Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois member has a good question regarding the issue of compensation. I think he is well aware that this issue requires greater flexibility and that each case should be reviewed on its own merits.
We think that sometimes it may be a small, very obvious compensation that would be negotiated. Sometimes it may be on a grand scale, such that everybody will be able to contribute their opinions on something like this. Obviously there are many times where it will be a public facility and many times it will differ from situation to situation.
We hope this kind of approach will not be in the letter of the law but will be something that is free to be negotiated situation by situation, not only with the Minister of Health but among the provinces and territories which often will be the ones that have the best opinion as to what place to use.
As the member knows, public health is really done from the bottom up and our job is try to facilitate the best possible decisions based on the people on the ground who know best.
The kinds of diseases that the member is asking about are communicable diseases that could put the public health at risk. During the SARS outbreak we did not have a name for the disease and we did not even know the incubation period. It was called severe respiratory syndrome because we did not have a clue what it was or how it was transmitted. We are hoping this bill today will help us with not only the diseases that we know now, but with the diseases yet to come.
The problem of new and emerging diseases and this interest between animal health and human health, we know that 80% of these new and emerging diseases come from animals. They are known to vets. We are doing everything we can to examine these new diseases, as well as dealing with the ones that we know so well and are listed as communicable diseases right now.