Madam Speaker, the member had a very confrontational tone in the process of posing the question. I am not sure if we actually disagree, very much, on what the process of science is. What I said is what I think he said at the end, which was that the process of scientific inquiry requires asking questions, challenging received wisdom, experimenting and putting forward hypotheses, and then that empirically grounded process of questioning leads to new conclusions.
I made a point in my remarks about the importance of that process and of legitimate empirical questioning of received authority. At the time the member refers to, I was looking at the science on masks. I took a bit of a risk as a member of Parliament by saying that I thought our public health authorities were wrong in their advice not to wear masks. I said that at the time, which was maybe a bit of a risk, but I read the empirical evidence and I thought that it was an important thing to say. It turned out that the thing I said was correct. It shows the value of empirically grounded questioning.