Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
There has been a lot of discussion here today about what epidemiology is about and what the primary principles of public health policy are.
It depends on what the epidemic and pandemic is. H1N1, SARS, etc. were spread through human contact and respiratory droplet infection. But let us imagine, for instance—and I hope not—that massive numbers of people suddenly became ill because of eating E. coli-tainted beef. Touching them isn't going to give you E. coli. You cannot pass it on as a first responder to somebody else.
But in the case of an epidemic that is contact- and droplet-borne, then the people who are in contact with the people who are sick must be protected, and first is to keep them healthy enough to continue to do their work as a first responder, but second—and you said it extremely well, Mr. Hills—they cannot therefore pass it on to other patients. The primary thing we heard Mr. Brown say, heard the chief public health officer say, is that it has to do with protecting people from getting the illness. It therefore means protecting against contact and getting the illness, not simply a certain group of people. If you are in contact with sick people and you pass it on to other people, you are in a very high-risk group in that kind of pandemic.
My question to you is this. Do you believe that what you really would like to see is based on the type of disease or type of pandemic, so that if there is a possibility that there is contact spread, you are deemed to be a first responder because of the nature of the work you do, and that the Public Health Agency, which is supposed to be setting all the guidelines in a pandemic—“guidelines” meaning there is flexibility at the local level. You would like to ensure in such pandemics or such epidemics that you are deemed therefore to be a first responder like other health care professionals?
If that's the simple thing you're asking for, you're not asking for political interference; you're asking to fulfill the objectives of public health principles.
Is that it? Is it that simple?