Thank you. It's been very fascinating so far this morning.
I'm going to be sharing my time with MP Webber.
First, what I've heard so far is that we should trust the experts. Regular citizens are kind of like anti-science bumpkins, and they're going to weaken the global order. I really question that premise.
I would like to read to you an email that I received on January 29 from a regular constituent in my riding. He said, “MP Jansen, I'm hoping you can urge the government to have a more serious approach to raising the threat level assessment of coronavirus. I'm a screening officer at YVR. Most of the employees at YVR feel strongly we are not prepared to fight or prevent the spread of the virus. Since Health Canada determines the threat level is low, there are no face masks provided to the employees, and the official language is “not recommended but respected” towards staff's personal choice to wear the mask. We are only told to wash our hands more than 20 seconds but a lot of passengers and some employees don't wash their hands or the soap runs out during peak hours in some of the popular washrooms. Health Canada ensures the public that a healthy person will be safe from the virus by washing their hands and staying two metres away from others.
“Currently that's impossible. Our searches do not allow officers to keep two metres distance when conducting searches nor do we have space needed at checkpoints. I know for a fact that a lot of movement flow from YVR staff and inbound and outbound travellers are mixed together in certain areas. While China has gone so far to lock down cities and other countries like Britain - they've stopped flights to and from Beijing, it worries me and other YVR staff to see that the Canadian government is taking such an optimistic approach for something so contagious and dangerous. We're concerned and even if we want to help ourselves by wearing our own masks, they're sold out and I've even gotten teased on my choice of using my own mask by upper management.”
Again, you need to understand that this was a regular Canadian sending me an email on January 29 asking me to beg that we take this more seriously. Who do I...?
You tell us we have to trust the experts, but I'm concerned that the experts were giving us the wrong information.