Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join in this emergency debate tonight. First I want to recognize that there are Canadians out there who have been hurt. They have been hurt physically and they have been hurt financially. Their numbers in comparison to the 30 million in our country are fortunately relatively small, but they are real. They are not just in Scarborough or Markham, but that is the focus of where, as my colleague has just pointed out, the SARS outbreak began. I want to extend condolences to the families of those who have passed away and the families of those who have endured the difficulties associated with this disease.
In the beginning, this was a health care issue. It was that on day one and it grew from one case of the virus entering Canada. In the early days, most of us looked upon it as a simple health care issue and we asked health care professionals to deal with it. As they always do, they did. There never was a time when a person sick with SARS was not attended to. In the early days before we realized the virulence of the disease, how communicable it was and how long it could live outside the human body as a virus, health care workers jumped in and worked hard. Many health care workers succumbed to the virus. Some have died. We want to recognize that.
In the beginning it was quite appropriate to view it as a health care issue. At the time we even called upon health care professionals to deal with it. I remember daily press conferences given by health care professionals about a health care issue. The containment was not successful in the early days. It is now, but in the early days it was not. As one case grew to 250 or so, it was unreasonable for us to expect that health care workers could manage the entire file.
This thing grew beyond a health care issue and became a political issue, a communications issue, a financial issue, an economic issue, and an international issue. Yet we continued to give the file to health care professionals and ask them to manage it. This was wrong. This was wrong in the city of Toronto, it was wrong in the province of Ontario, and it was wrong for us to expect that health care professionals, as good, as well trained, as dedicated and professional as they were, could manage this whole file. In the end, we know that we were in error is asking them to carry the whole file.
The World Health Organization--again, health care workers--has made a decision, but we cannot ask health care workers to run our country or manage the globe. They are limited in their mandate and in their skills. The finest ever doctors are not necessarily the greatest communicators. I look upon this government, the Government of Ontario and the government of the City of Toronto to be communicators. Perhaps we as elected members were not there as soon as we should have been and in the way we should have been.
I look at the WHO decision of the last few days. It appears to have made a decision without all of the information, without objectivity and without a view of all of the other impacts, political, economic and international, that flow from the decision. It makes me very uncomfortable.
Now we know that this issue is bigger than just a health care issue and that we have to break out of the silos: federal, provincial, municipal, health care, employment insurance, Department of Foreign Affairs, Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Immigration Canada and Transport Canada. We have to break out of the silos and have some leadership. I think we are beginning to see it. I certainly hope we are.
I live a few hundred metres from what my colleague has described as ground zero, Scarborough Grace Hospital in Scarborough. During most of this period I had a cold and I was coughing occasionally. I must say that I restrained my cough as much as I could. But I just had a cold. I am sure there were many other people who had colds over that period and were a little nervous about their condition. But an entire series of communities had to bear the brunt of this and we got through it.
There are not a lot of masks being worn in Scarborough and Markham. I live there and I see that, but when I see the issue on the television screen, I see masks. I see people wearing masks. On CNN, I saw on the television screen the little line,“Toronto gripped by fear”. That is wrong. What a slander. What a libel. My community was not gripped by fear. My community was getting on. We were getting on with our lives as best we could. Yes, there is less traffic in the malls. Yes, there are some businesses significantly affected in the short run by this. We are concerned. But this was yellow journalism. Some of my political supporters told me about a television crew taking newscam videos who brought along masks to give to the people so they could show masks on the television screen. What hypocrisy. I have been out to the malls. I have been out to the schools. My colleagues have too. There are no masks there: just people.
As I say, we are getting along with this. We are just looking for a bit more leadership. I am a little bit angry at the media. As they fan the panic, as they fake the panic, there are other communities around the world that have a greater problem with this than we do.
As we deal with it now, it is perhaps natural to want to reach out and blame somebody. This is a disease. It was not a conspiracy. It was a virus, a communicable disease. We did not plant it. No one planned the whole thing. We have to get a grip on this and understand what we are dealing with. Fortunately, our health care professionals have managed to deal with it in such a way that we think we are just about at the end of it. There is no point in trying to blame somebody for a disease showing up in our country. That is pointless. Let us simply deal with it. Turning on people in the House or out on the street is rather pointless. I think we ought to work together and focus on the positive things and work out of it.
We have work to do. We have to improve our communications. Tomorrow in Geneva there will be some decisions made. It is to be hoped they will be positive decisions that we as a country can build on. We have to break out of the health care silo. There are economic and financial implications. The tourism envelope is somewhat in tatters. Who knows how that will turn out? In terms of financial impact, there is pent up demand. Someone who was going to buy a car two weeks ago perhaps did not buy it two weeks ago. Hopefully they will buy the car two weeks from now. I hope the travel will begin again. Hopefully people will get into aircraft and come out to shop again. I was there on the weekend and I watched the traffic on the streets. People actually were out shopping again. We have managed to put this by us, I think. We are a big country, a big province and a big city. If New York City can get through 9/11, Toronto and Markham and Scarborough can easily get by the SARS challenge. Our people are fair-minded, they are tough and they are resilient. I know we will get through it just fine. Give us a bit of time, give us a bit of leadership and give us a bit of support and we will get through it.
Right now in Ottawa I know that the Prime Minister has made a number of significant communications. I know the health minister has too. The same thing has happened with the Ontario minister of health and the Ontario medical officer of health. Hundreds and hundreds of health care workers are all doing the right thing. I should also mention the Toronto medical officer of health and the medical officer of health for York Region. They have all done outstanding jobs in managing this very difficult file.
In the end, as I said, I carry a bit of resentment. Perhaps other Canadians do. Perhaps I am not all that happy with how the media handled this, but we are a free country and the media has free speech. Perhaps the media ought not to stick a microphone in front of me over the next few days because I might lash back verbally. However, I hope I am in a position in the days to come to congratulate all of the governments involved for the work they have done and will be doing over the next weeks to address the fallout and the implications, bring us back to normal and hopefully learn a few lessons.