Mr. Chair, with respect to not vaccinating frontline workers, we would and will vaccinate frontline workers. There were a very small number of Department of Foreign Affairs employees offshore in certain parts of the world who were offered on a voluntary basis, and obviously it is always voluntary, the opportunity to be vaccinated, and in fact a very small number of them I believe were.
In terms of frontline responders, it is still our intention to make the vaccination available to frontline responders on a voluntary basis. We have some of those within the federal government. The provinces and territories actually have the vast majority of frontline responders. They will need to identify those responders for us and then the vaccination will be offered to them on a voluntary basis. That is the approach that we are taking.
I talked to my colleague Tommy Thompson, the secretary of health in the United States. Mr. Thompson and the government of the United States had a very ambitious plan to vaccinate large numbers of so-called first line responders. There was very limited take-up in relation to that plan. Part of the issue was the possibility of an adverse reaction. The other problem was in terms of a compensation scheme for those who suffered from an adverse reaction. The United States government has moved to look at the kind of compensation scheme which could be put in place to deal with that situation.
Clearly, we are looking at the same kind of issues. Whether we reach the same resolution is something that has not been decided. However we are aware of the small number of people who are adversely affected and therefore we want to do our homework. Right now--