Just briefly, I think Mr. Fisher does make a good point about this being an onerous request. It is. But I think the onerousness of the request is commensurate with the seriousness of the issue. I think the COVID-19 virus right now is probably the number one public health issue facing Canadians. It's on their minds.
I don't know that there are thousands of pages. He may have seen some documents that I haven't seen. This says that we're after documents that were prepared for the Minister of Health, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Public Safety, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence. I don't know how many memos, briefing notes or phone calls were made. We're asking for the summaries that would have been prepared.
The thing about accountability is that it is onerous, but we are the health committee. I think the government has done a credible job, up to now, of managing this crisis, but I think it's also fair to say that there have been some shifting sands. I'm not even putting that at the foot of the government, but first we weren't sure whether this virus was only transmitted by particulates. Then we found out that it could be transmitted by surface. We weren't sure whether it could be transmitted person to person. Now we understand that it could be transmitted person to person. We understand now that it's coming into Canada from not only people from China but maybe from Iran or elsewhere.
I think the time has come for us, as the health committee, to get a very good idea of what has happened so far in order to help guide us in terms of doing our work as the body of Parliament that is to keep a close eye on the health portfolio.
For those reasons, I think the motion is a sound one. I'll be supporting it.