherwise, might choose not to be vaccinated?
I had another constituent contact me about a month ago. Her sister was really not doing well. She was in palliative care. She also had to fly. She had one vaccine, but had to wait 28 days before she could get her second vaccine and then another 14 days after that before she could get on a plane. She was not anti-vax; she just had not gotten around to it for a number of reasons. We need to show compassion. We need to understand that there is humanity. There are human cases here, and it is very real throughout most of rural Canada. We really need to do better.
We have among the strictest rules on vaccine mandates and restrictions, when it comes to domestic travel, in the entire world. I am not saying that they did not at some point serve some kind of purpose, but right now they do not serve the original policy goal that they set out to. I do not believe that bullying and name-calling are effective methods to get one's way. My mom used to tell us all the time that sticks and stones may break our bones, but words would never hurt us. However, it was not okay to hurt somebody by name-calling. It did not really matter that it would not physically hurt them, because it would still hurt them.
Yesterday, at the health committee, Dr. Cohen, the CEO of the Canadian Psychological Association, appeared. When we asked her about this, and whether a productive way to get more Canadians vaccinated was to stigmatize them, bully them and call them names, she said there was behavioural science that showed that it was actually a very ineffective way. I am paraphrasing. This goes to a point. Why we are making people jump through these hoops at this point in time? Why can we not just treat people like people?
We have among the highest vaccination rates in the world. We have complied for the last two years. Canadians have stayed home when they were asked to stay home. At this point, they need to see a path out of this. The federal mandates regarding travel restrictions are very much imposing on constituents in my riding. That is just one small example. Men and women who have served our country are being threatened with the loss of their jobs and benefits because, for some reason, they have chosen not to get vaccinated. I am not even sure what the reason is, but it does not really matter to me what the reason is. We need to think, deep in our hearts and souls, about whether we want our legacy to be that, when given the opportunity to do the right thing, we chose to sit idly by and let Canadians continue to be divided.
One of the things that has been brought to my attention on so many occasions in my constituency through correspondence is why we continue to divide. Why do we not just allow hope, and why do we not have a plan? Provinces have ended their mandates and our G7 allies have ended their mandates. They are following the emerging science, and I understand that the science has changed substantially. What we know now about COVID is much different from what we knew originally. When we know better, we have an opportunity to do better.
I am asking all members in this assembly to keep in mind that many of us represent large rural ridings on which these travel mandates have a very direct impact. It is really complicated. I implore all members to please do the right thing and end the travel mandates and all federal mandates for the best of our country.
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- Mar/24/22 4:59:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not a scientist. I am not a doctor, but I do follow the advice of doctors and I think that the countries around the world that have been dropping their mandates and restrictions when it comes to travel cannot all be wrong. I asked the Minister of Health today if he thought that all the chief medical officers of health across the country were wrong, as they have been ending mandates and restrictions.
A month ago we asked simply for a plan to end the mandates and restrictions, and the members opposite voted against it. Today, we ask for the mandates to simply end, and I am sure they are probably going to vote against it, but I would implore them not to.
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- Mar/24/22 5:00:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things we saw early in this pandemic was that rather than having domestic production of vaccines, the Liberal-NDP coalition decided to raid the COVAX group and take away from countries that desperately needed it. What I would like to see, and what members on this side of the House would like to see, is an improvement in being able to produce more vaccines domestically so that we have a little more protection when it comes to the future of Canada's health.
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- Mar/24/22 5:02:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague raised some important points. We do not know everything about the pandemic and do not know what will happen tomorrow. That is true of life in general.
I do not think that there is any real justification for federal restrictions and mandates right now. These mandates should be lifted today.
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