Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think I'll do PV-10 and PV-11 together. They pick up very much on the points in the discussion that Murray Rankin and Andrew were just having.
Not only did Perry Kendall speak on behalf of my own home province of British Columbia as the medical officer for British Columbia, in making his points he stated he was speaking on behalf of all provincial health officers.
Another very prominent Victoria resident, Dr. Trevor Hancock, who is a senior scholar at the School of Public Health and Social Policy, wrote in The Globe and Mail that “The importance of a medical officer of health being an independent officer was established in the 19th century”. If we want 21st century legislation, I don't think we have to reach back to before the beginning of the 19th century and make our public health officer report through, and only through, a senior bureaucrat.
What my amendments attempt to do is to allow for what the Conservative administration says it wants to do, which is to remove administrative burdens from the chief medical officer, but allow that chief public health officer to remain independent and to remain free and empowered to speak on public health issues.
In the first amendment, PV-10, we amend proposed section 5.1 by replacing line 2 so that the president of the agency is to be appointed not by the Governor in Council but by the chief public health officer. That way the chief public health officer would remain in supremacy in relation to the president, who's there to do the administrative work.
If I flip to PV-11 to make sure that works—because it is being presented at the same time—the amendment replaces lines found in proposed section 5.2 with the purpose of ensuring that the president of the agency is the chief executive officer of the agency, full-stop, and is not deputy head of department, not a deputy minister.