Parliamentary Speeches
935 speeches by Michelle Rempel Garner — Page 19 of 19
Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, just to correct my colleague, zero doses arrived this week, and Canadians should not have to settle for second best. A year into the pandemic, tools like vaccines, rapid tests and therapeutics are being delivered around the world, and today, international outlets are reporting that 75% of a population receiving two doses of the vaccine would be a benchmark for a country achieving he…
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Madam Speaker, yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Procurement said that the Liberals chose the “second-best” vaccine procurement strategy for Canadians. I would argue that it is a bit of an understatement, given that we are two million doses short this week. People are dying. We need a path forward. I want the best for Canadians. I want a path to recovery. Why did the Libera…
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Mr. Speaker, the member just said it: the Liberals pursued a strategy to get us the earliest vaccine possible, but it was behind every other country in the world. Was this as early as possible? We do not have any right now. I think about the United States. It turned a convention centre into a hospital in a week. China built an entirely new hospital in 12 days. The United Kingdom built its vaccine …
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Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister just said that the Liberals did everything in their power to get Canadians vaccines, but this morning the minister said that the Liberals failed to secure the right to produce Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines in Canada because they did not have the capacity to produce them here. The U.K. was in the same boat we were in 10 months ago, but it has manage…
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Mr. Speaker, earlier in question period, the Prime Minister said there would be “fluctuations”, that is his word, in vaccine delivery in coming weeks. That is a big problem, because if there are unexpected “fluctuations”, it makes it very difficult for the provinces to properly time the two doses of the top candidate, so “fluctuations” are a problem. Can the Prime Minister tell Canadians if he is …
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Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister is admitting that he knew there would be problems with delivery, because he depended entirely on signing contracts with other countries for production, maybe he should have had a plan to develop domestic capacity before the end of this year. I think it is really important for the Prime Minister to be clear on this for the provinces and every public health person …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. The government's vaccine strategy is an abject failure. What people watching us want to know is what we are going to do to fix it. I want to point out that the colleague who just asked the question is from the New Democratic Party. I have worked with colleagues from that party and with colleagues in the Bloc. We do not agree on everything, but we ag…
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that you said that, because I would love to be having this debate in the House. However, the minister could not answer my question, a question that relates to when life gets back to normal. Limiting Canadians' charter rights, limiting their movements, preventing them from entering their own homes and having to go to quarantine facilities are extreme measures that sho…
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Mr. Speaker, over a year after COVID-19 started to spread, the world has learned a lot about how to fight it, but Canadians are still being asked to sacrifice with no end in sight. Canadians need vaccines, deployed rapid tests and information to secure our future and rebuild our economy. By now the Prime Minister should be telling Canadians what is being done to eventually safely lift restrictions…
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Madam Speaker, first of all, the government has not said that it would lift restrictions once everyone is vaccinated, so I do not know. That is number one. Number two, the reality is that most of the vaccines the government has contracted are produced in Europe, and Europe is about to impose export restrictions on vaccines. Our country is not on the exemption list. That is a huge problem. Also, we…
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Madam Speaker, we are here today debating a bill ostensibly to support Canadians given the pandemic. It is important for us to support Canadians, but we are a year into the pandemic now and I am wondering if the government is missing the boat. A year ago, when parliamentarians came together in the midst of the first lockdowns, the restrictions, lockdowns and measures we were putting in place for C…
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Mr. Speaker, a year after telling Canadians that border controls did not stop the spread of COVID, the virus is now rampant across Canada. Documents show that the Liberals stalled on imposing travel restrictions at the start of the first wave and again at the beginning of the second wave when doing so would have saved lives. The Liberals could have put in place a system of rapid testing at airport…
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Mr. Speaker, now the Liberals are saying that even being vaccinated does not guarantee an end to restrictions. Canadians have stayed at home, they have washed their hands, they have worn masks and they have sacrificed a lot. With rapid tests and vaccinations available to the world but not to us, Canadians should not have to accept more restrictions without a clear end in sight and without that typ…
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Mr. Speaker, we are already experiencing a major shortfall of vaccines. Our math says that, on average, two million doses per week are needed to meet the target of September. We are nowhere close to that. All, or a majority, of the vaccines the government has supposedly procured are produced in the EU, and now the EU is saying there will be export restrictions. There are no exemptions for countrie…
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Mr. Speaker, with regard to the recently announced EU export restrictions on vaccines, CBC's Janyce McGregor has just recently tweeted, “I don't see anything in these regs exempting Canada or other countries with FTAs with the EU from having their shipments monitored and caught up in the fresh red tape of these new authorization requirements.” This is pretty bad. It is definitely going to affect C…
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Mr. Speaker, if we want to quote people, The Economist magazine said that Canada is not going to be vaccinated until 2022. Again, by our math, we should be getting about two million doses per week to meet the September timeline, yet the minister is saying we are only going to be getting six million doses by the end of March. We should be getting eight million doses by the end of February. If we ar…
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Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague has a point. We actually need about two million doses per week to meet the needs, if we do the math on it, and yet we are behind two million doses this week and are going to be behind 1.9 million doses next week and 1.9 million doses the week after that. This math is not really working out for me. If we are about six million doses behind, when are those coming?
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is receiving zero doses of COVID-19 vaccines this week, even though other countries are getting planeloads of them. Last night, the minister of procurement said that Canada has the right to sue companies that break vaccine contracts with us. Is the Prime Minister planning on suing any company for failing to deliver much-needed vaccines to Canada, or did he negotiate such bad te…
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Madam Speaker, Canada received 8% of the doses the Prime Minister promised for this period. My colleague said that there is fear where there should be none, and I actually agree with her. This week at the Roberta Place long-term care facility, over 40 people died of COVID-19. Health care workers who had a dose of vaccine do not know when they are getting their second one. Many do not have it at al…
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to correct the Prime Minister. We actually received 8% of what he said we would receive last month in the same period, so it is really one or the other. He either negotiated an ironclad contract that would allow us to have recourse and get vaccines, or he completely failed. We do not have any recourse. The rest of the world is getting vaccines and we are not. Which one is i…
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Mr. Speaker, a majority of the vaccines the Liberals are banking on will be produced in Europe, but yesterday it was reported that the European Union is considering export bans to prioritize vaccines for its citizens. In spite of what the Prime Minister said this morning, it is not up to the companies to determine this. It is up to EU officials, and they are talking about a ban. If the EU bans exp…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I know that my colleague cares a lot about this issue, because it is particularly impacting seniors in his riding. I was wondering if he could perhaps use this time to give more personal examples of situations in his riding of seniors and everybody else being deeply affected by the lack of vaccines in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I really liked what my colleague said in framing this debate, namely that it is not the Prime Minister's vaccine. It is Canadians' vaccine, and they actually deserve to know when they are going to get it, under what terms, how much we paid for it and if we are actually going to get it at some point. That is information we have not received to date. I am wondering if my colleague could…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the NDP for his speech tonight. I also want to tell him that the member for Vancouver Kingsway has been a very hard worker on the health committee. That is just a little plug for him. I wonder if the leader of the NDP can give some feedback on whether or not he thinks the government is doing an adequate job in procuring vaccines for the provinces, and wha…
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Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague could speak about the fact that Quebec has experienced a very difficult situation over the last few weeks with the curfew. I know that he has been on top of this and has talked about how the curfew has affected his constituents. Maybe he could speak a little more about how the work that he is doing on the health committee will help find a way forward, an…
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Mr. Speaker, we have a big problem in Canada. We did not get any vaccines from Pfizer this week. Italy is pondering suing Pfizer related to production delays, which means that it has some sort of recourse negotiated in its contract and that the government of Italy would have negotiated some sort of clause that allowed it to do this. I am wondering why the federal government has been so quiet. If i…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague not only for his leadership but also for being such a strong, authentic voice for the people of Quebec. I hear over and over again about how Quebeckers right now are struggling with the curfews and their mental health, and this is because their provincial government and their premier do not have the tools they need to get through it, such as rapid tests an…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for bringing this to light. If I could summarize what he just talked about, it is the fact that COVID has really created and exacerbated inequalities in the Canadian system. Not everybody can afford to take two weeks off of work when their kid is sick and has the sniffles to wait for 10 days for test results. It is just something that people cannot afford. People …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague because this is a great show of what the Canadian Parliament can do. We have opposition parties working together to get answers and I know my colleague has been working hard on the industry committee to get answers on that very topic. I know that in coming days at the industry committee, we are going to be having the Minister of Health to answer that very question…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for his leadership in bringing forward a debate that concerns all Canadians. All Canadians watching tonight are unified and should be unified in their concern about the topic we are looking at. For those who are watching, I want to break down exactly what the problem we are facing is and what the Prime Minister and the Liberals need to do t…
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Mr. Speaker, there might not be a ban at this moment, but what is being reported is that the EU is considering a ban in the future. That is a big deal because Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca produce the vaccines that are on order for Canada in Europe. Enough with “there might not be one now”. If the Europeans ban exports of vaccines, what is plan B for Canada?
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to congratulate Romania, Poland, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, France and other countries for receiving doses from Pfizer this week, as their governments negotiated more favourable terms with drug companies than Canada's procurement minister. We know why the procurement minister will not release the details of these contracts: It is because she execut…
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With regard to the Prime Minister's announcement in May 2020 of an agreement with CanSino Biologics Inc. (CanSinoBIO) in relation to the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine: (a) what were the original details of the agreement, as understood by the government in May 2020; (b) on what date did the government first become aware that the agreement would not proceed as planned; (c) on what date…
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Mr. Speaker, I would argue that this week Canada is receiving the lowest per capita number of vaccines, because we are receiving zero. Zero is zero; it is not something that is there. I do not know why the procurement minister does not understand that. We do not have the same favourable terms as other countries do, and that is her fault. It is the Prime Minister's fault. Not having a plan is not g…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to check the Prime Minister's math. He said that every adult would be vaccinated by September, which is 32 weeks away, and all the leading COVID-19 vaccines require two doses. There are approximately 30 million adults in Canada, and under 2% have received a single dose so far. This means that Canada, on average, needs to be administering roughly two million doses per week…
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