Liberals face probe into virus response

OTTAWA— Opposition parties won their bid Monday to launch a probe of the Liberals’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic following a week of parliamentary turbulence over how to review their management of the crisis.

MPs from all four opposition parties voted to pass a motion that orders the Trudeau government to turn over to the House of Commons health committee all records on a raft of issues related to the coronavirus response.

The move by Conservative, Bloc Québécois, New Democrat and Green MPs, plus one Independent, comes five days after the government survived a confidence vote on a previous Conservative motion that would have created a special committee to investigate the WE Charity affair and other alleged examples of corruption.

The more recent motion zooms out from the WE controversy to focus more broadly on Ottawa’s reaction to COVID-19, but the probe can still examine documents tied to the charity.

Canada’s procurement minister warned that an investigation would jeopardize federal contracts for personal protective equipment, vaccines and rapid test kits, as it could trigger the release of commercially sensitive information, scaring off manufacturers and drug companies, Anita Anand said.

“It’s not just a question of violating existing contacts that, for example, may have confidentiality clauses in them; it’s also a question of undermining current negotiations,” she said at a news conference.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole called the warning “utterly false” given the carve-outs for matters of national security, personal privacy and commercial sensitivities.

Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner accused the Liberals of trying to trigger an election, though the government followed through on its pledge not to treat the motion as a confidence matter.