OTTAWA – The Green Party of Canada has once again called on the Prime Minister to strike an intergovernmental rapid response task force, led by health experts, to coordinate all aspects of the pandemic that would benefit from a national strategy.
“This is a health crisis that risks spiralling out of control, and we need the federal government to take the lead as a convenor,” said Green Party Leader Annamie Paul. “We have been calling on the Prime Minister to coordinate a national response, via an intergovernmental task force, since November last year.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic is a national emergency without a national strategy. Over the past week, we have seen record numbers of new infections in Ontario, record new cases of variants in Alberta and record numbers of hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions in British Columbia and Ontario. We also know that the P1 variant, which is 2.5 time more transmissible, is spreading in B.C., Alberta and Ontario in large part via interprovincial travel.
“Today, the Canadian Medical Association put out an urgent call for ‘unprecedented measures to address the state of crisis unfolding in several provinces,’ including ‘prioritizing national collaboration to save the most lives.’ The CMA President stressed the urgent need for ‘province-to-province collaboration and national leadership to address the scale and severity of the pandemic.’ The Green Party of Canada strongly supports those calls.
“This pandemic will only be defeated through national cooperation,” said Ms. Paul. “Our federation was designed to ensure that we could come together to support each other across Canada whenever it was needed. The time is now for the federal government to show national leadership and to work with the provinces to develop a national strategy.”
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