44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 24, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to rise today in the House to address this very important topic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has obviously impacted everyday life across Canada and around the world for two years now. It has also put our health care systems to the test, disrupted our economy, and altered our social and economic interactions.
In response to the crisis, the Government of Canada took serious measures to protect Canadians' health and safety. As the pandemic evolves, it is important to keep reviewing the effectiveness of the measures we have taken.
I understand what the Conservative Party and the House itself want, and I understand the importance today of reviewing various mandates, such as the vaccine mandate, because it is something the Government of Canada does every day. This is part of the ongoing review of the measures in place to fight COVID-19.
As I said earlier, the Government of Canada is constantly reviewing the measures and will continue to do so with a view to protecting Canadians' health and safety using the least restrictive measures possible, in order to minimize the impact of these measures on our individual, personal, family, economic and social lives.
There are real consequences to adding or eliminating any public health measure. That is why, before imposing these measures, we have always done a thorough analysis based on scientific evidence and consistently reviewed our decisions. It is important to point out that the situation today is totally different from the situation we faced in March 2020.
In the past two years, Canadians have rigorously followed public health measures to protect one another. Most of them got vaccinated, wore masks, physically distanced, and stayed home when they were sick.
Thanks to these often difficult efforts, we entered a phase where it is easier to participate in activities in person, to attend gatherings and to travel. We all did our part. We learned lessons. As a result, we are now better prepared to move forward.
As Dr. Tam reminded us again recently, COVID-19 is here to stay. We are monitoring the omicron subvariants and in particular the BA.2 subvariant, which have led to an increase in the number of cases in many parts of Canada and the rest of the world.
Although the number of serious COVID-19 cases is dropping in Canada and most other countries, several hospitals in Canada are still under considerable stress. The pandemic is therefore still putting pressure on our health care system and our health care workers.
We need to be able manage this pressure when public health measures are lifted in many parts of the country. We must also be aware that, during this transition period, we do not all see the lifting of health measures in the same light. Some people are thrilled to get back to their usual activities, while others are more careful and sometimes far less comfortable.
In the past two years, Canadians have shown incredible flexibility and great resilience, and they will continue to do so. They will make choices that reflect their own reality, based on factors such as their personal situation, their aversion to risk, their COVID-19 vaccination status, the number of COVID-19 cases in their environment, underlying medical issues, and the risk associated with contact with friends and others who are infected. For example, some people could very well continue to wear a mask, even if it is not mandatory in certain places.
We therefore encourage everyone to continue making informed decisions in order to protect themselves, their family and their community, and to respect others’ decisions by showing compassion.
Screening tests are among the tools that will help Canadians make informed decisions in order to manage their own health and safety. I would like to take a few minutes of your time to discuss them.
Rapid testing, in particular, empowers Canadians by providing them with the ability, on their own terms, to determine quickly and easily whether they have COVID-19, thereby building confidence and supporting reopening efforts.
Ensuring equitable and efficient access to COVID‑19 rapid tests will remain a priority because Canadians are increasingly relying on them to make decisions about things such as whether they should visit a loved one, particularly someone in a long-term care facility, send their kids to school or organize a family gathering.
The federal government started buying and providing rapid tests, free of charge, to the provinces and territories as soon as October 2020. In last December alone, the Government of Canada delivered more than 35 million rapid antigen tests to provinces and territories. Another 140 million landed in Canada in January.
In light of the growing demand for rapid tests across the country, the Government of Canada also introduced Bill C-10, An Act respecting certain measures related to COVID-19. The bill, which received royal assent earlier this month, will provide Health Canada with $2.5 billion in funding and the statutory authority to purchase and distribute rapid tests across Canada. With this funding, the Government of Canada will be able to ensure Canadians continue to have the rapid tests that they need, free of charge and in all provinces and territories.
In addition to supplying provinces and territories and indigenous communities, the funding also allows Health Canada to continue to provide tests for distribution through important partners such as the Canadian Red Cross, chambers of commerce and pharmacies. This will allow schools to stay open and help protect our children, as well as our parents or grandparents in long-term care. With this funding, the Government of Canada will put in place critical contracts in a highly competitive global market to purchase efficient and sufficient quantities of rapid tests to meet the anticipated demand across the country.
As we continue to manage COVID-19, the Government of Canada is also making use of waste-water surveillance to help us understand the community transmission of COVID-19. This waste-water surveillance is an extraordinary tool, which PHAC, the Public Health Agency of Canada, is using independently of clinical testing so that we can learn whether the virus is increasing or decreasing in a community by testing the community's sewage.
Waste-water testing is conducted in collaboration with communities and local health authorities to help inform decision-making and public health guidance. The Government of Canada's scientists are working together on a community-level waste-water surveillance program in 65 locations across the country. Samples are then sent to the Public Health Agency of Canada's national microbiology laboratory in Winnipeg, and I know some of our members of Parliament will be happy to be reminded of the pride we have in that laboratory, for analysis and detection of the virus that causes COVID-19, including variants of concern.
Waste-water testing provides unique opportunities to detect and monitor emerging variants of interest and concern. With limitations related to clinical testing, for example, molecular and PCR testing across Canada, waste-water is therefore an important surveillance tool to provide a picture of the community burden related to COVID-19.
The testing and monitoring tools I just mentioned and briefly described all help orient our public health measures, particularly those in effect at the Canadian border. These measures, together with all the other COVID‑19 measures, are based on scientific data and evidence about the current epidemiological situation in Canada and around the world.
That is why, as of April 1, fully vaccinated travellers will not have to present COVID‑19 test results prior to entering Canada by air, land or sea.
We will obviously continue to review and adjust our border measures, as we have always done, in an effort to keep Canadians safe while ensuring efficiency at our borders for both travellers and trade.
Everything I just mentioned has helped put us in a position to be able to manage COVID-19 more effectively in the coming months. The measures will continue to change along with the epidemiological situation.
All the knowledge and tools we acquired over the past two years, including the strategic use of testing and tracing, as well as changing border measures based on the most recent data, will be very useful to us.
That being said, it is very important to remember that vaccination continues to be the most important tool for protecting against the serious consequences and spread of COVID-19. Over 85% of Canadians have already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and approximately 81% of Canadians are fully vaccinated. Nearly 18 million people received a booster dose, and approximately 57% of children aged 5 to 11 have now received at least one dose of the vaccine. Vaccination will continue to be essential as new variants and subvariants continue to emerge.
When it comes to COVID-19, we cannot afford to become complacent. This virus does not follow a predictable path. There will continue to be ups and downs. There will continue to be new variants, and there will continue to be new waves. We have to be prepared to manage that. This is a matter of responsibility and transparency. As well as we have done so far, we can always do better. In the short term, that means continuing to get vaccinated, including boosters.
About three million eligible individuals in Canada have not yet received the first or second dose of the primary vaccine series. In addition, approximately 60% of adults have received a booster shot, which considerably reduces the risk of serious consequences. That is not enough though. Even though we would like to put COVID‑19 behind us, we cannot take our success for granted.
In conclusion, over the past two years, the Government of Canada's approach to addressing COVID‑19 has always been based on scientific data, the epidemiological situation, and the precautionary principle, and that will not change.
We will continue to base our policies on the latest data and lessons learned over the past two years. Canadians expect nothing less. Even though many communities are beginning to reconsider their public health measures, we must acknowledge that COVID‑19 is still very much a part of our lives, which means we must continue to be careful.
As Dr. Tam said before the Standing Committee on Health on Monday, the epidemiological situation in Canada is improving but it is unstable. We have seen this in Europe, where there has been a resurgence of COVID-19 very recently.
The same thing could happen here in Canada because of the presence of omicron and the emergence of the BA.2 subvariant, which is 50% more transmissible and contagious than the original omicron variant.
As such, even as we carefully return to the many activities we have missed over the past two years, we must not let our guard down. Vaccination continues to be one of the most effective ways available to all Canadians to protect themselves and their family. This, combined with masking and other personal protection measures, will remain important in the weeks to come.
As I conclude my remarks today, I want to acknowledge the full range of emotions that we are feeling right now as jurisdictions adjust the public health measures that we have lived with on and off for two years now.
I strongly encourage everyone to be prudent and patient and compassionate toward others as we continue to adapt to the evolving pandemic.
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- Mar/24/22 1:06:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is certainly a lot that could be unpacked in terms of falsehoods, misdirection and avoiding the very clear question. I am confident, and in fact I know, that many Canadians from Liberal ridings have been reaching out to Conservatives across the country, desperate for somebody to listen, desperate for somebody to hear their concerns. Those individuals are among the thousands of public servants who have been fired by the government because of a vaccine mandate.
Members opposite laugh when we bring forward the concerns of these Canadians within this place. However, what is the member's message to the people of his constituency who lost their job because of the federal vaccine mandate that the Prime Minister promised he would not implement but then a few months later did, right before an election? What would he say to the constituents of MPs across the country and the members of the public service who have been fired because of the government's mandate?
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- Mar/24/22 2:59:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the health minister has been asked about 15 questions today, but he has not answered a single one, so I hope he can answer this one from a young woman named Nancy from my riding. Nancy is an indigenous single mother. She works for the federal government, 100% from home. She is vaccine hesitant for personal reasons. Like members of our armed forces, she is now being told that she cannot go to work and is essentially being fired for her beliefs.
Nancy and others are running out of options. Will the minister show some compassion and end the mandate for people such as Nancy so they can work from home?
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- Mar/24/22 3:05:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, from the beginning of this question period I have wanted to ask the Minister of Health some questions I had previously prepared. Unfortunately, I am going to change them a bit.
I would like the Minister of Health to look me in the eye and tell me truthfully right now that it was the federal vaccine mandate that saved so many lives and prevented so many hospitalizations in Canada from the start of the pandemic; that this was not due to the vaccine passports of the various provinces; and that the provinces that are lifting these vaccine passports have data that is rather more credible than his to justify doing so.
When will the federal government lift federal mandates?
When will the federal minister listen to the science across Canada and not just the political science?
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- Mar/24/22 3:07:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like him to table that here in the House. He offered to. I would like him to table every study showing that scientific experts called for federal vaccine mandates.
Dr. Njoo and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization said that a vaccine mandate was not necessary and that voluntary vaccination should be encouraged. Those are the facts and figures.
The Minister of Health keeps telling us there are studies proving his vaccine mandate was justified by science. We want to see those studies now, and we want an answer. When will he end the vaccine mandate?
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- Mar/24/22 3:13:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on an exchange that took place during question period with the Minister of Health, in which he promised to table documents in the House. I invite him to table all the documents that have anything to do with all the numbers he mentioned, including 8,000, 25,000, 700,000, 735,000, 300,000 and 400,000, and especially the 10% to 30% of patients he told us will suffer from long COVID.
I would also invite the Minister of Health to table the documents that justify the federal vaccine mandate.
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- Mar/24/22 3:31:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think this is the first time I have gotten in on today's opposition day debate on mask mandates, so I will ask my hon colleague from Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook a question.
He and I are from coastal ridings with a lot of tourism, which we love, and I have heard a number of members opposite say that mask mandates in the federal civil service are blocking tourism. I wonder if the hon. member would agree with me that it would have been much more fruitful today to spend a whole day talking about what the tourism sector really needs. It needs financial support now. It needs to know that as we move out of the COVID restrictions, we will give help to businesses that are going under. I do not think a mask mandate debate for an entire day is what the tourism sector would have wanted.
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- Mar/24/22 4:33:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is nice to see you in the chair again, and I hope you are doing well today.
It is always an honour to rise in the House to speak on matters. Today we are speaking on the opposition motion of our colleagues in the Conservative Party. Reading directly from the motion, it calls for the lifting of “all federal vaccine mandates”. It offers a few rationales for that point of view. Namely, because the provinces and territories have either put in place a plan to do so or have already done so, the federal government should act accordingly.
The issue this ignores entirely is one of jurisdiction. Provinces and territories should continue and will continue to take decisions that are within their jurisdiction based on the local health situation. Of course, public health agencies at a local level will inform that process with their engagement with the chief medical officer of every respective province or territory. That is the system. That is how it works. That is how it should work in a federation.
The federal government, for its part, will operate, as I say, in its jurisdiction on the question of mandates and on the advice of the public health experts at the Public Health Agency of Canada. I am not sure if members have noted this for Hansard, but I will. I want to thank public officials at PHAC. Throughout this pandemic, they have stood up in ways that are immeasurable and in ways that history will recognize as a true contribution to Canadian public policy and to an emergency response.
Where I want to focus my attention today is not so much on the politics of those questions. I want to take a step back, if I could, and ask a fundamental question. It is a surprise to me that this issue keeps coming up. My colleagues in the Bloc have not raised it, and my colleagues in the NDP have not raised it. They may have raised it when the opportunity posed itself, but they have not made it a motion. They have not decided to devote an entire opposition day to it.
My friends in the Conservative Party have, and they continue to devote themselves to this issue. Today's question period, for example, is a case in point. Almost the entire duration of question period was taken up by focusing on this one issue. There are so many other things happening in Canada, and internationally too, that they could have raised, but they kept going back to this.
I am not sure why. I have some thoughts on the matter. I think it has everything to do with the fact that, at some point in the history of the Conservative Party, it became a libertarian party. What is at the core of the philosophy of libertarianism? I know I only have a few minutes, but there are a few insights that need to be put on the record.
Philosopher Robert Nozick is perhaps the most noted libertarian. He said, “There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more.”
I offer that. I am not a Conservative, but I have Conservative friends and frequently they will resort to arguments about individualism. We need to understand a philosophic rationale for libertarianism, which Robert Nozick provides. It is about the individual for him and nothing more.
In political terms, we can look to Ronald Reagan, but especially to Margaret Thatcher. The transition in the Conservative Party started modestly in the 1980s but especially continued in the nineties and continues into the modern day, and Margaret Thatcher was absolutely instrumental in that change. She said:
...who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business....
Here is another point of view that emphasizes the individual. It is all about self-reliance. The state's job is to get out of the way. The state can provide for a few basic things such as police, a military and basic taxation. Apart from that, apart from offering this idea of what Nozick called the “night-watchman” state, it is about individuals being left alone to pursue their interests as they see fit.
Particularly, as it relates to mandates, when Nozick said, “Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others”, I think that is what provides the Conservatives with so much concern about mandates, that it represents state overreach. It represents the state interfering in the lives of individuals and trampling on their individual rights to pursue their interests as they see fit. It is an interesting idea.
Much has been written about libertarianism, but its weakness has become clear during emergencies and crises, particularly public health crises like COVID. So much so that an ardent disciple of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, said that in fact there is “such a thing as society.” There are individuals, yes, but they live and exist within a society, and those individuals have a duty to one another. That is where I think, as a point of departure, we have to begin the discussion on mandates.
It is not as if we and those who support the introduction and maintenance of federal vaccine mandates do not recognize the importance of individuals. Of course, we do, as well as individual rights. That philosophy is also core to the Liberal Party of Canada, but mandates in the context of COVID‑19, which is still with us and is global, which is what a pandemic is by definition, are key and they are not forced vaccination. Mandates reflect a public health duty. Mandates have saved thousands of lives. In Canada, taken with vaccinations, mandates have helped to save the lives of no less than 400,000 people according to the estimates of experts. Epidemiologists and other public health experts have put that number forward. In the United States, the number is even higher obviously. Over a million lives were saved there. In Europe, the same sort of narrative follows.
Another way to understand the value of mandates is to follow what the philosopher T.M. Scanlon said, “If we can prevent something very bad from happening to someone by making a slight or even moderate sacrifice, it would be wrong not to do so.” Therefore, mandates ask all of us to make a moderate sacrifice. That much is sure. Only the state has the ability to implement such a system, a vaccine mandate system, but that moderate sacrifice is absolutely worth it when we understand that the result of that leads to lives being saved.
Our colleague who just spoke cited the very well-known and well-respected commentator on Canadian public affairs, who is also the public health specialist for The Globe and Mail. When André Picard talks about, for instance, the elderly and those who are immunocompromised still facing a heightened risk, even though we see declining rates of hospitalization and infection rates, we have to remain vigilant and the federal government needs to maintain a broad perspective as part of the calculus as to whether or not vaccine mandates still have a place in Canada.
As we just heard, it is important for the Public Health Agency of Canada to, among other things, assess the international epidemiology. Of course, COVID‑19 remains a pandemic. For that reason, operating in its area of jurisdiction, understanding the international situation, not just the domestic one, the advice given to the federal government is that vaccine mandates still have a role to play.
For the Conservatives, this apparently represents a limitation of individual freedom and state overreach, but it should not. Vaccine mandates are about saving lives and that is a duty that we should all live up to. We are individuals who live in a society. Without adhering to a duty to one another, a collective responsibility, individuals cannot thrive, so what I call for, as a final point here, is to recognize the importance of duty in our politics and not just individualism.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak and look forward to questions.
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- Mar/24/22 4:57:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the motion states, “the House call on the government to immediately lift all federal vaccine mandates”. I asked one of the member's colleagues who the medical experts were who were saying the federal government should lift every mandate effective immediately. The member came back by saying that it was Dr. Tam.
Dr. Tam is Canada's public health officer. Dr. Tam indicated that the federal government was examining all of the vaccine mandates when she stated, “I think the federal government has taken a very precautionary, thoughtful approach. They're looking at a phased approach of removing some of these policies. I know these policies are being reviewed and re-examined as we speak.” Not all provinces have ended mandates. It is false to make that statement.
Why do the Conservatives stand alone in the House demanding that the mandates end today? Who are the health experts they are listening to?
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