Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for attending today.
For the level of concern that the Conservatives brought up in having these witnesses here, the best they had in terms of questioning was mocking an individual's name, one of our colleague's names. That's pretty disappointing.
After a decade of muzzling scientists and ignoring the Public Health Agency and ignoring experts, it's clear that Conservative Party ignorance is alive and well today, when it doesn't even seem to understand the evolution of science and the evolution of data. However, here we are, and I'm just very thankful to all the witnesses who are here to work on behalf of Canadians.
I want to get back in the time I have to the Ontario modelling that was raised. In fact, Ms. Rempel Garner left out a very important part of that modelling that was just released. Ontario, for example, has said it would be capable of doing about 150,000 vaccinations a day if it had the supply. Even in that modelling, even if Ontario did 300,000 vaccinations a day, the trajectory of cases was still on the rise; therefore, as has been said by the minister and the doctors on the panel today, vaccinations alone are an incredibly important tool for keeping Canadians safe.
Dr. Tam said that vaccines prevent death and attendance in the ICU, as well as strong public health measures. If the Conservatives were in power, they said several weeks ago they would open up, ignore science, ignore the experts and ignore the data. Even 300,000 vaccines a day in Ontario wouldn't have helped if Conservatives were in power making those decisions.
The U.K. has very high vaccination rates. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has credited lower case counts to both vaccinations and public health measures. Can we elaborate with regard to those strong public health measures in connection to vaccination rates, and how that is going to help?
Frankly, there's a very important piece that hasn't been touched, and I'm not surprised the Conservatives haven't talked about it, because it doesn't fit with their ill-conceived, wacko science data, conspiracy theory type of questioning. However, in and around our health care workers, they are strained and stressed, so it's not just about keeping Canadians safe and getting them vaccinations, but there is enormous pressure from our health care sector.
Could the minister or a member of our team here talk about why the two measures have to go together hand in hand, and why vaccinations are incredibly important and Canadians are committed them? Why do public health measures matter so much, especially for our public health care workers?