Mr. Chair, my colleague from Burnaby--Douglas mentioned the article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen today by Dr. Dana Hanson. Dr. Dana Hanson is my doctor and he is from New Brunswick. He is now the president of the Canadian Medical Association. He was somewhat critical of the government in terms of how it acted in light of the SARS crisis, and I think I can use the word crisis without raising too much ire, and suggested that the government could do a better job. The member was right in raising the fact that he was somewhat critical.
There is a lot of uneasiness in the country in terms of how the minister responded to that. This is one of the occasions where we can look eyeball to eyeball and talk honestly without the normal interruptions in question period. I think some people were disappointed in how the minister responded to that. I know it is easy to be critical but the fact is some of her own cabinet colleagues criticized the minister on her being invisible on the file in terms of leadership.
That leads me to the point that Dr. Hanson made today. We know we have made some mistakes. I would like the minister to at least stand in her place and admit some of the shortcomings because there were some. He has suggested ways that we can be prepared for the next crisis which will occur. In fact we may be looking one in the face now and not recognizing it, and that is the West Nile virus. We are coming into the summer season. In a sense the minister will have a second chance because that could be a crisis, although we hope it will not.
What has the minister and the department learned in terms of responding with their provincial colleagues to prepare us for that next potential crisis, whatever it might be?