Mr. Speaker, the legislation actually deals with that point. The role of the public health officer is very similar to that of a deputy minister, with the major exception that the chief public health officer would have the authority through the legislation to speak directly to the public.
The other issue the member may be interested in is the chief public health officer will also have the ability to provide a report to the House on public health issues that he or she feels are important to Canadians. Canadians will be very pleased to have an independent credible voice if and when, but hopefully never, a pandemic occurred. This is something that did not exist when there seemed to be a lot of confusion on how to respond to the SARS crisis.