Mr. Speaker, that is an important question, one to which we gave some thought.
We have responded to every request the provinces have raised with our government in this crisis and we have worked with them. If there were a public emergency under the Emergencies Act, the chief public health officer would not have any new or special powers to address this. Therefore, we thought this was a tool of last resort and with this bill, we would be equipping our health agencies with the proper tools with which to fight this crisis.