Madam Speaker, at the outset before addressing the arguments put forward by the hon. member, I find it rather appalling to hear him use the word contempt to describe the way the Minister of Foreign Affairs acts. Quite frankly it is beyond the nature of this man, with his experience and high regard for the committee, the work of committees and Parliament.
As far as China having a veto power, it has veto power because it is a permanent member of the Security Council, not because Canada has assigned it any veto power.
However to address the nature of the issue at hand, like Canada, Taiwan has also been affected by SARS. Authorities in Taiwan continue to work diligently, both domestically and with the international community, to curtail the spread of this disease.
The World Health Organization has indicated that there is no practical impediment to the exchange of information and cooperation between the World Health Organization and Taiwan that might threaten the health of Taiwanese in some manner. Nor would Taiwan be barred from humanitarian assistance from the WHO in the event of a medical emergency.
The WHO is indirectly cooperating with Taiwan authorities by setting up measures to curtail the spread of the disease. Its cooperation centres have sent teams to Taiwan to help resolve certain health issues.
As a member of the international community, Taiwan is currently able freely to access health information from the World Health Organization either directly from the website or through WHO's collaboration centres.
Taiwan is able to participate in a whole range of WHO health promotion programs under current circumstances. Taiwan has not been denied access to medical information and assistance that it requires.
With specific reference to the SARS outbreak, Taiwan has received assistance from the United States Centers for Disease Control, CDC, as we did in Toronto, where the World Health Organization has a collaboration centre.
Specifically, one, on March 16, 2003 the CDC, at the request of the WHO, dispatched two officials to Taiwan to assess the SARS cases. Two, information on Taiwan's reported cases of SARS have been included on the WHO's website since March 18. Three, Taiwan has the information it needs to deal with the outbreak of SARS through the CDC which is a de facto link to the World Health Organization.
Taiwan in effect has the same information as others, including Canada, to deal with the SARS outbreak. The only difference for Taiwan is that information has been provided through the CDC, a WHO collaboration centre, and not directly through the WHO. This has in no way affected Taiwan's ability to deal with this outbreak, nor has it adversely affected the health and safety of the Taiwanese.
Would that this issue were about the health and safety of the Taiwanese rather than the politically driven reason for which it is constantly brought forward.
In closing, Canada would support a formula for Taiwan's participation other than as a full member as long as this formula was in accordance with the WHO constitutional rules and procedures and had received broad based approval of WHO members.