Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Certainly we want to be as clear as we can with Canadians. Dr. Tam always makes sure, during her briefings, that she communicates to Canadians what the situation is in Canada, as well as do other departments that have imposed measures, whether it's Transport Canada for a domestic vaccine for federally regulated sectors, or the Treasury Board for the public service.
With respect to the federally regulated sector, as I indicated, there was strong evidence from international and domestic sources to conclude that vaccines were very effective at preventing infection and, consequently, transmission of the COVID-19 variants that were circulating at the time, namely alpha and delta, and protecting against severe illness and hospitalization and death. That is one of the reasons why we were indicating that the evidence was there to support a vaccine mandate at the time.