Mr. Speaker, I was absolutely staggered and flabbergasted by the comments from the member opposite.
People in this House, I hope, do not usually tend to speak the opposite of the truth intentionally, and I hope that was not her motivation in doing this, but I have to ask the hon. member to check her facts.
I do not know if the public is aware of what happened when the Liberals were in power, when we had threats such as SARS, but I am going to correct the hon. member's comments right now. We have an emergency preparedness system across this country. We have a 24 hour op centre that exists. We have provincial counterparts across this country. We deploy mobile hospitals across this country, not only in the event of a biological disaster, such as what she was referring to, but for other disasters that may occur as well. These beds can be mobilized anywhere in the country on very short notice. They are deployed right now.
We were and are a world leader as a result of the work that we did with respect to challenges such as SARS, so much so that Canada was chosen to host a world symposium on dealing with issues such as SARS and international emergencies such as this.
Why was Canada chosen? It was because we were and are the world leader in this as a result of the work that we did, so much so that we were asked to go to Southeast Asia, which is the epicentre of these types of zoonotic diseases that skip the species barrier, with our scientists, with our early warning system, and with our diagnostics to help them deal with their problems.
Why was Canada chosen? It was because we are the best, and we are the best because we put those elements in place that we have here at home and we share that all across the world.
Those are the facts and I want to at least give the hon. member the opportunity to acknowledge all of that work that I just mentioned, and which my colleague from Toronto just mentioned, who is also a physician and who was very intimately involved in this. Will she at least acknowledge that what we have said actually did occur and that these things are in place for the safety of our citizens in our great country?