OTTAWA, ON – Today Member of Parliament for Carleton Pierre Poilievre asked the following questions to Minister Catherine McKenna regarding her continued avoidance of accountability over her role in delaying the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus:

“Almost one year ago Ottawa’s regional minister slammed on the brakes on plans for a new Civic Hospital in her own riding because – we were told – hospital construction would interfere with valuable climate change research. Yet a report posted on the Environment Commissioner’s website confirms that all the research happening on the land will be done at least five years before shovels even go in the ground for the new hospital. Did the Member of Parliament for the area and the environment minister read this information before she decided to block the construction of a hospital in her own riding for at least a year?”

When Minister McKenna refused to answer and instead gave the question to Heritage Minister Melanie Joly, Poilievre asked:

“Madam Speaker, my question was for Ottawa’s regional minister, not Montreal’s. The Member for Ottawa Centre is the one who triumphantly announced a year ago that she was reversing John Baird’s decision to grant farmland to the hospital. When she later learned that there was nowhere else to put it, she went into hiding and punted the matter to the minister for Montreal. Now our city is voiceless on a hospital in our city. When will the minister take responsibility for her community and our city and let us build a new hospital?”