I also want to lend support to my colleague, Ms. Khalid.
Here's my concern. This is valuable data that public health is using to help manage the pandemic. I point to the letter from Adam van Koeverden, the parliamentary secretary for health, which he sent to committee members this morning.
He says that if the request for proposals is delayed, PHAC will lose access to this data as of March 20, 2022. He has given us very clear information that is being collected and distributed and opened to Canadians every week. We can see that it is disaggregated data that's not linked to any one particular person.
He goes on to say that this data will be used only for the purposes set out in the RFP. This is data that's being used for risk assessments, research to understand the value of mobility data in detecting future risk of infectious diseases, and weekly insights for provinces and territories to assist them in their public health response, as well as to keep Canadians informed about the COVID trends website and the WeatherCAN application.
I think these are important points. We have to make sure that Canadians' data is being protected and their privacy is being protected, but I just don't want us, in a knee-jerk reaction, to take away important tools that public health is using to manage the pandemic.
I just wanted to add those thoughts.