Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We are pleased to have you here today for the first time before this committee.
Mr. Butler-Jones, congratulations on your new duties. We have many questions to put to you this morning.
The Bloc Québécois is concerned on several fronts about the establishment of this new agency. The bill provides the agency with a statutory footing. We know that you are currently in office. The responsibilities granted to this agency are far broader than you stated this morning, Minister. The goal is far broader than the intent to create a legislative framework and provide public health support in the event of pandemics or of an avian flu outbreak.
The various documents provided to us by the Public Health Agency of Canada regarding the division of powers state that the new agency will now be promoting health and chronic disease prevention, for cancer for instance, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. There are going to be integrated strategies for this.
We have some concerns about the encroachment into provincial areas of jurisdiction. Moreover, in your preamble, you speak of a vision which may be cause for concern with respect to provincial areas of jurisdiction.
You speak of disease and injury prevention and public health emergency preparedness and response. You then go on to say you intend to encourage collaboration and cooperation in this field.
Encouraging cooperation is not the same thing as respecting provincial areas of jurisdiction. In my opinion, this is rather weak. There is some cause for concern as to how this bill will be received by the various governments, specifically the Government of Quebec, which will see this as an independent authority, under your control, but giving the agency far more latitude. So, we are concerned about encroachment.
We are also concerned about the cost. I don't know to what extent you drew inspiration from the Naylor report, which is over 300 pages long. In fact, there were recommendations on the order of $200 million per year, plus a budgetary increase to deal with the findings of the Naylor report on SARS. You started out with SARS, a pandemic, but you have spread your tentacles out with respect to the Public Health Agency of Canada's responsibilities.
I think this could lead to a monster, a white elephant in terms of bureaucracy, in terms of paperwork. We've been given a great deal of documentation, and we believe that is cause for concern. This nation's bureaucracy is a concern for us on several fronts.
Could you respond to that, Minister and Mr. Butler-Jones?