Mr. Speaker, as a consequence of the failure of the minister responsible for emergency preparedness federally, the OCIPEP was completely dismantled and a new department was created, the one we have right now for public safety. That is largely as a consequence of the inaction and confusion that happened during SARS.
Many people never knew that the defence minister was in charge of emergency preparedness. These comments further exemplify that and they were successful, apparently, in whitewashing that over.
In terms of SARS itself, it was our current Minister of Health, the hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, who was able to contain the situation in the province of Ontario. As a consequence of his daily conferences with every public health organization and hospital every morning during that crisis, we were able to contain the situation and stop the spread of this disease.