Conservative Shadow Minister for Public Services and Procurement Pierre Paul-Hus looks on as Shadow Minister for Health Michelle Rempel Garner speaks during a news conference Monday Oct. 26, 2020 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Opposition succeeds in forcing review of Liberals’ pandemic response

In a rare show of unity, opposition parties in the House of Commons joined forces on Monday to mandate the minority Liberals to disclose a vast trove of documents related to the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Members of Parliament passed a Conservative motion calling on the government of Prime Minister Trudeau to disclose emails, documents, notes, and other records from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as from cabinet ministers’ offices dating from mid-March.

The motion also calls on several cabinet ministers to testify before the House of Commons health committee.

The centre-left New Democratic Party and the sovereignist Bloc Québécois joined the Conservatives, who are the Official Opposition, to pass the motion by a vote of 176 to 152.

While the Liberals and several industry groups and some experts have opposed the motion, the Conservatives have argued the review will help Parliamentarians learn from the mistakes of the first wave, to do a better job of dealing with the ongoing second wave and prepare for future outbreaks.

“There are people worrying about continued business shutdowns, being isolated from family members,” Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner told reporters Monday morning.

“And because of this, now is the perfect time for Parliament to be working together, to be questioning whether what we’re doing in terms of a response from the federal government is working.”

Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand responds to a question during a news conference Monday Oct. 26, 2020 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Speaking before the vote in the House of Commons, Public Services and Procurement Minister Anita Anand said passing the Conservative motion would undermine ongoing contract negotiations with makers of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies, and could threaten Canada’s ability to procure such supplies in the future.

“It is my grave concern that those contracts are at risk, those negotiations are at risk, and suppliers will then as a result be hesitant to contract with the federal government. And that chill on our supplier relationships then undermines and perhaps negates our ability to procure additional PPE, buy additional vaccines, and additional rapid test kits,” Anand said.

“What is on the table here is the lives of Canadians.”

Rempel Garner, who originally presented the motion, rejected Anand’s comments as “hyperbolic” and “fear-mongering.”

The Conservative motion includes appropriate safeguards to ensure that sensitive corporate information remains confidential, she said.

“These are pieces of information that the Canadian public needs to know to have stability, these are reasonable questions for Parliament to ask,” Rempel Garner said.

With files from CBC News and The Canadian Press

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