O’Toole fuels clash with shot at Trudeau
Conservative leader says PM rolling the dice with lives in pandemic
OTTAWA— Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole accused Justin Trudeau of “playing a game with people’s lives” as another bitter political dispute brewed over the latest Opposition demands for a wide-ranging probe into the Liberal government’s COVID-19 health response.
O’Toole savaged the prime minister Thursday for choosing to “roll the dice with lives in a pandemic” the day after the Liberal government survived a Commons vote that Trudeau had chosen to make a make-orbreak confidence matter.
A Conservative motion to create a special committee to investigate government corruption was defeated Wednesday when New Democrats, Greens and two Independents voted with the Liberals to defeat the Conservative motion 180-146, and an election was averted.
But another confrontation looms.
The New Democrats say they will vote with the Conservatives on a new demand for a sweeping probe by the Commons health committee into the COVID-19 response, which would require the government to produce thousands of documents to deal with a range of issues.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said, “It’s really the function of Parliament to have access to information like that” to ensure the Liberals haven’t made decisions to help their close friends.
The Liberal government said late Thursday it would not declare Monday’s vote another matter of confidence, even as two cabinet ministers flagged grave concerns it would interfere with the government’s pandemic response, and its efforts to bolster domestic medical supplies of PPE, rapid tests, vaccines and other medical equipment.
But no government official in the prime minister’s office or his House leader’s office would explain why or how it differed from the now-defeated motion to create the special committee on corruption.
Fresh off his victory in the vote the night before, the prime minister skipped question period Thursday as he took part in a series of campaign-style events, visiting via video conference with Liberal MPs who spoke to local small businesses in Quebec’s Gaspé region, and in Oakville, and dropping into a history class in Winnipeg.
Trudeau has done online campaign-style virtual tours recently in the Atlantic and the North, two regions where travel restrictions bar non-essential travellers, along with a series of regional media interviews.
And on Thursday night he was to virtually attend campaign events for his party’s candidates in Toronto Centre and York Centre ahead of byelections Monday.
O’Toole said the Opposition is just doing its job and he slammed Trudeau for failing to consult chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam about the risk of a holding a pandemic election, out of pure “hubris.”
“Mr. Trudeau is playing a game with people’s lives in the middle of a pandemic to avoid answering some reasonable questions about connected Liberal insiders,” O’Toole told reporters.
The latest Conservative motion, to be voted on Monday, makes broad new demands of the government to produce thousands of documents to allow the health committee to probe slow approvals of rapidand at-home testing kits, procurement processes for ventilators and PPE, vaccine approvals, Ottawa’s reliance on WHO advice to act on masks and border closures, the depletion of the federal emergency stockpile at the outset of the crisis, and the effective shutdown of Canada’s early warning system, the Global Public Health Information Network.
Public Services Minister Anita Anand told CBC’s Power and Politics that Conservative demands for information on government procurement processes risk revealing sensitive commercial information, and undermining supplier relationships. She added it “isn’t the time for an election, we need to work together.”
Flavio Volpe, head of the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association, pushed back on Twitter against the Opposition probe, saying that in March, auto suppliers stepped up to help Canada deal with a critical shortage of “life-saving PPE & ventilators.”
“This motion threatens to politicize to biggest industrial mobilization of Canadian industry in its history,” said Volpe who co-ordinated efforts to get manufacturers to retool in the spring. “This motion isn’t necessary.”
“By voting in favour of this motion, we’re offering the government the opportunity to buy back some credibility, to work with all parties, improve its approach and act with transparency,” said O’Toole.
Health Minister Patty Hajdu said it would compel “vast numbers of documents over a very short period of time” and “interferes with the ongoing functioning of Health Canada” and the Public Health Agency of Canada.”
“One of the narratives that I find most distressing coming from the opposition,” added Hajdu, “is that somehow because (scientific) advice changed at some point that the government was hiding information or that the government was giving misinformation. And nothing could be further from the truth.”
Hajdu questioned the sincerity and the “goal” of Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner who sponsored the motion demanding mass production of documents.
“Really no document is too small and she wants that within 15 days,” Hajdu said. She said if Rempel-Garner was really interested in analyzing what has gone well and what has gone wrong in the pandemic response, the party would agree to a “more reasonable time frame” to produce the documents.
It set off another bitter clash in the Commons.
Rempel Garner said the motion is “non-partisan” and was first tabled at health committee two weeks ago, and repeatedly demanded to know what the health minister regards as a “reasonable timeline” — a question which Hajdu never answered.
The Liberal government, despite Trudeau’s repeated promises that he is open to a review that would consider “lessons learned” from the pandemic, has failed to appoint an arm’slength review of the overall health response to the novel coronavirus epidemic, unlike in 2003 in response to the SARS outbreak.