Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in tonight's emergency debate requested by my NDP colleagues. I feel this is the right thing to do. For the past month and a half or two months, public awareness has been raised to the crisis unfolding so far away and yet so close to us. Under circumstances such as these, we realize that we practically live in a great big village.
I will always remember Philippe Leblanc's report on Radio-Canada at the end of July, when he described how the situation was starting to affect villages in West Africa. When we look into the issue, we clearly see today that many people feel that western countries not directly affected are slow to respond and are turning a blind eye to this reality. We are happy to see that some announcements have already been made.
I will therefore ask my colleague from Don Valley East whether he does not think that it would be in our best interests to do something as soon as possible to eradicate the disease as quickly as we can. The bigger the problem, the more dangerous it becomes for everyone on the planet.