Thank you, Mr. Dalton. I can expand on what I said earlier.
You can't claim to protect a population that you don't serve in its official language. Those people not only have a right; they expect the federal government to be able to serve them in the language of their choice. That's essential. It's the government's responsibility to be able to do so.
Sometimes you think you're more efficient when you go faster and avoid translation or the need to make the same information available in both official languages, but that can have the opposite effect. I briefly cited a few examples to illustrate that.
You can have a population that doesn't exactly understand what the government expects of it because the directives in its language weren't clear. There may be a population that hesitates to use health services because, once again, it hasn't understood the directives.
As the studies have shown, this is particularly true among seniors, who are uncertain whether they can be served in their language. As you get older, your cognitive abilities in your second language tend to decline. Hearing problems also develop in persons of a certain age. Since the immigrant population is less familiar with the health system, they will hesitate to use it. These are all reasons why it is essential that directives be clear and in both official languages.
As regards the chief public health officer, what we've seen as citizens is a person we weren't very familiar with before the pandemic and whose position, which has become a central one, doesn't just require her to communicate with Canadians. A whole lot of coordination work is being done behind the curtains with different stakeholders across the country. That's why my intention is to say that this position should be designated bilingual because it plays an essential role. The person who performs that role must be able to communicate with stakeholders in the official language of their choice.
I'll stop there. I hope I've added something to my comments.