Thank you so much.
First of all, I want to greet everyone with a happy new year as well.
I want to start out from the beginning, especially as a new member—not only new to this committee but as a new MP—by repeating the calls for setting the right tone and working together. I did partly joke with my colleagues when I was first elected that everything I learned about politics, I learned in public health in my previous role. To me, this is about health and progress first and about politics second. I like the way the previous member described the “tinge of politics”, but let's keep it as perhaps a tinge to jostle and to encourage us to be accountable. Let's aim for progress.
On the federal support, I'd really like to listen first and then draw conclusions, and to perhaps not set up the next meeting with foregone conclusions. I will say, having been a CMOH during or from the beginning of the pandemic, that the feeling of having federal support behind us...whether it was vaccines, whether it was helping us to collaborate on our FPT meetings or whether it was the advice from the Public Health Agency on the modelling and on not underemphasizing the massive economic supports we needed and still need to get us through the pandemic. As a public health leader, I was constantly grateful for and appreciative of the federal support we had. That is the premise I want to try to establish.
Was it a perfect response? By no means. Did we learn lessons? Absolutely. We should be taking every lesson we can for the rest of this pandemic, and for the next. I certainly learned the value of humility—learning from my colleagues, learning from experience, learning from our mistakes and improving. And here I have to agree: I think overall Canada has borne this very well.
I will also say that omicron has completely changed the paradigm and has perhaps surprised us by the degree to which public health measures, there from the beginning, are still necessary in addition to all of the other tools, and the amazing new tools, that we have. I'm also going to say “molnupiravir”—just to show that I can say it—and echo that we are entering a new era that I think is a potential game-changer. I'm so pleased to see the government stepping up with the acquisitions that will be required.
I want to touch briefly on a couple of things.
First of all, I want to ensure that the motion includes the provinces and the territories as well. I know that's the intent of the motion, but I want to make sure it's clear that the territories are included with the provinces.
I would like to echo the need for us to be available to each other in the preparations for meetings. I see no reason why that needs to stay within party lines.
I would also like to reflect on the other member's comments about health care worker exhaustion and burnout. I think we have to continually remember in what we are about to hear, and of what we are constantly hearing, that our health care workers, whether in the public health workforce or in the clinical workforce, are tired and exhausted.
I want to see us move through this review of the pandemic progress to the consideration in committee of how to support our health care workforce, and to look at recruitment and retention of all layers of our health care workforce, from physicians to nurses to technical support. This should be one of the committee's priority studies going forward.