Mr. Speaker, I too wish that all of the facts would come out. I am sure my hon. colleague will consider them intently and perhaps even change her view and her decision.
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Nanaimo--Cowichan. Because of the interest of this topic we need to lend as many voices as we possibly can to this debate.
It is indeed my pleasure and privilege to speak to this motion as the health critic for the Canadian Alliance. It is a very important issue. Many of my colleagues have talked about it being of political and economic importance, but I would like to spend most of my time talking about the health importance of this.
I was an observer at the WHO. I was not a recognized observer but I was there the year before last. I had the opportunity to see how it actually worked. It is a great opportunity to dialogue with colleagues from around the world, to discern exactly how they feel on very important health issues. Things are done there by consensus and by trying to get along. For Taiwan to have observer status and be able to lend its voice to that dialogue is very important. Make no mistake as to where I am on this issue. I am 100% in support of observer status for Taiwan at the WHO.
It is an important health issue. That is where I would like to lend my voice to this debate because of what actually has happened over the last little while with regard to the SARS issue. If there is one thing we have learned in spades in Canada when dealing with an infectious disease such as SARS, it is the importance of time and of being very aggressive in dealing with the SARS virus with everything we have. Perhaps in some ways it is a forerunner of some worse viruses that are to come, but hopefully we have learned some lessons. One lesson we have learned is that we need to act quickly.
The question being asked all day long is where China was with regard to SARS. It started there and it carried on for at least five months prior to the world knowing about it. We have to really discern why that would take place. In fact, if we did not know about it, I am sure Taiwan did not know anything about it as well, and it is part of the exact same country, and the WHO did not have the opportunity to inform the world or Taiwan. It is very important that we make communication number one. This is certainly an opportunity to engage Taiwan in this kind of debate.
I would like to take a look at exactly where we are at with SARS and some of the things about this virus. It has a tremendous human and economic toll, as we see what has happened in Taiwan. Just over the last two months SARS has become such a common term. Two months ago we did not really know what the acronym meant. Now we mention SARS and everybody understands it full well. In just a two month period of time it has come on to the world stage and is a common term around the world. In fact I was in the Baltics last week and there is no question that the number one issue on their minds is what is happening in Canada with regard to SARS.
It looked as if Toronto had it under control and we were very pleased with the way the containment had come along, then all of a sudden SARS raised its ugly head again and is now infecting more people in Canada. There are 350 probable suspected cases and 27 deaths in Canada. Most of those are in the Toronto area. Around the world 8,000 have been infected and over 700 have died up to this point. It is very important that we look at that.
SARS continues to be a global threat, not least of all in Taiwan. We have to look at Taiwan and see exactly what went on there. Are they suffering from the same problems that we have had in the difference of how the patient in Vancouver was dealt with compared to the patient in Toronto? I am not blaming anyone, I am just saying that they were handled differently because of the information that was given to both those hospitals. One patient was put instantly into quarantine and in the other case it took 24 hours. We can see in a 24 hour span how many lives were lost, how many people were affected, how much economic damage has been done to Canada and to the Toronto area. We must discern how important this information is.
SARS has killed 27 people. Many hundreds of people have been sick. Thousands have been in quarantine. Our health care system has been pushed to the breaking point, as we saw five nurses at the height of the first outbreak in the Toronto area just walk away from their positions because of the stress of it. There is public fear out there that we are trying to alleviate. It is there, it is real and it is not only here but around the world.
The city of Toronto has such a black mark because of it and is something we will have to work to overcome. Hundreds of millions of businesses have been losing millions and millions of dollars in the hospitality and tourism industry. It is not just in the Toronto area, it is right across Canada. In the riding of Yellowhead, where I come from, in the national park tourism is a major economic driver particularly in the summer months. We are feeling some of the effects of this even in western Canada.
We understand how this has taken place. We talked about the difference between the two hospitals. We also have to ask where was the Liberal government? Where was the strong leadership? Where was the coordinated national response? Where was the ability to alleviate some of the public fear?