Mr. Chair, I too have met with mothers in my office and with some children who they have been able to bring back from the brink but constantly have a watchful eye on. These are mothers who are looking for a way to be part of the solution and are desperately asking for urgent help from the government. Ten thousand people have died of opioid addiction in our country.
I do appreciate the member bringing up the issue of SARS.
I want to raise another emergency situation that we acted on and that was the H1N1 flu virus. In 2009, we had 428 deaths and we called a national public health emergency in our country that triggered mobilized centres working 24 hours a day, seven days a week for weeks. That stopped the deaths and put us back on a pathway to health.
New Democrats are not alone in calling for a national public health emergency in this country and we are doing so because the government is not doing enough. We in the House cannot pat ourselves on the back and say we are doing everything within our power. The government has the ability to call for a national public health emergency today and start to turn this conversation into one where we are saving people.
Could the member speak to what that would look like in her riding of Edmonton Strathcona and to the mothers that she has met with? What would it mean to hear the government respond in that urgent way?