Mr. Speaker, I would first like to welcome the member and colleague to this House. I hope that, like us all, he will find the time he spends here worthwhile.
I want to thank the member for his work. I am pleased to see that he supports this bill, which he calls very direct and indicative of the actions his government intends to undertake. I am pleased if it is, because it is our bill. It is a bill that we put forward. It follows the Naylor inquiry. It was formed by the governor in council appointment of the Chief Public Health Officer and the agency. I certainly hope that he will support me, as I have mentioned before, in asking his government to properly resource this agency.
One of the areas about which I have some fear is what I heard in the House earlier: that resources in the integrated disease strategy were being reduced. I have to take this as authoritative because it was not contradicted. This integrated disease strategy sought to work with the provinces, agencies and non-governmental organizations on the common causes of diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart and stroke, all the other respiratory ailments and all these others that are out there in our country and that we are working together on. That strategy no longer appears on Health Canada's website.
In the House and during the campaign, I remember hearing the governing party talking about fully funding the Canadian cancer strategy. I support that and I believe it is a good idea, but part of that falls within the integrated strategy. The governing party has talked a lot about ethics. I believe it would be unethical, even hypocritical, to remove that funding, to not properly fund that integrated strategy. I believe it is important that we work together with all intervenors in our society, provincial, local and non-governmental, on the common elements of all these scourges on the health of Canadians and the public health of our nation.
I would ask the member to please comment on these points.