Mr. Speaker, as I have said privately to the hon. member, I have followed the member's career and I have always admired him because he has come to this place and he always asks the tough questions, even of his own government. I think that is what he was sent here to do. Part of his background is the municipal sector, where those tough questions are asked. I am happy to respond to his question because I know he has done that in a number of fields, certainly, including the environment. I want to say how much I respect the hon. member.
During my speech I did not have a chance to talk about other diseases. We focused a little on SARS because it was the most recent, and on the avian influenza, but there is also the West Nile virus. I did not have an opportunity to talk about the West Nile virus as well. This is another disease that was of major concern during that period of time, particularly in Ontario.
The answer to the question is, what happened during that period of time? On February 2 in the Speech from the Throne, the government committed to modernizing the health protection legislation as an ongoing objective. What happened as a result of some of these concerns is that the government in the throne speech in 2004 said it was going to take a look at that.
Then, Dr. David Naylor, chair of the National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health, also recommended legislative changes to government to better address the risks posed by new or re-emerging infectious diseases. I apologize that I did not get into that part of my remarks, because I wanted to. Unfortunately we do not always have enough time, but I think this is very critical.
I think it is critical because Dr. David Naylor, as chairman of the national advisory committee, is the person who is in the best position to tell us as legislative people what we should be doing. That is the reason the government acted; it was not only in the throne speech based on what happened with the provinces and the concerns expressed to the federal government by the Ontario government, particularly over SARS, but also because of Dr. David Naylor's concerns. I think everyone in this House has a tremendous amount of respect for him and is very pleased to have him in that role. He is one of the people who recommended the legislative changes.
I say to those members who may be reluctant to take a look at this that when we have someone with the expertise of Dr. Naylor recommending these legislative changes in this act, I think we should listen very carefully.
I will say to the hon. member that this is one of the big reasons. It is because of what Dr. David Naylor said. An update to the Quarantine Act will address these urgent issues regarding the spread of communicable diseases.
In one last point, I have listed a few of the diseases and I may have missed a couple, but the concern is that there are new diseases springing up all the time. These are diseases that we may not know about.
I thank the hon. member for his tough questions and hitting right to the point as he usually does. I hope I have answered the member's question.