Tory MP attends Parliament virtually after tighter vax rules

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This article was published 09/12/2021 (1114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — After chiding the Liberals for “phoning it in” by not bothering to show up in the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says he has no qualms with a Manitoba MP who attends Parliament virtually.

“We lost that debate,” O’Toole said Thursday, in response to questions from the Free Press.

Tory Ted Falk, who represents Provencher in southeastern Manitoba, hasn’t been in the House of Commons since MPs voted to tighten restrictions on medical exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines.

Falk is the only MP who will not say whether he’s been immunized or has a medical exemption, as he insists it’s a privacy issue. His riding includes communities with some of the lowest vaccine uptake in Canada.

Falk was in Ottawa this fall, and entered the Commons on Nov. 22, after a policy came into force restricting the parliamentary precinct to those who presented the House of Commons administration with a proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, or a medical exemption.

On Nov. 25, MPs voted to restrict the medical exemption list to specific contraindications drawn up by Public Health Ontario and the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.

Since then, Falk and three Conservative MPs who say they have a medical exemption, have not been in the Commons.

All other parties say their MPs are vaccinated.

One of the absent Tories, Cathay Wagantall, told the Commons via video conference Monday that her original medical exemption was approved, but she said there was a delay in getting enhanced proof.

The beefed-up vaccination policy was part of a motion that enabled MPs to again attend the Commons via video conference, and vote on legislation via their smartphones.

Days later, O’Toole decried Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “going back to hybrid, going back to being in his pyjamas and phoning it in.”

For months, the Tories and Bloc Québécois have decried virtual Parliament for eroding accountability and transparency.

Conservative deputy leader Candice Bergen, from Manitoba, has been particularly adamant.

“Individuals put their names on a ballot. They got elected knowing that we were nearing the end of a pandemic and that their work would include coming to Ottawa and being here to do their job,” the MP for Portage-Lisgar said last month.

Yet on Thursday, O’Toole said he has no issue with his MPs using the virtual option.

“All MPs now have the ability to use the hybrid Parliament… we think it should return to normal, with all the proper health precautions in place.”

He also wouldn’t say whether his MPs are able to attend caucus meetings virtually.

Falk wasn’t available for an interview Wednesday and Thursday, and his office wouldn’t say why he hasn’t been in the House of Commons since Nov. 22.

“While Conservatives believe hybrid is far from ideal, we recognize that it is the will of a majority in the House and have adapted to make the best of it. As such, like many of his colleagues (of all parties), Mr. Falk began this sitting in Ottawa and continues to represent his constituents from his constituency,” reads a statement from his office.

He’s not the only Manitoba MP missing from the chamber.

NDP MP Niki Ashton, who represents northern Manitoba, said she has decided not to go to Ottawa to avoid any chance that she might infect Parliament Hill staff, noting that Manitoba MLAs, including leader Wab Kinew, had caught COVID-19 this fall.

“We have to be concerned not only for our colleagues, but for our loved ones and our constituents, and we cannot pretend that we are the only ones working here,” the MP for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski said last month, during the debate over virtual sittings.

“I am frankly shocked that in the year 2021, in the throes of a fourth wave of a global pandemic, after a year and a half of creating and making a hybrid Parliament work, that we are even having this debate,” she said, adding that flights have been cut during the pandemic.

Winnipeg Liberal MP Jim Carr said he likes both options.

He said the virtual option allows him to attend important events in his riding. But he argued it’s still important for MPs to be able to reach everyone from cabinet ministers to opposition MPs without having to schedule a call.

“The advantage of being in Ottawa is that you have access to colleagues; you are at caucus meetings and you have, in the room, colleagues from across the country,” Carr said.

“You can get an awful lot of work done in very short discussions with people who are right there and accessible.”

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca