Madam Speaker, I cannot speak for the government of Taiwan. I do not know its motivations. I am not sure what its plans are and I do not particularly care. This is an important point. I am the member of Parliament for Richmond and there is a very serious disease occurring, SARS.
We have had a situation in Taiwan where delay has occurred of x number of days where a political decision was made. If Taiwan had observer status at the WHO, action could have been taken sooner. I do not know whether that would have saved lives. However I would like to err on the side of the health issue here.
The building I am in in Richmond, on Saba Road, has a notice in English as well as in Chinese characters which states very clearly that if people have arrived from Hong Kong, China or Taiwan, they should be isolated for 10 or 12 days and that people should ensure they wash their hands so they do not spread the disease.
The point that I am making is, as a member of Parliament, as the House of the Canadian people, it is incumbent on us to solve a problem. The problem is, in my view, that we have a disease we should contain. We might have diseases in the future that are more serious than SARS. I believe, not changing the political configuration, the best way to do that in this particular case is to give an entity, Taiwan, call it what we will, observer status with the World Health Organization because the risk and the costs are too high.
We are talking about people dying. We are also talking about lack of economic activity. I know what I see when I drive around my riding of Richmond. I see the lack of economic activity. Restaurants are 10% full. The shops of all the different communities in Richmond have 20% to 25% of the sales they had before. Why? Fear of SARS and fear of uncertainty.
I want to stop that. That is why I, as a member of Parliament for Richmond, support this motion to have Taiwan given observer status in the World Health Organization.