Thank you, colleagues, and thanks to my honourable colleague Mr. Lauzon for his thoughtful remarks. I certainly appreciate everything that he has to offer to this committee.
You were missed greatly while you were away. I was away before you—I was under the weather as well—so I really felt your opening remarks when you said we're not all invincible and we need to take care of our health. I appreciate that.
I want to go back to an argument that I've been making in every meeting we've had on this amendment. I've extended it and shifted the argument to support the amendment I put forward to Ms. Vecchio's original motion.
My argument really focuses on a couple of major points, which I continue to reiterate and then provide rationale and evidence for.
I know that members of this committee are often interjecting with comments about relevance. I thus offer the structure of my argument. Even though it's somewhat repetitious, because some members have heard it before, I offer it to ensure that you understand how the things I am saying relate to and are relevant to the argument that I continue to make.
The more I research and learn, the more I appreciate the fact that this extended debate has given me the opportunity to learn more and more about the deep economic, social, health and equity related impacts or inequities that the pandemic has caused.
Obviously there is no intent there. Although I'm told by a virologist that viruses are very smart, they're not thinking, rational beings as we are. Although their intelligence at a molecular, cellular level is quite something, we really have to take the time to understand the impacts this virus has had on every part of our society.
The amendment I put forward is a real chance to compromise. We haven't had any indication from members opposite on this committee whether they would vote in favour of my amendment at all. Generally we've seen that if there were a willingness to be adaptable, flexible, the members of this committee I'm sure would have vocalized their support for the amendment by now.