Thank you.
First off, I'm not sure I disagree that this is an issue that the health committee should look at. I would point out for anybody watching this that this is identical to a motion that was tabled in the House of Commons, and we had a full day of debate on whether or not we should remove travel restrictions and mandates. It doesn't mean this can't come before the health committee, but we have had a full day on this with lots of points made on it.
I also empathize very much with a part of the travel mandate aspect, in that I would be happy to examine the science and data on whether or not requiring people to be vaccinated before they travel on federal transportation services is backed up by the data. I think that's a fair question. I certainly have seen data that suggests that the science may not support any rational connection between that anymore.
One of the problems, of course, when we say that we should remove all travel mandates is that we're also including a mask mandate in that, which I think is a very different matter. I personally think that the science behind masks as being somewhat effective in stopping the spread of aerosolized, droplet-based illnesses is very strong.
That's why I generally oppose any kind of attempt to get rid of all mandates on federal transportation, because it fails to make that distinction between a requirement to be vaccinated versus to be masked or even, for instance, requiring foreign travellers to be vaccinated before they come to Canada, which has a different impact. We don't want foreign travellers to get sick in Canada and then necessarily put a burden on our domestic health care system.
Having said all of that, I am a little disappointed that this motion was made with 50 minutes to go. I think it's disrespectful to the witnesses who are here for this whole committee. This committee had an entire discussion about how we would allocate our time, and we agreed that this meeting would be dedicated to long COVID and to COVID treatments, which are two very important issues. I certainly think we can have this discussion on this motion, but I would suggest we do it on a different day when we can all be prepared for it.
For the record, by the way, I don't think the motion should have been in order, because I had no notice of it and had no opportunity to prepare for it. Although it's generally under COVID, we're talking about mandates that are basically made at the transport ministry, not the health ministry. It's a very tangential connection and very weak nexus between that issue and studying COVID, in my view.
I respect the fact that the ruling has made, and I'm going to move that we table this motion so that we can hear from the witnesses here for at least the last bit of the meeting.
I move that we table the motion.