MPs on the Commons Health committee reached an agreement to revise a bill proposed by the Liberal party that was considered a “whitewash.” It would have allowed the government to conduct a review of its own COVID-19 management.. Covid vaccine .“Delete it, get rid of it,” said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, ON), sponsor of the bill..“Get the review question just out of the way,” said Erskine-Smith..“Delete that section. If it's causing consternation across the aisle, just get rid of it.”.C-293 An Act Respecting Pandemic Prevention would permit the Health minister to “establish an advisory committee” to conduct a two-year review of COVID-19 management. A separate section of the bill proposed to have the government draft a new pandemic preparedness plan..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, MPs endorsed drafting a preparedness plan but rejected the internal review as self-serving for the government..“It’s not independent, it’s not transparent,” said New Democrat MP Don Davies (Vancouver-Kingsway, BC)..“That would constitute a whitewash.”.“This bill would have the minister of Health, who is in charge of the Public Health Agency (PHA), appoint an advisory committee, not even an independent committee with any real powers, but an advisory committee to assess his or her performance and the performance of the agency,” said Davies..“That's like the defendant appointing the judge.”.“It’s completely unacceptable on its own,” said Davies..“The NDP wanted the federal government to launch an independent public inquiry under the Inquiries Act from the beginning.”.Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault (Montcalm, QC) said nothing short of a public inquiry would document failures in Canada’s response to COVID-19..“It would take an independent public inquiry to establish exactly where we failed, not so we can point the finger but so we have an overview of everything that is now in place,” said Thériault..“Why is it everything in place was insufficient to prepare us properly for a pandemic?”.Parliament in 2004 created the PHA as a pandemic preparedness unit following the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak that killed 44 Canadians..The PHA in 2006 adopted a Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector that warned another pandemic was “inevitable.” The PHA, by 2019, was fully funded at $675 million a year.. COVID-19 Button .“You can have an absolutely stunningly brilliant plan, but if you don’t actually follow it, what is the point?” Conservative MP Laila Goodridge (Fort McMurray-Cold Lake, AB). .“We need to have an open, public inquiry into this so we can actually look at what happened, when, what worked, what didn’t.”.Numerous audits found the PHA was so poorly prepared for COVID-19 that it failed to maintain an emergency stockpile of medical supplies, had “limited public health expertise” and lacked a “clear understanding” of how to compile critical data..Subsequent shortages of goods like medical gowns saw political aides in the Prime Minister’s Office share a 2020 email recommending nurses “explore fallbacks should everything else be insufficient, for example, heavy-duty garbage bags.”
MPs on the Commons Health committee reached an agreement to revise a bill proposed by the Liberal party that was considered a “whitewash.” It would have allowed the government to conduct a review of its own COVID-19 management.. Covid vaccine .“Delete it, get rid of it,” said Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (Beaches-East York, ON), sponsor of the bill..“Get the review question just out of the way,” said Erskine-Smith..“Delete that section. If it's causing consternation across the aisle, just get rid of it.”.C-293 An Act Respecting Pandemic Prevention would permit the Health minister to “establish an advisory committee” to conduct a two-year review of COVID-19 management. A separate section of the bill proposed to have the government draft a new pandemic preparedness plan..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, MPs endorsed drafting a preparedness plan but rejected the internal review as self-serving for the government..“It’s not independent, it’s not transparent,” said New Democrat MP Don Davies (Vancouver-Kingsway, BC)..“That would constitute a whitewash.”.“This bill would have the minister of Health, who is in charge of the Public Health Agency (PHA), appoint an advisory committee, not even an independent committee with any real powers, but an advisory committee to assess his or her performance and the performance of the agency,” said Davies..“That's like the defendant appointing the judge.”.“It’s completely unacceptable on its own,” said Davies..“The NDP wanted the federal government to launch an independent public inquiry under the Inquiries Act from the beginning.”.Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault (Montcalm, QC) said nothing short of a public inquiry would document failures in Canada’s response to COVID-19..“It would take an independent public inquiry to establish exactly where we failed, not so we can point the finger but so we have an overview of everything that is now in place,” said Thériault..“Why is it everything in place was insufficient to prepare us properly for a pandemic?”.Parliament in 2004 created the PHA as a pandemic preparedness unit following the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak that killed 44 Canadians..The PHA in 2006 adopted a Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan for the Health Sector that warned another pandemic was “inevitable.” The PHA, by 2019, was fully funded at $675 million a year.. COVID-19 Button .“You can have an absolutely stunningly brilliant plan, but if you don’t actually follow it, what is the point?” Conservative MP Laila Goodridge (Fort McMurray-Cold Lake, AB). .“We need to have an open, public inquiry into this so we can actually look at what happened, when, what worked, what didn’t.”.Numerous audits found the PHA was so poorly prepared for COVID-19 that it failed to maintain an emergency stockpile of medical supplies, had “limited public health expertise” and lacked a “clear understanding” of how to compile critical data..Subsequent shortages of goods like medical gowns saw political aides in the Prime Minister’s Office share a 2020 email recommending nurses “explore fallbacks should everything else be insufficient, for example, heavy-duty garbage bags.”
