Scheer says Liberals’ COVID-19 response has caused “confusion and repeated delays”

Federal Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer made a statement from Regina criticizing the way that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has handled the government’s COVID19 pandemic response.

Scheer said that Canadians want Trudeau to provide “clarity and leadership,” but have been experiencing “confusion and repeated delays” in what Scheer sees as an often contradictory response plan.

Scheer asserted that “Conservatives called for stronger action to protect our borders in the early days of this crisis” and then hit the Liberals for saying restricting travel was “ineffective and unneeded” and reversing themselves later on.

Although Scheer’s attack on Trudeau and the Liberals’ performance is, in part partisan, one of the main themes of Scheer’s statement is the Liberals seemingly disregarding the advice of their opposition for partisan reasons.

Scheer lists several areas where the Conservatives made a recommendation or argument in favour or disfavour against a particular government action, which the Liberals ignored, and then later reversed themselves on.

Most of the statement that Scheer made was also to give context to further recommendations the CPC is making to the Liberal government. 

Scheer called on the Liberals to “refund the GST remittances to the small businesses that have collected them in the past six months,” as well as to scrap planned tax increases, including the 50 percent increase to the carbon tax that just came into effect today.

The Conservatives, in general, have been arguing that the increase in taxes and other revenue generators may help the government collect more taxes, but in the long run, the significant improvements will damage the Canadian economy’s ability to bounce back after the COVID19 pandemic is over.     

There is no doubt that the minority government position the Liberals are in has greatly intensified political fighting over the COVID19 response, especially after the debacle over the broad emergency taxation powers the Liberals tried to grant Finance Minister Bill Morneau last week.