Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-11-20 12:21 [p.2196]
Madam Speaker, as you will know, pursuant to our rules, I submitted a letter yesterday on behalf of myself, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, the member for Fredericton and also on behalf of Annamie Paul, the leader of the Green Party of Canada. We appreciate very much that the Prime Minister convened a high-level briefing yesterday for all leaders of the parties assembled in the House of Commons.
The information, as we all know, is sobering.
In my letter to the Speaker, I identified what I thought was Dr. Tam’s most recent projection that we could hit as many as 10,000 cases of COVID a day. It turns out that is one of the more optimistic models, if we all do everything we can over the holiday period. If we fail, we could have 60,000 cases a day. This is, indeed, sobering.
Some might say that this is not a new emergency, that we have been in this emergency since March. I put it to you, Madam Speaker, that we are now in a second wave and the advice is deeply concerning from medical professionals. This is a non-partisan issue. I plead with people that if we can have an emergency debate, it must be non-partisan.
Canadians want to see us work together, but they also want to know that parliamentarians are seized with this new information and want to work together to give Canadians a coordinated response that brings into play the best advice throughout Canada from our public health officers and others. If we have an emergency debate, with only 15 sitting days left in this calendar year 2020, we need to rise to the occasion as parliamentarians and let Canadians know we understand the second wave emergency demands the best of all of us.
I thereby ask the Speaker’s office to grant an emergency debate, so we can bring our best non-partisan concern for the well-being of all Canadians to the floor of the House of Commons.