Mr. Speaker, that is the dilemma. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. I would think that Canadians want to know that we are prepared for the big hit, whatever it may be, whether it is a pandemic, another SARS, bird flu or who knows what. Those kinds of things have the potential to kill a large number of Canadians. We need to tell them that we are going to deal with it.
We have already done much work in some of the other areas. It is not to belittle them. We must continue to work on all fronts but there are certain priorities we have to deal with.
Last week the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse issued a wonderful report and I hope members will look at it. It was on the current situation with regard to the costs and the morbidity from misuse of tobacco, alcohol and drugs. If members have not seen that report they can read it on the CCSA website. It states that alcohol is the one area where we have not made progress. In fact, it states that binge drinking is one of the most critical causes of health problems among Canadians. This is consuming a large number of drinks in a short period of time on a periodic basis. It does not mean that a person is a chronic drinker. It could be one occasion. We are talking about billions and billions of dollars annually as a cost of this misuse of these drugs and the mortality from them, which makes this a significant priority for the new Public Health Agency.