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House Hansard - 48

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 29, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 48 - Mar/29/22
Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)
  • Mar/29/22 7:01:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening to let all members, and all Canadians, know that it is time to end the mandates. This issue is so much bigger than any one individual piece of the pandemic restrictions we have seen over the course of the last two years. It is bigger than any one hardship, but the collective hardships that Canadians have faced amount to so much. The decisions that the government has made over this time, as we have heard time and time again, have been grounded in science. Hon. members in this place are expected to be honourable at all times, to be honest, to not mislead the House and to be forthright, so this evening I am going to give the parliamentary secretary the opportunity to tell Canadians what the government's plan is. On which date is the government going to end federal mandates? We know that every single one of the provinces have either ended their vaccine and mask mandates, or they have announced the date they are going to do that. Every single one of them has done that. Those decisions were made by the chief medical officer of health of each of those provinces, guided by the science. We have 10 of the provinces, with 10 chief medical officers of health, all agreeing that it is safe to lift those restrictions based on the science. The same should be true for the federal chief medical officer of health and for the federal government. Instead, the hardships Canadians have faced over the last two years persist, with those such as the federal public servants who have been put out of work because of those restrictions or a medical choice. Some even received their first dose in a two-dose series and had a reaction, or they were not able to proceed with their second shot. Some were not prepared to disclose their vaccination status to their employer. That is true for federal public servants, RCMP and members of the Canadian forces. We know that Canadians have the strictest domestic travel regulations in the world. Canadians cannot take a plane to fly to visit an ailing loved one, see the birth of a child, mourn the passing of a family member or a close friend if they do not check the boxes that the government has set out. This is the federal government, when the provinces have said that it is safe to waive those restrictions. Our tourism sector businesses have been incredibly hard hit. Speaking with members of the Frontier Duty Free Association, members in my riding and their representatives from across Canada, I have been hearing about how they are at risk of losing their businesses and their homes because of these continued regulations, but the science says that it is safe to lift the restrictions. I look forward to the parliamentary secretary telling me all the good things and about the lives that have been saved. We all celebrate saved lives, but now we are at a point two years in where the science tells us it is safe. It is safe to lift those restrictions. We need to shift to a model of personal responsibility, like so many Canadians have done over the last two years, by following the rules, staying home, masking up and, for many, getting vaccinated. Now that personal responsibility is theirs to bear, and we as a society are prepared to follow the science, to end the mask mandate and end the vaccine mandates because that is what the science says.
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