We could have gone with Dr. Powlowski.
My apologies to Mr. Van Bynen. I was trying my best to scan through this motion while he was speaking. I'm taking a quick look right now, and I see that the motion asks public health officials basically to stop what they're doing to protect Canadians and sift through emails and documents instead.
Gosh, I've got to tell you that these health care professionals, these public health officials, are working hard day and night. As has been said numerous times, we are in a resurgence. Some people call it a second wave; I call it a resurgence. You have these public health officials working with provinces, working with the Province of Quebec and the Province of Ontario to make sure that people are safe.
I would expect that some of these documents could also catch up a lot of correspondence with the provinces. I think about the need to respect our relationship with the provinces and territories. We hear Mr. Thériault in the House of Commons talking about that all the time, about respecting that jurisdictional relationship.
Again, public health officials are working day and night, especially since this resurgence has hit. I think, as I said the previous time I spoke, that it's very important for us to be transparent, and I know that it's very important to Canadians that they understand how officials are working to keep them safe. I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't get to a place where we get that.
I want to make sure that Canadians indeed have access to accurate and reliable information from public health experts. Those public health experts deserve, at this point in the resurgence or the second wave, to focus on the work at hand.
Again, Ontario is in a second wave. Other provinces are seeing case spikes. Chris, Mike and I are fortunate to be wrapped in the loving arms of the Atlantic bubble; however, we're starting to see some cases creep up in Moncton now in a long-term care facility, and I know that Sonia had intentions of moving a motion forward on long-term care, I believe. I didn't see a motion.
Looking again at this motion, it seems like it's all over the map. Our previous study on COVID lacked a little bit of specificity; it was the opposite of this omnibus motion. It was, strictly speaking, to speak about every aspect of COVID; however, when Tony talked about his motion, his motion was specific in an area that of all of the things that... Of all of the witnesses we had and all of the testimony we had, we didn't get very much testimony on the mental health aspect of COVID-19 that I think—Tony, I was trying my best to listen to what you were saying—you were calling the pandemic within the pandemic, or a second pandemic. There was an example of a mental health crisis line in Nova Scotia that was receiving 25 calls a day pre-COVID and 750 calls during COVID.
It certainly is something that needs to be done, and perhaps it's covered in this motion. Again, I haven't been able to drill down in this motion, so very likely there is a mental health aspect to this motion, but again, with my Surface Pro in front of me and my iPhone in my hand, I have not been able to drill down into this motion.
I'm perfectly in agreement that the committee must focus on COVID-19, but I would have been very much in support of focusing on the mental health side. One of the focuses in my community and through our constituency office is the mental health of my constituents. We've held numerous town hall meetings in our riding, and they're all very well attended. What we've come to see pre-COVID is that we have a patchwork of mental health services across this country. That is one of those things that we all in the House of Commons should be working on tackling: how we can assist provinces and territories that have the jurisdiction for much of this stuff. How do we assist them? We don't want to trample on jurisdiction, but we want to be there to help in all things COVID.
If we truly want to be there to help in all things COVID, we have to be a willing partner with provinces and territories. We have to be a willing partner with Quebec and Ontario as it pertains to COVID and as it pertains to the mental health aspect of a pandemic within a pandemic.
Again, I would seek the ability to drill down on this motion, which, on continuous looks, seems to have an awful lot of good stuff in it. I think it's something that we as a committee could work on, much like we did in the last session, when we worked really well as a committee on finding ways to come to an outcome. We very often had unanimous support for folks' suggestions on studies and where to go, especially as it pertained to COVID.
Mr. Chair, I would seek the ability as a member of Parliament to be able to look at this over on Thanksgiving weekend, drill down on this, and perhaps come up with some suggestions for amendments down the road. That is my plea for members of this committee: It's to give that opportunity over this weekend.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.