44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 24, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/24/22 12:20:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a person interested in science, I am sure my hon. colleague is also interested in the accuracy of numbers. It is not 90% of Canadians who are vaccinated. It is 81.6%. Of course, as I pointed out in my speech, only 46% of Canadians have had their third booster, which, in my view, now ought to be considered required to be considered fully vaccinated.
We know, based on the science, that the impact of vaccinations wanes over time. After three, four or five months, we know that the efficacy of the vaccine, particularly the mRNA vaccines, can go down to very low numbers, so getting that third booster is incredibly important.
I would just say that federal policy should be to encourage people to be vaccinated and to do everything possible to ensure that all Canadians receive their third boosters. Relaxing and withdrawing mandates, in that respect, at this time, I think, is not only irresponsible but harmful to the health of Canadians.
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- Mar/24/22 12:21:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is nice to see you in the chair. As you would know and no doubt attest, with regard to the province of Quebec, toward the end of November or beginning of December, no one would have anticipated that the province of Quebec would have been implementing a curfew in the month of January because of omicron.
I think it is really important that we do not lose sight of the fact that we cannot just wish the pandemic away. There is a responsibility. Things can change and, as we have seen with the omicron variant, they can change quite quickly and rapidly.
I am wondering if my colleague can provide his thoughts in regard to why it is so important that we listen to what health care experts have to say.
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- Mar/24/22 12:22:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree completely. There is really a number of fundamental flaws in this motion before the House today. Again, it assumes that politicians should be making public health policy. I personally do not agree with that. The Conservatives seem to think that should be the case.
Second of all, I believe that the decision should be data-driven and it should be accurate. Again, this motion, as I have pointed out, suffers from a number of inaccuracies, if not outright mistakes.
Finally, I would say that we have been through this before, where we get a temporary lull because of the public health measures and we get case counts coming down, so we prematurely move to relax public health measures. What have we seen? We see a flare-up again. I believe in the prudent, precautionary approach. I personally believe we should be moving very carefully and cautiously for the health of Canadians.
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- Mar/24/22 12:23:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you on your excellent work.
I think that the pandemic has shown how fragile the health care system is in Quebec and across Canada. We know that seniors in long-term care homes were hard hit. It was hard to find people to work in those facilities. There was not enough money.
Now that my colleague is in power or on the government's side, I would like to know whether he will acquiesce as soon as possible to the call of Quebec and every province in Canada to increase health transfers from 22% to 35% so that the same tragedies we experienced in Quebec and across Canada will not happen again during a future pandemic.
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- Mar/24/22 12:24:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure that Quebeckers are so grateful to the NDP for working co-operatively with the Liberals in the 1960s to bring them public, universal, comprehensive health care, which he clearly supports because he wants more money for it. That is because the NDP, unlike the Bloc Québécois, works constructively and positively in Parliament in order to deliver for Canadians, which is something they do not do.
Absolutely, the NDP is the party of health care. We are going to continue to fight for more federal contributions to get the federal government up to its 50% contribution to public health care in this country, as it should be.
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- Mar/24/22 12:25:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is good to see you in that chair. I am going to split my time with the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.
For two years, Canadians have been living with COVID-19 restrictions. That is two years of lockdowns, of not being able to visit loved ones and of not being able to travel. It is two years of isolation. While Canadians understood the need for various restrictions applied during the pandemic, despite the lack of consistency, despite the mixed messaging and despite the confusion, Canadians have done what was asked of them.
However, today what they can no longer be expected to live with is the indefinite nature of these restrictions and timelines and the lack of data. They are noticing that leaders across the country, 10 provinces, are following the evidence and advice from public health officials, evidence that supports ending the mandates.
Provincial leaders have lifted or have plans to lift mandates in their provinces. The only government in Canada that has no plan to lift restrictions is this one. I am sure that members opposite will argue that their compulsion for continued mandates is somehow justified by public health officials, but Canada's own top doctor says that the omicron variant is a game-changer and that it has forced us to rethink vaccine mandates.
Dr. Tam said that we are at a “very important juncture” and that COVID-19 policies need to shift from “an emphasis on requirements to recommendations.” That is the government's own adviser. The government's own adviser says that federal vaccine mandates are under review now, because the science tells us the COVID-19 vaccine, or at least the first two doses, offers very little protection against the transmission of the variant.
Advice once valued by the government is now suddenly ignored in an attempt to drive division and dehumanize those who do not agree, doubling down on a tactic that some members of their own caucus have called out.
The travel vaccination mandate has prevented approximately six million Canadians from travel within Canada and it prevents them from flying out of Canada. They cannot travel. They cannot visit family and friends. They cannot take international vacations or even fly across the country. They cannot live ordinary lives.
Canada is the only country in the developed world that bans citizens from air travel. If we couple that with Dr. Tam's statements of re-evaluating mandates, one can deduct that the rationale for a ban on air travel is no longer justified. However, the government seems to have a different view, one that suits its political narrative. It may see travel as a luxury, but what about work across federally regulated industries?
Let me tell members about one of those industries that is pleading for fairness, common sense and conditions in line with anywhere else in the world today, even with its competitors in our own airports: the air travel industry. The Minister of Transport's mandate for vaccinations, enforced through interim orders, was implemented swiftly across the industry. Despite this being a matter of health and safety, employers developed and implemented mandatory vaccination policies without consultation.
The majority of airline workers complied with their employer's policies, while other workers were placed on unpaid leave without benefits or access to medical benefits. The industry fully supported efforts to ensure the safety of workplaces, workers and the public, as did all members of the House.
It is important to point out that unvaccinated people are being disproportionately penalized. These workers were required to work during the pandemic. In many cases, they kept going to work during the pandemic, unlike other workers whose workplaces were closed but who were able to continue working from home. These workers flew personal protective equipment to other parts of the world, ensured the supply of basic necessities and even worked under conditions where their health and safety were not protected.
In the travel sector, vaccinations ended up being the only tool employers relied on in the fight against COVID‑19, yet there are many tools to achieve the same goal. We know that. We have used them in other industries.
We kept each other safe. Most were unimpeded by severe outbreaks, and at a time when employers were experiencing worker shortages, particularly in this industry, they were terminating experienced and seasoned workers. Employers and workers have the equal responsibility to keep workplaces safe, yet the failure to do so results in uneven and disproportionate consequences.
For workers, the consequences of the loss of employment of well-paying, unionized jobs, those with benefits and pensions, will impact not just the individual but the entire family. It is unlikely these workers will find other employment that is unionized and stable, which will inevitably impact their family's standard of living. No one should lose their livelihood because of personal beliefs, particularly when alternatives to reach the same goal exist. The government knows that.
We think workers who kept the industry flying during the most challenging times of the pandemic deserve better. By creating an end timeline, an end to this interim order, and a path forward, the government can eliminate the need for these employers to terminate the frontline workers we depended upon and celebrated during the height of this pandemic. It could do that today. Cases of the variant are receding in most parts of the country, and advocates for continued mandates are claiming the mantle of science to justify political positions instead of evaluating the scientific findings that have turned up in each one of our provinces and across the globe.
Just this week, a member of the House stood and offered masking advice to other members in a contrived attempt to virtue signal superiority, despite the clear rules of this place. These are based, of course, on expert evidence, presumably science, the same science the government is relying on, and which are, it is also worth noting, completely in line with what happens outside the door of this place. That exchange not only suggests a disdain for those who follow the rules the member does not like, it creates an arbitrary standard of opinion masquerading as science. That is exactly what we are hearing today. It is gross. It is purposeful, and in some respects, it speaks to a continued deliberate attack on those who do not share the views of the government. We have seen that.
When Canadians see behaviour like that, they lose their confidence in those who are responsible for public health decisions. The trust erodes. It suggests to them that the same disdain displayed for members may extend to people outside of the House. Perhaps it does because, in the absence of any data, benchmarks, timelines and plans to end these mandates, there really is nothing to suggest that continued mandates are not just an opinion of the government. If they are, that is troubling. If they are not not, they require an explanation that has not been shared, other than talking points about science.
The intention of the mandates were predicated on increased vaccination rates. We have among the highest in the world. When that narrative is no longer supported because of those high rates, the goal posts move. This week it became about surgical backlogs, which is tragic and most certainly a capacity issue, but is still inexplicable in relation to the continued federal mandate. Then it was simply a shoulder shrug from the Minister of Health, while he stated that COVID is still here. Of course, it is still here. It will always likely be here, but I hope that has not become the benchmark by which to determine when to lift these mandates or drop these restrictions. I hope that is not the case. I hope we are not hearing about COVID zero from the government.
It is time to end these unjustified mandates. I hope members of the House realize that public experts, their own public experts, the government's own public experts, have said that it is safe. The provinces have said that it is safe. Public health officials have said it is safe. I hope they agree with the Conservatives and lift the mandates so Canadians can get back to work and get their lives back.
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- Mar/24/22 12:34:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we read the motion and listen to the members from the Conservative Party, it is abundantly clear they have used their political science to make the determination that all federal mandates need to end today. I do not know if they are feeling somewhat obligated because of their presence at the blockade protest, but I suggest it is highly irresponsible.
My question for the member is this: Does she not recognize she cannot just wish the pandemic away, that there is still a need? If we look at what is happening in some of our provinces, there is great concern regarding other variants. I wonder if the member is prepared to say today that we no longer have a pandemic. Would she not at least try to keep an open mind as to what the health experts are telling us?
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- Mar/24/22 12:35:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the member that the national immunization task force never called for vaccine mandates. The Public Health Agency of Canada never called for vaccine mandates. The Prime Minister himself, while gallivanting across the country during an election in the midst of this pandemic, said that he would not impose vaccine mandates.
Does the member know when vaccine mandates were imposed? It was when it was politically expedient, so I am not going to take lessons from the government on political science. That is exactly what it is practising with this pandemic. That is exactly what we have seen for the last number of months. It is a shame. It is a shame for Canadian workers that it would turn its back on them.
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- Mar/24/22 12:36:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my question is very simple.
Considering what we have been hearing in recent days, what public health authorities are saying in Quebec, and the fact that there is now a sixth wave, I can understand the feeling of being totally fed up that people are talking about.
However, I feel like we are not connecting. On the one hand, we are hearing about concrete solutions with health transfers to deal with a sixth wave. On the other hand, we are being encouraged to listen to our constituents and, because they are fed up, some want to let them shed more measures.
I am trying to understand. The word “immediately” is used in the motion. Could we perhaps take a slightly more long-term view?
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- Mar/24/22 12:37:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not just Conservatives calling for this. It is public health officials. It is public health officials from across the 10 provinces that have already lifted their mandates. There are countries around the world where somebody who may not be vaccinated can get on an airplane. We are the only place where that does not happen.
Absolutely, it should be immediate. In fact, it should have been yesterday. We can talk about the sixth, the seventh and the eighth waves, but every single public health official, including Canada's chief public health officer, has said that it is time to live with this pandemic. It is time to give Canadians their lives back.
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- Mar/24/22 12:38:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to my colleague's attention, after her great speech, a conversation on an Ottawa radio station yesterday with an individual responsible for tracking the variants in the sewage treatment in Ottawa. The numbers have gone up.
The individual was asked about whether we should be doing what we are doing right now in terms of lightening the mandates and giving people their lives back. His comment was that it is not a problem that the rates are rising because immunity levels are rising at the same time. I wonder if the member would like to make a comment on that.
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- Mar/24/22 12:38:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, certainly the gentleman on the radio is in line with public health officials, including Dr. Tam and health officials from across the 10 provinces that have lifted restrictions. At some point, we have to give Canadians their livelihoods back. We have to stop being vindictive about the punishments of mandates, particularly if they are not justified and if there is no scientific purpose to say they reduce any kind of spread.
There are people who are not working. There are people who have lost their livelihoods. There are people who have lost entire incomes for entire families. They cannot return to work. We ought to think about that.
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- Mar/24/22 12:39:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of our Conservative motion calling on the NDP-Liberal government to immediately lift all federal vaccine mandates.
When one listens to the members opposite and their friends in the NDP, we hear it is all about science, and that they are following the science. I ask members of the NDP-Liberal government this: Where is the science? Where is the data? Where is the evidence?
For example, where is the evidence that an unvaccinated trucker, who spends most of his or her day working in isolation, is a public health risk, which somehow merits them being fired from their job? It does not take much delving into science. Indeed, it simply takes a matter of applying basic common sense to recognize what an absurdity that is, but that is precisely the policy of the NDP-Liberal government.
In the face of vaccine mandates that have infringed so significantly upon the rights and freedoms of Canadians, the very least Canadians could expect is compelling scientific evidence to back them up to demonstrate a rational connection between the mandates, stopping transmissibility and keeping Canadians safe from COVID.
After six months, the government has failed to tender any science, data or evidence whatsoever to demonstrate such a rational connection. There is a very simple reason for that, and that is because there is no rational connection. These mandates have nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics, politics of the worst kind.
Millions of Canadians have suffered as a result. As a result of the NDP-Liberal government's punitive vaccine mandates, millions of Canadians are unable to travel freely within Canada. They are unable to get on a plane or a train. These same Canadians, who are our friends, colleagues and neighbours, cannot leave the country for work, travel or health reasons, or to be reunited with loved ones. They are stuck here at home.
This is a serious, unprecedented violation of the mobility rights of Canadians and is contrary to section 6 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. When one thinks about not being able to travel within one's country, of not being able to be able to leave one's country, we think of the former Soviet Union, East Germany and Communist China, but this is Canada, and this is the reality millions of Canadians have been living through for the past six months.
So extreme are these NDP-Liberal vaccine mandates that Canada is the only country in the developed world that restricts air travel on the basis of vaccination status, the only country in the developed democratic world. Under the NDP-Liberal government, Canada is now an international outlier in restricting the freedom of movement of its citizens.
Again, it got to this point not because of science but because of an arbitrary policy of the Prime Minister, who said some months ago that it was the policy objective of his government to impose the most restrictive COVID measures in the world, no matter how unrelated and unconnected to the science they might be.
We are not talking about a severe infringement just on mobility rights; we have also seen tens of thousands of Canadians lose their jobs and the benefits they had paid into for their entire working lives, stripped of the dignity of work and the dignity of their career. They include men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who have fought bravely, putting their lives in harm's way to defend the freedoms that Canadians enjoy, who are now being threatened with dishonourable discharge because of a personal medical decision that they made. This is happening in Canada.
What these mandates are really about is control. It is about the government saying that Canadians must do as it says, and if they do not, they will be unable to travel, they will lose their jobs and benefits, they will be vilified and they will be treated as second-class citizens. How wrong. How un-Canadian.
Everywhere around the world, mandates are being lifted. In all 10 provinces, they have already been lifted or will be lifted, as well as in most of Europe. Yesterday even New Zealand, which had a completely failed approach of getting towards zero COVID, announced that is is lifting its mandates—even New Zealand. Here, we have a government that has not even provided a plan, has not even provided any metrics by which these mandates will be lifted. Instead, the government has allocated $37.4 million over the next three years to make what were supposedly intended to be temporary measures into permanent ones.
Canadians do not want to be controlled. They want to take back control of their lives. They want their freedom back, and they want it now. The only thing standing in their way is the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government, its punitive, discriminatory, unscientific mandates that have caused enormous harm to Canadians.
When the Prime Minister talked about imposing the most restrictive mandates in the world, if the Prime Minister's definition of success is being punitive, he has certainly succeeded at that, at great harm to everyday, law-abiding, taxpaying Canadians who are upstanding members of their community.
End the mandates and end them now.
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- 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 12:50:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect to the hon. parliamentary secretary, it might have been a good question if there was any basis in fact to support it, but the problem is that there is no basis in fact to support it, because it has never been the position of the Conservative Party to impose these types of restrictions on Canadians to limit the ability of Canadians to enter and leave and re-enter Canada.
These are unprecedented measures, they are draconian measures and they are inherently un-Canadian measures.
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- Mar/24/22 12:50:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton today spoke a lot during his speech about the obligations we have to Canadians and the freedoms that Canadians are entitled to. I want to read to him what Dr. Katharine Smart, who is the CMA president, had to say.
She said, “While governments and Canadians are hoping to move past the pandemic, an exhausted, depleted health workforce is struggling to provide timely, necessary care to patients and make progress through a significant backlog of tests, surgeries and regular care.”
My question for the member is this: What do we owe our health care professionals, who have stood on the front line and worked so hard? Do we not owe them that? Further, in addition to protecting our health care workers, I would ask the member whether or not he would be supportive of increasing the health transfers to provinces, as the premiers have all asked for, to 35%. Would he be supportive of that?
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- Mar/24/22 12:52:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my brother is a health care worker, a medical doctor, so I appreciate the important role that health care workers played on the front lines throughout COVID. What I would say to them, and what we owe to them, is that we do not fire them the next day after they were there on the front lines.
The member speaks about COVID being here and says that Canadians are tired. Yes, we are tired; yes, it is here; and yes, it is going to be here for a long time. The questions that must be answered are on these mandates. Is there a scientific basis to support them? Is there a rational connection? Are they actually making a difference? All 10 medical health officers across Canada have said no and that it is time to move on.
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- Mar/24/22 12:53:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, an hon. member speaking earlier used a line that stuck out to me. She said that what the Liberals have presented to the House and to Canadians as a whole is “opinion masquerading as science”.
When we see the difference between political science and medical science, I believe we certainly see where this government has followed the former, the political science. In other words, it has done whatever was politically advantageous to it at the time. Right now, 10 provinces have lifted their mandates and countries all over the world have lifted their mandates, yet this government insists that truckers cannot cross the border and come back into Canada without a vaccine, and it has no science, zero science, to reinforce these mandates.
My question to the member is this: Does he see an ounce of evidence or scientific proof that these mandates should in fact continue in place as they are now?
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- Mar/24/22 12:54:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for Lethbridge. She is a great champion of freedom.
In short, there is no evidence that the Liberals have tendered. The ball is in their court. Where is the evidence? There is no evidence. What they are more interested in doing is playing COVID theatre, which they do in this place every single day.
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- Mar/24/22 12:54:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pickering—Uxbridge.
It is truly amazing to listen to some of the Conservatives, especially my friend from St. Albert—Edmonton. In responding to a question from my colleague in regard to travelling, he tried to give the false impression that the Conservative Party, at no point in time, wanted to limit travelling outside of Canada or coming into Canada.
That is the problem with the Conservative Party. It is that there is that extreme right element, and then there are those who want to be more on the progressive side of the Conservative Party. The member who made that statement is the one who was standing out there when we had the blockade, preaching, at least through the media, in support of the blockade.
As for misinformation, we have what he stated today. We were all here inside the chamber when the Conservative Party was asking the federal government to put in more restrictions on travel. He does not have to take my word for it. I know he can read. He can read Hansard, and he will see that this is in fact a fact.
I would like to take a look at what the Conservative Party is actually saying today through its opposition motion. It is in essence a proclamation to all Canadians from the Conservative Party in Canada that they should not worry and that mandates are no longer necessary. They are not saying to give due diligence. They are not saying to review science or consult with health care professionals. They are not saying that at all—
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