Opposition parties team up to call emergency House health, ethics committee meetings

While Parliament is not set to resume regular sittings until the end of the month, opposition parties are pushing for early recalls of two committees to dive into the federal government's current COVID-19 response efforts and use of Canadians' cell data to inform public health measures.

The Conservatives’ call for an emergency meeting of the House of Commons Health Committee has been met with support from both the Bloc Quebecois and NDP, seeing MPs from all three opposition parties team up to pen a letter to that committee’s chair, Liberal MP Sean Casey.

The MPs are requesting Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, as well as a slate of senior health and procurement officials, appear to discuss where things stand on offering surge support to provinces facing shortages, quarantine length guidance, availability of boosters, rapid tests and COVID-19 theraputics, as well as access to N95 masks and potentially variant-specific vaccines.

The House of Commons is not scheduled to resume until Jan. 31, however, if at least four members of a committee from at least two different political parties call for an emergency meeting, one can be convened.

The letter— signed by the four Conservative MPs on the committee as well as Bloc Quebecois MP Luc Theriault and NDP MP Don Davies—requests that the meeting be held before the end of the week, and be at least three hours long.