Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her comments and support for the bill. The member spoke about bringing the bill forward and hopefully getting it through the House quickly. I am obviously very supportive of that as well.
I would like to ask the member, why did the previous government not act on this legislation earlier? It was two years in order in council and the legislation was tabled for first reading in November of last year. It did not even make it to second reading. This makes one question the commitment of the previous government to the Public Health Agency of Canada given that it had potentially up to 13 years to implement it and certainly five years after SARS.
Could the member tell us why it took so long for the previous government to even table the legislation?