Thank you to all of you for being here with us today. There seems to be so much intelligence at that end of the room I'm surprised it's not on a 45-degree angle.
My goal today will be to get the intelligence that's in here out into the public. You may explain this to us at great length, but it seems to me there is increasing, as opposed to decreasing, confusion in the public that is of great concern to me.
I listened to Cross Country Checkup, and on that program I heard a number of people calling yet again to raise the same issues: pregnant women at different periods in their pregnancy, people facing autoimmune disorders as well as people facing immunodeficiency disorders, people with quite different problems.
Dr. Gardam, from Ontario's public health agency, was quite successful at answering some people's questions. But as we follow the public opinion polls, actually seemingly less take-up of the vaccination is going to happen than more.
So I have concern that the information you have and are sharing with us is somehow not getting out to the public. My concern on that is what I would consider a relatively passive approach to the public campaign that we're doing. I think you've worked well. Anything in medical research involves probabilities. Anything in medical research and public health has to do with “our best guess at this time is for people to do such-and-such”, based on history and probability and medical research, etc. I'm not trying to say that research hasn't been done well enough. I am hoping it has been.
What I am concerned about is the fact that the public is less and less inclined to take this vaccination. And I want to point out two difficulties I'd like comments on.
One concern is that when it says that things are available to be distributed online or at Canada Post outlets or through a 1-800 number, that to me is a passive approach. Unlike the government's economic action plan, which is in every household, every day, all the time on the television, I am not seeing this activity.
For instance, in Britain, “Catch it, Bin it, Kill it” is a very simple approach. I didn't know I was supposed to throw out my tissue right away. I've been using this one for half an hour. I just saw this. I now know that I should throw this out. It's not a prop. It really has been used.