It really speaks to the different experiences that provinces and territories have had.
I have to say it's been a pleasure to work with all the health ministers from the Atlantic provinces, who have been extremely supportive of the other provinces. Even recently, the ministers and the Premier of Newfoundland were suggesting they would be there for Ontario. You're right that this demonstrates that provinces and territories acknowledge that we really are in this together. No Canadian is safe until all Canadians are safe.
One of the things I've noticed with the Atlantic provinces—really speaking bluntly here—is that those provinces did not wait to take action when there were outbreaks in communities. In fact, the measures they imposed probably felt very stringent, as an Atlantic member, when there were potentially very few cases in these outbreaks—five or 10 cases, in some cases. However, these premiers and health ministers made a decision to act very quickly on very few cases and to do the really hard work of contact tracing and isolation. The population itself understood that even though they were few in number, it was better overall to make a collective sacrifice to keep the region safe.
There's been a real focus on protecting and supporting people who are sick, and on isolating them appropriately so that they can indeed stay home. It seems easy to say to people, “Stay home when you're sick,” but isolation is actually really challenging. You can't leave your house. You cannot leave to get groceries. Oftentimes, if you don't have Internet or digital access, you are cut off from the world. Of course, if you're single or living in poverty, there are other barriers.
When I think about east coasters and the way they band together in general, it's true testimony to working together and collective action to fight a significant threat.