e-3225 (Business and trade)

Petition to the Prime Minister

• A year into the pandemic, tools to prevent spread and reduce serious illness, like rapid tests, data on how COVID-19 spreads, therapeutics, and vaccines, are available, and being utilized globally, but are not being effectively deployed in Canada;
• Canadians need hope and a clear, permanent path out of lockdowns to preserve their mental health, and a plan to save their livelihoods while using tools to prevent COVID-19 deaths;
• Other countries have released data-driven plans to permanently end lockdowns and lift restrictions;
• Mass economic lockdowns should never have been viewed as a long term measure to prevent spread of COVID-19 but rather they should be temporary and designed to allow governments time to develop more sustainable solutions;
• Prolonged lockdowns across Canada have led to large increases in domestic violence, opioid deaths, mental health crises, business closures, unemployment, and they create inequality;
• The Liberal government has failed to implement a national rapid testing plan;
• Canada is months behind other countries in vaccination; and
• Government budgets depend on economic projections that cannot be responsibly developed without a plan to end mass lockdowns and restrictions.