House Passes Pandemic Preparedness Bill

The House of Commons has passed a bill seeking to help prepare Canada for the next pandemic, but a clause ordering a federal review of the handling of COVID-19 was voted out. Bill C-293, The Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act, passed third reading on June 5, with 164 votes in favour and 144 against. The Liberals, NDP, and Green Party voted in favour of the legislation, while the Conservative Party and Bloc Québécois voted against it. The private member’s bill, introduced by Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith in June 2022, calls for Parliament to learn from the mistakes of previous pandemics and use a “multisectoral and multidisciplinary collaborative approach” to pandemic planning....