Mr. Speaker, it is very important to understand that we all need to ensure that the agency focus on its core competencies, which is of course pandemic preparedness and infectious disease.
There are other things that overlap, but I know the member was particularly concerned in the last Parliament with fetal alcohol syndrome. The health committee will have further information when it reports to Parliament on this issue. I ask the member to be patient and he will see that report presently.
With regard to the preamble in the member's comments on benchmarks in health, I must take a moment to remind the House that in too many cases the benchmarks were not set by the previous government and the health care guarantee was actually a promise made by the Conservative Party in the last election. Interestingly, about a month after it was announced, it was largely copied by a couple of the other parties.
The guarantee stems from the Supreme Court decision that came in June, which is a decision that access to wait time is not access to health care. Unfortunately, that has been quite an indictment on the previous government, where wait times doubled and there was a shortage of family physicians and other health care professionals. However, that is just to clear the record.
I am very pleased that among the federalist parties there is an understanding that with Bill C-5 a pandemic does not respect borders. We must be prepared and we must work together across party lines and political parties to ensure that we are prepared as much as possible to ensure the protection of public health and Canadians.