Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join today's debate on Bill C-5.
Enhancing the public health care infrastructure is the key in combating disease and possible pandemics that may threaten our societies and our nation at large. The lessons we have learned from SARS serve as imperative in restructuring and enhancing our public health care system.
Bill C-75, introduced by the Liberals in the last parliamentary session, was an initial step toward strengthening the ability to protect the health and well-being of our citizens. It is important to keep our public health system and the health of our population a priority at all times, not only in times of unpredictable disease. A key element in enhancing our capacity for disease prevention as well as emergency response lies within the intergovernmental infrastructure of public health.
A sustainable public health system encompasses a comprehensive and cohesive measure of cooperation, not only across governments but within governments as well, in addition to non-governmental organizations, the private sector and of course the public at large.
In general, every level of government, from local to federal, must collaborate and assume their roles and responsibilities in order to achieve a functional, integrated public health care system and an effective emergency response capacity. The SARS outbreak managed to articulate and highlight the weaknesses of our public health care system and the defects of managing health crises.
Toronto followed China and Hong Kong as another region hardest hit by SARS. As of August 12, 2003, there had been approximately 44 deaths and 438 suspected cases of SARS in the Toronto area. These figures, along with the panic that occurred because of SARS, put great pressure and stress on the health care system and inevitably on society at large. There were high numbers of patients in need of intensive care. Hospitals had to be shut down. Elective procedures were cancelled. Most important, appropriate and adequate supplies necessary to combat the disease were woefully lacking.
Luckily, the public health care workers were able to contain SARS and prevent it from spreading to the larger community. Nonetheless, such health crises should not be subject to and depend on luck or a committed staff. Rather, they should be tackled by a cohesive public health care system with the regional capacity for outbreak containment, information management, surveillance and infection control.
Overall, the SARS outbreak illustrated that Canada was not ready to deal adequately with a pandemic. The Government of Ontario was certainly at no capacity to withstand simultaneous SARS attacks, and the rest of the provinces did not represent a better stance either.
Learning from these lessons, the former government's initiative in introducing Bill C-75 was aimed at creating an agency with the ability to protect the health and safety of all Canadians. Such an agency was meant to create the leading role in federal collaboration with the provinces and territories in order to achieve a sustainable public health care system through the renewing of the system as a whole.
The Public Health Agency of Canada assumes the role of working closely with provinces and territories by being part of the public service and working to combat and prevent chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, in addition to injury prevention, public health emergencies and, notably, infectious disease outbreaks.
The distinction of the agency is in its functional structure and interconnectedness. It liaises as follows. The agency is to be headed by the Chief Public Health Officer and includes two direct reporting bodies: first, the agency's corporate secretariat, which houses the executive and ministerial services, and second, the agency's scientific director general, who is responsible for the agency-wide mandate of science and coordination.
The agency has a number of branches. I will do a brief run-through of them. Of course, as with any good federal government agency, there will be a number of acronyms.
There is the infectious diseases and emergency preparedness branch, IDEP. Within this branch, there are number of different responsibilities. The centre for infectious disease prevention and control, CIDPC, is within this branch, as are the centre for emergency preparedness and response, CEPR, the national microbiology laboratory, NML, and the pandemic preparedness secretariat, PPS. They all fall within IDEP's responsibility.
Other branches are the health promotion and chronic disease prevention branch, HPCDP, as well as the public health practice and regional operations branch, PHPRO, which encompasses public health practice in all regions throughout the country.
Finally, there is the strategic policy, communications and corporate services branch, which encompasses the strategic policy directorate, the communications directorate, the finance and administration directorate, and the human resources directorate. Really, they are the logistical support behind the branch.
The new structure's functionality and collaboration and the division specialties created by this agency are essential for the renewal of our public health care system. With specific specialized fields and care divisions, each health oriented topic will be dealt with effectively, efficiently and rapidly.
For example, let us take into consideration the centre for emergency preparedness and response. This unit, under the infectious diseases and emergency preparedness branch, was created in March 2006 for the specific purpose of coordinating and facilitating pandemic preparedness and emergency response activities in a cross-governmental and nationwide format. This is an advanced unit that has brought together the lessons learned from SARS and was able to put them into use when dealing with the possible outbreak of avian flu.
By providing leadership within the Public Health Agency of Canada, next to working with key partners and stakeholders, the secretariat served as the focal unit of emergency preparedness. It provided internal and international capacity of outbreak containment, information management, surveillance and infection control. It also achieved clarity in defining the roles and responsibilities within the decision making process, enabling effective, efficient and integrated federal and national health pandemic preparedness.
The success in controlling and disqualifying the breakout of avian flu in Canada serves as an indicator that this agency and its particular branches serve as assets to the betterment of the health care system here in Canada.
Canadians want to live in a safe and healthy environment, with a reduced risk of disease. Certainly these branches and the work undertaken by these branches will go a long way in doing that. That is why I believe Bill C-5 should be supported.