It's a good point, and I think it's a conversation that the committee can have in a simple, efficient, and fast way to get at the question whether resources are adequate and whether they're properly placed provincially and municipally.
The provinces have frankly let me down, when a medical officer of health is saying, “Let's just keep an eye on the situation” and “Go see your doctor.” The evidence is so strong of the dangers to certain people.
I've had people say to me, “I grew up in a house with lead pipes and I'm fine.”
I say, “Maybe. Did your mother breastfeed you?”, because it's baby formula with leaded water that is a very high ingestive point of this neurotoxin.
On the other hand, although you may be smart, perhaps you might have been a genius. It's like people saying, “I smoke and I didn't get sick, so let's just forget about the anti-smoking stuff.” There's a real problem; it's going to affect children for their entire lives. There's so much research.
The top research on this is from Simon Fraser University, by an American who came from Cincinnati who did studies that found that incarcerated people in the Ohio state penal system had exceedances of lead in their blood and the behaviours that are caused by changes to the prefrontal lobe of the brain, where all of the humanity of a person sits. We can't just say, “They should know about it.”
I think this committee could very quickly bring the right attention and seek the funding available or that otherwise should be created to address this. I would hate to leave my opportunity as a member of Parliament without having asked my colleagues to take a look at this and see what we can do about it.