Mr. Speaker, May 4 to May 10 has, thanks to this government's handling of SARS, been renamed emergency un-preparedness week.
This year's theme is “Unprepared Now, Never Learn How”. This is with the knowledge that the federal government did not learn any of the lessons from 9/11 when it comes to emergency preparedness.
A more thematic approach is promised, one that will focus on a minister of emergency preparedness who hides at the first sign of an emergency.
Of special interest to the Minister of Canadian Heritage should be Thursday, May 8, mitigation day, for the next time she speaks to the Minister of Health and her caucus colleagues.
Friday, May 9 will be dedicated to explaining why the biological team was moved from Arnprior to an unfinished Ottawa office on April 1 when the federal government should have been providing the World Health Organization timely information about SARS.
The decision to close the Canadian Emergency Preparedness College in Arnprior is an absolutely unnatural disaster.
Being unprepared for SARS should serve as a wake-up call to forget playing politics when people's lives are at risk.