Mr. Lauzon, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak sooner than expected. It's always a pleasure to appear before a committee as important as this one.
Yesterday Ms. Duncan and Mr. Lamoureux clearly established that the priority for Canadians is support for individuals, families, entrepreneurs and Canadians in general. This is an extremely difficult time for the entire country.
The situation for the moment seems slightly better in the Atlantic region. I believe there were 6 new cases and 41 active cases in Nova Scotia yesterday. We're doing quite well and that's because Nova Scotians are following Health Canada guidelines. That's for sure. It's extraordinary; we can see that people are following the guidelines. They've changed their habits. There are so many examples I could cite, but just just washing your hands—I've never washed my hands so often—makes all the difference. I have to say I was a teacher and taught grade one students for a year at one point. I had to wash my hands a lot, especially when teaching young children. It can be quite a chore.
You know as well as I do that we were supposed to open our border with New Brunswick next Thursday. The Nova Scotia government and other Atlantic governments have shelved that idea for the moment because the health system in some regions is under additional pressure with people suffering from COVID-19. We want to keep our numbers down as far as possible because then we can do contact tracing, determine where the COVID-19 virus infecting people came from and make sure they're self-isolating.
For example, I made an announcement yesterday, and we rarely make public announcements. We can see from what's happening in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia that the situation is very serious, as Ms. Duncan said yesterday. It's critical, it's tough, and people are tired. All this stress and these mental health problems generally weigh heavily on people as it is. Add to that this entire COVID-19 business and Canadians want and need support. Canadians need the vaccine.
Going back to the point I made yesterday, we rarely have to make public announcements, and we made a very important one yesterday. The federal government and Nova Scotia made an announcement. I was the master of ceremonies for that announcement, with all the technical responsibilities that entailed.
It was an outdoor event and we had to keep our distance from one another. However, the announcement was extremely important.