Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mr. Erskine‑Smith.
I have read your bill and I understand its intent. However, while the intent is very commendable and you seem to have done a certain amount of research, I currently feel, as a legislator, that you are putting the cart before the horse.
I will give you a specific example. You were talking earlier in your opening remarks about the concept of one health. In fact, the director of the POPCORN collaborative research platform came to discuss this with us during our study on children's health. You are aware of the POPCORN research project, which will continue for two years and which is based on this one health approach. But we don't know what the findings are yet. We don't even have an outline of the research that these people are doing. I am talking about a simple aspect that you raised that I think is very relevant within what you called your architecture.
As a legislator, I don't have what it takes today, and I won't have it tomorrow or in two weeks, to do serious work to propose amendments and improve your bill. Why is that? Because an independent public inquiry is needed to highlight all the failures we have had. The idea is not to find fault, but to understand why all the things that were in place—and there were plenty of them—were not sufficient to properly prepare us for the pandemic. We need to understand the context in which all the reports and plans that existed since the SARS crisis were not sufficient.
There are indeed plans, aren't there? For example, a planning guide for the health sector has been published since 2004. The last update to this document was in 2018. The deputy ministers from each of the provinces have collaborated on and agreed to this plan. So this collaboration that you're talking about is already in place. So what is it about this planning guide and so on that has not been able to be implemented? I also want to understand why the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile was empty.
There are plenty of things that we need to put in place, independently, as far as the facts are concerned. I understand your legislative intent. I'm sure that what you want is to make sure that everybody is better equipped next time, but also that there is accountability. But I'm wondering what would lead one to believe that there wasn't an accountability capacity, given the structure and the measures that were in place. At this point, I do not have the answer to that question.
I can let you respond to my opening remarks.
I think your intent is good and your bill could become very interesting as a result of an independent investigative process where we can get real facts and understand why things did not work.
I'll let you respond to that.