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- Beaches—East York
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If one agrees in principle with a bill, and if one takes one's role seriously, not as a cabinet minister who is seized with government legislation but as a member of Parliament considering backbencher and private members' business, one should send to committee the legislation we agree with in principle and we could work out the details.
I am certainly open to amending the legislation based on the details, but surely we should not kill a bill at second reading that has merit in principle. We have just lived through our most serious health crisis ever, and here is a bill to make sure we are more prepared next time.
The conversation for today is that it sounds great, but we are going to kill it right now before we have experts, provincial ministers and PHAC attend committee. We do not actually want to think about this issue again. We just want to rail in a political way about an independent review.
Therefore, let me turn to the need for an independent review. Of course there should be an independent review. The NDP referenced SARS, and good on its members for referencing the independent SARS Commission led by then Justice Campbell. There was also a national advisory committee, which was a separate dual-track process under Health Canada, led by David Naylor. There were recommendations from that national advisory committee that were implemented ultimately by the government. That is why we have the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Forgive me if I am astounded at the lack of history from my colleagues who say we need some independent review, and therefore we need to kill this piece of legislation. No, we need both. In this particular instance, the core accountability to a law like this is not in the review function. That is laughable. The core accountability in this bill, Bill C-293, is parliamentary accountability. The government should be accountable to us as Parliament with respect to its pandemic prevention and preparedness efforts.
The member for Port Moody—Coquitlam said that we need more emphasis on nurses. Guess what. This bill would require that the government table, every three years, to us in Parliament, a pandemic prevention preparedness plan that speaks to supporting local public health and primary care capacity building. Yes, it speaks to nurses. It also speaks to the working conditions of essential workers across all sectors.
The government should be creating these pandemic prevention preparedness strategies and then tabling those strategies to us in Parliament. If we kill this bill, yes, it means we could rail about an independent review. However, it functionally means that it would be this government and future governments that would create those strategies, and they would not be accountable to Parliament for those strategies.
For the same reason, we need climate accountability legislation. It does not mean some independent review of how climate change is occurring. It means that the government is accountable to Parliament for its climate action plan. Similarly, for the accountability mechanism in this bill, the government is accountable to us for its prevention and preparedness strategies.
I heard my colleague from Regina—Lewvan read out the “one health” approach and say that maybe it was a good idea but it sounded too international for him. We literally have a one health approach in Health Canada to prevent antimicrobial resistance.
If people are going to vote against this bill, please, just read it first. Do not read it for the first time in Parliament, while railing against it. We need a pandemic prevention preparedness plan, full stop. We need accountability to Parliament, full stop. All members know I have supported not only Conservative bills but also NDP bills to get to committee. My instinct and my role in this place, and I hope members see their role in the same way, is to get bills that we agree with in principle to committee so we can improve them.
Thanks for the time. I hope we all change our minds.
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Madam Speaker, I ask everyone to consider what the role of a member of Parliament is with respect to private members' business. I am not a member of the government. This is a private member's bill. For all of us across party lines who have introduced private members' bills, we know how much work goes in to them, the guidance we receive as a parliamentarians and the convention, as it were, if we respect it.
I heard my colleague for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan say that, in principle, he agrees. I heard the Bloc say that the intent is laudable. I heard NDP colleagues say that they agree with the general purpose of a pandemic prevention and preparedness strategy, but that it needs to be an independent review.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's work; we have always worked in a really collaborative way.
I would say I am open to a different approach in terms of how the review ought to be conducted and in terms of the powers of that review. Again, I started from a different perspective here. I looked at the SARS report, for example, from David Naylor, whom I consulted in the course of drafting this bill. When I looked at that report, the challenge was not the nature of the review; the challenge was the implementation of the lessons learned in the course of that review.
Therefore, if that SARS report, the Naylor report and the powers they had were greater than what an advisory committee would have here, then I entirely agree that there should be substantive powers to do that kind of review work and that kind of investigation to get at the right answer.
However, I think the core question we have to grapple with is not only how we learn the right lessons in the course of the review, but how we make sure this does not fall off the table, that it continues to be a serious political priority five years, 10 years and 30 years from now, and that we do not have a report like the SARS report that sits on the shelf, some of it implemented but most of it not, but a report that is significantly and substantively implemented. That was my core focus in putting this bill forward.
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Mr. Speaker, I think that question drives at something really important, which is that we cannot move ahead until we have learned the lessons of what is behind us. We are still living with COVID, but much of the government's response, at all levels, frankly, has been seen through in a serious way, so there are still serious public health conversations to be had. There are major crises in Ontario with respect to our health care capacity, as a result, in part, of the flu, but certainly still because of the pandemic. To that core question, though, of how we put ourselves on the best footing going forward, unquestionably we need to look at the past.
I would also emphasize, and I hope this holds true for all of us, that this should not be a points-scoring exercise. If there were missteps, if there were things that were done right or things that were done wrong, it is not a matter of us getting up and patting ourselves on the back or of those across the aisle scoring points. The goal of this bill is to say, in a very serious way, let us scrutinize what went right and what went wrong to inform what should come next.
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moved that Bill C-293, An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, as of today, we have lost over 45,000 Canadians to COVID, and millions of people around the world have died as a result of COVID. It has upended our lives in so many different ways, from isolation to school closures. It has upended businesses and caused major economic disruptions, reverberations that we still feel with difficult inflation and interest rate hikes that are challenging many households. The global impact on poverty rates and the upending of education around the world will have long-lasting and negative effects.
There was the increasing debt that governments around the world rightly took on to address this crisis in many respects. Both public and private debt also come with consequences. Fifty-seven per cent of Canadians whose debt increased attributed the increase to COVID. As a parliamentary intern in my office put it, even having just lived it first-hand, it is hard to wrap our heads around what we just experienced.
What can and should we do about all of that? What lessons should we learn? We have to be specific and clear, and put a framework in place to make sure we do not lose these lessons. Simply put, the message of this bill is that we need to learn the lessons from this pandemic in order to prevent and prepare for the next one. No, we are not done with COVID, but we have also lived through enough to learn from our pandemic response across all levels of government, and those lessons should inform our plans going forward.
What does the pandemic prevention and preparedness bill do? It does three things. First, it establishes a review of our COVID response, not just from the federal government's perspective but across all levels of government. The goal is to be comprehensive. Just to comment briefly on the scope of the review, the bill notes:
In conducting its review, the advisory committee is, among other things, to
(a) assess the capability of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Department of Health to respond to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic before and during the pandemic;
(b) in collaboration with provincial and municipal governments, assess the public health and pandemic response capabilities of those governments;
(c) assess the effectiveness of the exercise of powers under any applicable federal laws before, during and after the pandemic and of the coordination of measures taken under those laws; and
Importantly, and this is the broad element to bring to bear on lessons learned:
(d) analyse the health, economic and social factors relevant to the impact of the pandemic in Canada.
There has to be a review if we are going to learn the lessons of our government's response and the response of all governments.
How do we take those lessons and put them into a framework where we are going to see accountability, transparency and action on a going-forward basis? The second thing the bill does is it requires the Minister of Health to establish a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan. It is modelled on climate accountability legislation.
To my knowledge the first piece of climate accountability legislation that I reviewed was from a Conservative government in the U.K. in 2006, and we now have such a framework in place here in Canada. This bill takes a similar approach to say there has to be a transparent and accountable framework by which a government is obligated to table a plan to Parliament, to the Canadian public, and then update that plan on a regular basis. The bill suggests every three years. I went back and forth between three and five years. I think five years would be appropriate as well.
It obligates the Minister of the Health to establish a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan and to table a report. The bill sets out a long list of factors. This is where it was quite difficult actually, because I was drawing from a great amount of expertise out there, from the United Nations Environment Programme's report on preventing future pandemics, from IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and their workshop reports in relation to pandemic risk and how we prevent future pandemics, and certainly from the independent panel. It has a series of reports now on preparedness and response at the national level and also at the global level, and how we could strengthen those responses at all levels.
Taking those expert reports, and in consultation with some of the researchers behind those reports and certainly with Canadian health experts as well, the bill sets out a series of factors that the Minister of Health must consider in developing a plan. I am sure I missed some elements, which is partly why it is so important to get a bill like this to committee. The committee could, I hope in a non-partisan way, say what does not make sense or whether something was missed or how we could get it to the best place possible as a matter of what should be in or out of a plan as the health minister considers it.
As a starting point, obviously enough, what the health minister should do is identify the key drivers of pandemic risk and describe how Canadian activities, domestic and abroad, contribute to the risk.
We focus a lot in this House and, frankly, in the Canadian public around preparedness strategies, and that is part of what this bill would do as well. We do not talk enough about prevention, but we know that the costs of prevention are a small fraction of the significant human and economic costs of living through a pandemic. Therefore, there has to be a real strong focus on prevention.
There also has to be a commitment to ensure collaboration at all levels of government, because it is not enough in our federation for the federal government to take action on its own. Similar to climate action, and certainly with respect to mitigating pandemic risk and to preparing for pandemics, it cannot all be on the federal government, and we have learned that. It is unquestionably a lesson we have learned in the course of the response to COVID. Therefore, the bill would require the Minister of Health to ensure sustained collaboration between the Minister of Health, provincial governments and indigenous communities in the development of the plan, in order to align approaches and address any jurisdictional challenges.
Now, I probably could have been a little clearer with the language here, but the bill would also provide for training programs, including collaborative activities with other levels of government. What I had in mind there, and I think a committee could improve this, was simulation and table-talking exercises. It is not enough to have a piece of paper with a plan written down. We have to put that plan into action and learn where there are gaps in the plan. Where jurisdictional challenges arise, they can be addressed through a simulation exercise rather than as we live through a real-life pandemic.
Now, a critical element here, when we draw from the literature, is that the plan has to be based on a “one health” approach. For those who do not know what a “one health” approach is, it is a relatively simple idea, although it can be a challenge sometimes in how we apply it, because of how holistic it is. It is this idea that we cannot pull apart human health, animal health and environmental health, that these are interconnected ideas and we have to think of them as one health.
We know this, and if we read the literature from the United Nations Environment Programme, from IPBES or from any number of experts, including Canadian experts in zoonotic diseases, they will tell us that zoonosis presents the greatest risk in relation to pandemics. Taking deforestation as an example, the spillover risk that can occur when humans are obviously going to come into closer contact with animals as a result of that deforestation creates not only a challenge to the environment, as it is a question of environmental health, but also then a question of human health, because of that spillover risk. When we run down a list of factors, and there are different reports on this, overwhelmingly the focus has to be on a “one health” approach.
I will read from the United Nations Environment Programme, which states:
This report confirms and builds on the conclusions of the FAO-OIE-WHO Tripartite Alliance and many other expert groups that a One Health approach is the optimal method for preventing as well as responding to zoonotic disease outbreaks and pandemics.
Therefore, there has to be a focus on a “one health” approach.
There also, of course, has to be a whole-of-government approach. It is not enough for the Minister of Health to work up a plan. The Minister of Health has to work with other ministers, break down silos in the federal government and ensure that we are putting ourselves on the best footing we possibly can to prevent and respond to future pandemics. The Minister of Industry has a role to play in terms of ensuring that we have vaccine manufacturing capacity and manufacturing capacity for essential treatments and tests. There is a role for the Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Transport to play with respect to border controls. There is obviously a role for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to play with respect to global health equity, which is an issue that, unfortunately, we have, as wealthier countries, utterly failed on in a serious way in the course of this pandemic. There also ought to be collaboration, and this is in keeping with that idea of a “one health” approach, with the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Environment.
Therefore, if we think of a framework that already exists within the Government of Canada, a “one health” approach with respect to antimicrobial resistance, it is a partnership between the Department and the Minister of Health and the Department and the Minister of Agriculture, because we know, certainly in other countries around the world, that the increase and overuse of antibiotics can create the risk of superbugs. There are researchers at McMaster who call it the “silent pandemic”, referring to the number of lives that have already been taken by AMR. As I have said, it is a whole-of-government approach.
I will say that this has to be a focus of the committee when it looks at the series of factors, ensuring that it gets sustained collaboration with the provinces, because we need to make sure, for example, that there are preparedness strategies for public health services, including the protection of vulnerable and marginalized populations. That will be as much a provincial question as it is a federal question. The working conditions of essential workers across all sectors is as much a provincial issue as it is a federal issue.
The availability management of relevant stockpiles, including testing equipment and PPE, is more of a federal issue, but we have seen challenges at times at the provincial level as well.
There is the search capacity of the human resources required for testing and contact tracing, because we cannot have the human resources at the ready at all times. We need to be able to stand them up to meet the surge, and again the provinces and the federal government will need to work hand in hand on this.
There are a series of other factors, and I will not go into all of them. I want to mention the seven key disease drivers identified by the United Nations Environment Programme.
First is an increasing demand for animal protein, because we understand the spillover risk and lack of biosecurity, especially with increased demand in low and middle-income countries. It is a real challenge that needs to be addressed.
Second is unsustainable agricultural intensification.
Third is the increased use and exploitation of wildlife. If we look at the live animal markets around the world, they have presented challenges, including likely in the course of the crisis we have just lived through.
Fourth is the unsustainable utilization of natural resources, accelerated by urbanization and land-use change.
Fifth is travel and transportation.
Sixth is changes in the food supply chains. Traceability challenges are the issue there.
Seventh is climate change.
These are major twin risks. Climate change is an existential risk in and of itself, but it also drives pandemic risk. That is not to say we can eliminate travel, and we are not going to eliminate agriculture, but how do we look at these industries to find best efforts to reduce and mitigate pandemic risk to prevent a future pandemic? How do we make sure there are regulations in place so we can prepare for future pandemics as well?
I suppose the last item that I want to close off with is that there needs to be accountability in any particular role here.
One, the bill establishes a review, the lessons learned.
Two, it requires some detail about what ought to be in that plan. I have gone into this in some detail, and there is greater detail in the bill. I hope it can be a collaborative exercise at committee, because I want this to be a non-partisan exercise in getting it right.
Three, we need to make sure that we appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator to oversee and implement the plans, so there is proper accountability and an office for seeing this through.
Lastly, I want to close with this idea, because I think it is a relevant one. We forget crises in politics. We deal with them and then forget about them. Over time we saw this with SARS. We cannot go through another situation where 20 years from now we look back at a debate like this one or a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan that we developed in the year 2022 or 2023 that has been sitting on a shelf and has not been updated or implemented. The idea here, very much as a matter of accountability, is to ensure that all future governments, regardless of political stripe, take this seriously, renew their focus on pandemic prevention and preparedness, and make sure we do not lose sight of the lessons learned and do not live through something like this ever again as a society. I cannot overemphasize this: The costs of a pandemic like the one we have just lived through are so incredibly significant, and the costs of prevention and preparedness are a very small fraction of that.
I hope there is all-party support for getting this to committee to improve it, to bring amendments to it and to see it through.
I appreciate being given this time today.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-293, An Act respecting pandemic prevention and preparedness.
He said: Madam Speaker, I am introducing the pandemic prevention and preparedness act because the last two years have been impossibly hard for all of us. The costs of prevention and preparedness are insignificant in comparison with the significant human and economic costs of a pandemic. The purpose of this act is to prevent the risk of, and prepare for, future pandemics and to promote transparency and accountability toward that goal.
Specifically, the bill would require the health minister to collaborate with other ministers, other levels of government and indigenous communities to develop a pandemic prevention and preparedness plan and table an updated plan in Parliament on a regular basis. There are factors that the minister would have to consider in the course of that plan, and those factors are informed by UNEP, IPIS, the independent panel and other experts. The minister would also have to establish an advisory committee to review and learn the lessons of our COVID response, and appoint a national pandemic prevention and preparedness coordinator.
We need to do all that we can to prevent and prepare for future pandemics, and this bill would ensure that this obligation remains in focus for any future government in the years ahead.
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- Feb/21/22 1:41:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the four branches in section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, there is reference to foreign influence. It is generally understood to be state-sponsored foreign influence. I do think we ought to be wary here, and perhaps have permanent rules with proper due process to address that issue going forward.
I do not think we want to address that issue, which is not going to go away, tomorrow or within 30 days. I think we are going to want more permanent rules that are firmer and have proper due process.
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- Feb/21/22 1:39:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in 2015 we ran on a platform to encourage freer votes in the House of Commons. That platform said in effect that there would be free votes except on three issues: platform commitments, human rights or charter-related issues, and confidence votes, including budget considerations. It was not only budget considerations, though. My reading of our parliamentary history is that it is well within the right of the government to declare this a confidence vote, and I will obviously abide by that.
To the member's previous comments around the failure of other levels of government, this was absolutely a matter that needed federal leadership because of that failure, and, as I said, the federal government showed that leadership.
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- Feb/21/22 1:37:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member is correct.
To be honest, it is those additional measures that actually give me greater comfort. When we see that there is a parliamentary committee that will be struck, when we see that there is an inquiry, when we know that 20 members of Parliament or 10 senators can call for a revocation before the end of the 30-day cycle and we can have a vote on that, I would hope that the government is itself deeply scrutinizing the usefulness and the necessity of these measures as we go forward. I do not see that these measures are going to need to continue to exist for the full 30 days, so whether they end through an act of Parliament or an act of the government, we will see.
I would just emphasize that the measures he has highlighted are incredibly important, and they do give me comfort.
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- Feb/21/22 1:26:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question before us is whether we ought to confirm the government's declaration of an emergency pursuant to section 58 of the Emergencies Act. I have really struggled with the answer to that question, and I will get to that.
The first question we should all reflect on is a more basic one: How did it even come to this? Some Conservative colleagues have made the case that we could have ended the illegal blockades if only we had ended federal vaccine mandates, a Neville Chamberlain approach to pandemic management. Appeasing illegality is an affront to the rule of law, and we should put public health before politics.
Mandates will not be with us forever, and yes, we need to re-evaluate their use. However, it is also true that NACI has yet to confirm whether a third dose is properly a booster dose or should be considered part of the primary series. We should proceed cautiously as we lift measures that helped save lives.
Of course people are tired of pandemic rules. I was furious when Ontario's schools closed yet again to in-person learning in January. Protest is to be expected, and everyone has the right to peaceful protest, but that right does not extend to blocking highways and bridges. It does not extend to the intimidation, harassment, threats and the endless and deafening noise we have seen in our national capital. These are crimes, and they are quite obviously crimes.
We cannot paint every protester with the same brush, but we can judge people by the company they keep and we should never platform the language of treason, medical experiments, the Nuremberg Code or support for white supremacy, all of which we saw on our democracy's doorstep.
My genuine plea for those listening, for those who dislike the Prime Minister, for those who dislike public health measures and especially for those who sit in the Conservative caucus is to just remember that democracies are fragile. Encouraging lawlessness and emboldening anti-government, anti-democratic voices is a disservice to our country, no matter how much hatred they have for their opponents. If they do not stop fanning the flames, I am not certain we will be able to put out the fire.
Reflecting on my own side of the House, if we are so fearful of polarization, then we ought to be especially careful not to contribute to it ourselves. We are each sent here to represent our constituents, of course, but our obligations extend beyond any parochial interest. We are the trustees of our democracy; the rule of law; civil liberties; and peace, order and good government.
The illegal blockades represented an attack on these core ideas. The greatest criticism of how the blockades were removed is that they were not removed more quickly. The failure to enforce the law in Ottawa and the acquiescence to occupation emboldened similar blockades across the country at Emerson, Coutts and the Ambassador Bridge. Against a failed municipal and provincial response, a strong federal response was warranted. Therefore, I suffer no sympathy for those who shut down our border crossings and inflicted harm on the residents of Ottawa.
However, in the interest of disappointing everyone in my audience, I do have concerns with the invocation of the Emergencies Act in the circumstances. One constituent I trust a great deal wrote to me that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. She is unquestionably right, but the law also remains the law, so let us turn to it for a moment.
Section 16 of the act defines a public order emergency as “an emergency that arises from threats to the security of Canada and that is so serious as to be a national emergency”. The shoe arguably fits, with this general definition in mind, but the act goes on to define two terms with great specificity.
First, and again in keeping with section 16, “threats to the security of Canada has the meaning assigned by section 2 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.” In turning to the CSIS Act, we see four possible meanings: espionage, foreign influenced activities, activities akin to terrorism, and the violent overthrow of the government. These are incredibly high standards.
In the order in council, the OIC, the government relies on activities akin to terrorism or, as the Minister of Justice said in the House, “We took measures that had been applied to terrorism and applied them to other illegal activity”. The specific section requires that there be activities in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective. It is obvious enough that the latter element is met, as warped as the ideological objectives may be, but have there been threats or acts of serious violence that themselves amount to a national emergency?
We know that dangerous and extremist elements are embedded within these protests and blockades. In Coutts, for example, we saw conspiracy to commit murder charges, with two of the accused connected to a far-right extremist group. We also saw the police seize a cache of guns and body armour, and in Ottawa we saw major intimidation of local residents and threats against the police if they enforced the law. As a parliamentarian, I acknowledge I am not privy to all of the information in the hands of the executive, and there may well be even more dangerous and coordinated elements at play.
It also strikes me that these serious threats are ancillary to the blockades, and it is the blockades that constituted the emergency. A national emergency, after all, is also a defined term within the act. It means:
an urgent and critical situation of a temporary nature that
(a) seriously endangers the lives, health or safety of Canadians and is of such proportions or nature as to exceed the capacity or authority of a province to deal with it, or
(b) seriously threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Canada.
There is an additional requirement that no other federal law be sufficient to meet the emergency as well. It is frustrating that the government has not clearly articulated which ground it relies on here, and it appears that it likes to rely on both. When we look at the illegal blockades and the negative impact they wrought on so many lives, I do think there is a fair argument that they meet the definition of a national emergency as long as we understand “capacity” to mean both whether a province could act in theory as well as the reality of their action.
Again, if the blockade is at issue, when we look at the threats of serious violence, the violence that must itself constitute the national emergency at issue, it is unclear how the definition is met. To meet the act's requirements, it seems apparent to me that we need to re-interpret “serious violence to persons or property” to mean economic harm. I am often in support of large and liberal interpretations of the law, but I am not convinced we want economic harm to trigger the act, unless we would be comfortable with the act being used in other instances of economic harm, the most recent one in memory being the railway blockades in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.
This is all perhaps too lawyerly, too technical an objection. Other levels of government had failed to act or acted too slowly. Legal gaps certainly exist in addressing foreign funding and foreign influence operations and crowdfunding for illegal domestic activities, and the emergency measures seem to have worked.
It is also true, as I say, that I do not have all of the intelligence information that the executive has. My answer to that is a simple one, and I know many will find it inadequate, but contorting the application of the law in order to defend the rule of law is not a position I find comfort in.
Expert Wesley Wark wrote recently that the Emergencies Act was unusable because of the high threshold in section 2 of the CSIS Act. However, he subsequently came around to the idea of shoehorning the law to fit, because of his perception of the nature of the threat and the missing response from other levels of government.
Expert Leah West recently wrote:
As someone who fervently believes in the rule of law, I’m desolated by what we’ve witnessed this month: a failure to enforce the law by 2 levels of government created a crisis that the 3rd had to contort the law to end.
That is a fair summation.
Now, whatever one thinks of the legal contortion, and the ends may well justify the means and the courts will weigh in on the law, let us return to the role of Parliament.
In the coming months, we will need to address the shortcomings in the laws, perhaps to better protect critical infrastructure and most certainly to better follow the money of foreign influence operations and crowdfunding for illegal activities, but with proper due process. Assuming the threshold question is met here, it is still not at all clear to me whether the government continues to need the ability to freeze bank accounts without due process, if it ever did. Usefulness and effectiveness are very different standards as compared with necessity and proportionality.
Now, where does it leave us for tonight’s vote on the invocation of the Emergencies Act and section 58?
Putting aside my concerns around the threshold or due process, the effect of section 58 is that a yea vote extends emergency measures while a nay vote simply revokes the powers as of the day of the negative vote. A nay vote need not mean impugning the actions of the government over the last week. Whatever one thinks of the necessity and proportionality of the emergency powers at the time they were invoked, whatever one thinks of the threshold that triggers the act in the first place, the question before us is whether the powers remain necessary and proportionate to the circumstances today.
I appreciate the federal leadership over the last week. This is not the War Measures Act, as this particular legislation highlights the role of the charter and provides for a significant amount of independent and parliamentary scrutiny. However, I am skeptical that the strict legal test was met for the act's invocation, and I am not convinced that the emergency measures should continue to exist beyond today.
I would vote accordingly but for the fact that it is now a confidence vote. My disagreement, the disagreement I have expressed here, does not amount to non-confidence, and I have no interest in an election at this time.
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- Feb/8/22 2:07:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we need to vaccinate the world to save lives, protect our economic recovery and prevent the next variant. As it stands, of the 10 billion doses administered to date, only 10% have been administered in low-income countries. This not only falls short of our moral obligation to those who have less. It also means continued supply chain disruptions and the potential for a dangerous variant that could undo all of our sacrifice.
We know that the best way to prevent the next variant is to stop unconstrained spread, and that requires vaccine equity. That is why I have introduced Motion No. 43 to call on our government to expedite its committed donation of 200 million doses, provide at least an additional $1.1 billion in the coming budget towards the ACT-Accelerator and contribute to global manufacturing capacity, including support for the TRIPS waiver.
When we look back at this time in history, we should see that Canada played a leading role in addressing global vaccine equity, the most important intervention to end the greatest crisis in our lifetimes. Having spent hundreds of billions on our own domestic pandemic response, we should spend a fraction of that to save lives around the world and to prevent the next variant.
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- Nov/30/21 11:46:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as this is my first time on my feet in the 44th Parliament, I want to thank everyone in Beaches—East York who sent me back to work here, and my riding association and the countless supporters who have really helped me do this work over the last six years. I want to give special thanks to my family in particular for putting up with me, especially my wife Amy.
My commitment to Beaches—East York remains the same. I will keep working across party lines. I will maintain a sense of independence, holding our government accountable to deliver on the promises we made and pushing for greater ambition.
Much of the work ahead will require greater ambition, but the throne speech rightly notes that the first priority remains getting the pandemic under control. It requires layers of protection, so the throne speech rightly identifies vaccinations, boosters and vaccines for our kids. My five-year-old will be getting vaccinated later today, and I encourage everyone to get themselves and their families vaccinated.
However, we also require other layers of protection. When we see ubiquitous rapid testing available in other jurisdictions, that rapid testing needs to be widely available here in Canada as well. The throne speech rightly identifies the importance of vaccine equity. We see around the world the concerns with respect to variants, and to address the global challenge requires better addressing global vaccine equity. Canada in some ways has been a leader here, but much more has to be done, not only by Canada, but by the world. It was important to see the government commit in the throne speech to increasing foreign assistance every year, but we really need to do more. Whether it is through a TRIPS waiver or tech transfer, we really need to solve these challenges for the world.
Beyond the pandemic but related to it, we need to strengthen our social safety net. I say related to the pandemic because the chief public health officer notes that racialized communities have been more greatly impacted in my community of Toronto in the course of this pandemic. She states:
Members of racialized communities are more likely to experience inequitable living and working conditions that make them more susceptible to COVID‑19, such as lower incomes, precarious employment, overcrowded housing, and limited access to health and social services.
The answer for us, as a lesson learned in this crisis, is a stronger social safety net, supporting the most vulnerable in our communities and working to reduce poverty. We have seen great progress and a significant reduction in poverty since 2015, but again, not enough. If there is a theme to my speech, it will be that we have made significant progress, but not enough, and that more needs to be done, so there are commitments to EI reform and to the Canada disability benefit. My ask of the government is simply that we realize these promises in the boldest way possible.
It is related to the cost-of-living challenge when we think of our most vulnerable communities. I know the government is going to see to bringing child care through. I have every expectation that the Ontario government will finally come to the table, knowing that its own election is in sight in June, but we also need to ensure that we address the housing challenge for the most vulnerable. We need to continue the work to end homelessness and to expand upon the rapid housing initiative, and there remains much more to be done to strengthen our social safety net and address the cost of living, especially for the most vulnerable.
I would note, by the way, that we increased the Canada workers benefit significantly in budget 2021, but there is an opportunity for cross-party collaboration. In the Conservative platform and its emphasis on the Canada workers benefit, there is an example that addresses the cost of living in a serious way for the most vulnerable.
Another important lesson learned, and a key lesson and key priority in the throne speech, is better health care. I mentioned poverty, and it is a key component of this conversation when we think of the social determinants of health, but so are better health care for our seniors via home care and long-term care, a strong rare disease strategy, the details of which are to come, healthy food in our schools for our kids, better mental health care and strong mental health care standards.
An issue that is dear to my heart and something I have worked on significantly over the last number of years is treating drug use as a health issue. We have listened to our public health experts in the course of this pandemic and we need to listen to them in the course of the opioid crisis. Experts on a special advisory committee of the Public Health Agency of Canada state:
A number of factors have likely contributed to a worsening of the overdose crisis, including the increasingly toxic drug supply, increased feelings of isolation, stress and anxiety and limited availability or accessibility of services for people who use drugs.
Fundamentally, we need to end the criminalization of people who use drugs so we can ensure they get the treatment they need. Members will note that the experts point to the toxic drug supply that is killing people. If we truly care about following the evidence, we need a strictly regulated, safer supply to ensure we save lives.
The throne speech also identified safer communities, and this is related to the conversation on the opioid crisis and saving lives, but it is also about saving lives as it relates to stronger gun control. Nora, a young Liberal in my community, has been with me ever since I started in politics. It was at her birthday party that we lost Reese Fallon, one of her best friends, in the Danforth shooting. When I spoke to her recently at our youth council meeting, she encouraged me to again raise stronger gun control when I came to Ottawa. I am glad to see that the government is prioritizing this issue in the throne speech. Again, though, we have made strong commitments, but are they strong enough? I would say no, it does not make sense to devolve the responsibility to cities. We need to show national leadership on handguns.
We also need to protect people in our online communities, and this is an issue that I will continue to work on in this Parliament, across party lines. I note the work of my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, and I have worked with Conservatives on this file as well, but we need to ensure that we have stronger platform governance and, as Canadians increasingly live their lives online, that our rules reflect that reality in a more serious way.
The throne speech commits to addressing inequality in a number of different respects, and I can talk about child care and homelessness, but there is another conversation that at times has been divisive in the House. The evidence is clear and overwhelming and there is a path we see through Bill C-22. We need to address diversity and inclusion by lifting people up, but also by reforming our outdated and ineffective criminal justice system. That means police reform, and it means recognizing that we are throwing people in prison in a really unfair and disproportionate way, disproportionately impacting people from Black and indigenous communities. We need to reform these rules. Bill C-22 is an important first step, but we need to move forward in a further way on mandatory minimum sentences.
The two issues I reflect on are what are we going to accomplish in this minority Parliament. Minority Parliaments hold potential for greatness. I said this in 2019, and then the pandemic hit. We saw some moments of greatness and collaboration to deliver pandemic supports and benefits, but not enough. When we think of this Parliament and the two biggest issues this Parliament can look back on other than delivering affordable child care, it really is around advancing reconciliation and establishing a credible path to net zero, attacking climate change in a really serious way.
Advancing reconciliation means closing gaps in federal funding. It means clean water, obviously. We passed the legislation and now we need to do the hard work of implementing UNDRIP. In Toronto, fundamentally, those who represent urban centres need to raise our voices for urban indigenous people and ensure that federal supports flow. They flowed in the course of the pandemic, and we need to make sure they flow in a more permanent way to urban indigenous service organizations.
On climate action, the throne speech says we must go faster and further. A common criticism from opposition parties is that we have never met one of our targets. The original target for 2030 was 30% below 2005 levels. That works out to 512 megatonnes, for those keeping score. If we look at budget 2021, where is the trajectory added? If the Conservative government does not get elected in the future and all policies hold, we are at 468 megatonnes, so yes, there is a reason we advanced a new target. It is that the previous target, if all policies hold, would have been met. The new target is important. It will require greater ambition to get there. We see greater ambition in the throne speech and in our platform in relation to capping emissions in the oil and gas sector and in terms of driving electrification, but more needs to be done.
Again, I cannot emphasize this enough, but we have come so far, and while there is reason to be complimentary in some respects, I have to emphasize the need for continued and constructive criticism and saying we have yet to do enough.
I will close here by saying that in this Parliament we recognize the progress that has been made, but I hope we can collaborate across party lines and push this government to do more, because we need to do more on so many of these important issues.
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