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MP Motz hammers federal pandemic response

Posted on July 23, 2020 by admin
WWN FILE PHOTO

By Trevor Busch
Westwind Weekly News

Analyzing the federal government’s overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz heaped criticism on the actions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party.

“The Liberal government has high taxes, and there’s wasteful spending, and massive deficits,” said Motz. “They put us as a country in an incredibly weak position before the pandemic even began. They added $87 billion or more to our national debt in the first four years they were in power.”

In 2019, Motz was reappointed as the Associate Shadow Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, a role he had served in previously following his byelection win in 2016.

Targeting the Liberals’ management of the public health crisis in Canada, Motz didn’t hold back in leveling criticism of some of the actions that have been taken, or what he termed a slow response from government.

“If you look back over some of the things that have happened, some of the things that have come to mind for me that they’ve been just plain wrong on, or been very, very slow…they were very slow to close our borders, which a lot of the countries were rushing to close theirs. We asked back in January what is your plan, are you going to close borders? They don’t need to, they told us. They were wrong to dump critical medical supplies, and then refusing and failing to replace them immediately. They were slow to enhance airport screening and shutting down international travel specifically from areas that were hardest hit with the onslaught of COVID, which allowed the virus to spread. They were wrong — extremely wrong — to side with China, with Beijing and the World Health Organization instead of listening to Canadian medical experts, initially.”

Program gaps and making sure the right people are receiving pandemic benefits has been a problematic issue for the Liberals throughout 2020, argues Motz.

“They were slow to advise Canadians that they should wear masks — they told us ‘Na, you don’t need to wear them.’ Now they’re telling us they should, and they could have told us that a long time ago. They were slow to roll out programs for Canadians that were unfortunately struggling through this process, and then they were wrong not to fix the programs. When we kept identifying that these Canadians are falling through the cracks, you need to fix these cracks, here’s some solutions to fix them — they haven’t fixed much of those.”

Motz asserts the Liberals are leaving small business behind in the rollout of various stimulus programs, and their initial cash influx for affected industries.

“We know small businesses drive our economy, and the majority of people in our country are employed through them, and right now they’re forcing many of them to close permanently. They were wrong to raise taxes; Canadians were already struggling to make ends meet, look at the carbon tax — that was just silly. We’ve asked what’s your plan to restart our economy? Are you prepared for a second wave should it hit? Handing out billions of dollars of your money — taxpayer’s money — is not a plan for how we’re going to restart the economy.”

Chief among Motz’s complaints about the Liberal’s handling of the crisis is what he views as an abrogation of Canada’s democratic traditions.

“To me, one of the biggest things is how they’ve shut down Parliament — with the help of the NDP — and refusing to allow MPs to do their jobs and provide critical oversight. At the time of a national crisis you shut down Parliament? Think about that. How much more undemocratic can that be?”

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