Mr. Speaker, I have obviously been listening to the debate this evening and I want to respond to some of the points that have been made.
I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate, particularly after the intervention of my colleague from Repentigny, as well as listening very closely to the comments of my colleague from Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, and of course, my colleague from St. Paul's who spoke earlier, as well as the Liberal leader.
This debate is important because one of the things we know is that due to the nature of the modern world, we are likely to be facing this kind of issue and this kind of pandemic more often than not. My colleagues opposite have mentioned SARS. There will be lots of time to analyze the responsibilities of federal and provincial governments with respect to SARS. No doubt there will be a public inquiry or review of some kind with respect to this particular issue that we have been dealing with and there will be ample opportunity for all of us to figure out what has happened and what needs to happen.
However, it is very important for the House to reflect on this question, because there are going to be more such incidents. We know this because the world is getting smaller, because various kinds of diseases that formerly were isolated in one part of the world or another no longer can be isolated, because when they strike their impact is much more sudden, and because certain conditions that affect people, such as asthma, are far more widespread than they were before.
Many of us, if I may speak personally, who have been asthma sufferers for a long time were rather surprised to learn that we are part of the vulnerable community because of susceptibility to the virus.
H1N1 came upon us last year. It is an illness about which there was a great deal of concern and anxiety at the beginning because no one quite knew what it meant. It has a severe impact on certain individuals.
I will quote the comments of the Chief Public Health Officer, whose name has been invoked a great deal this evening as well as in other debates. Dr. David Butler-Jones said on October 26, on CTV News:
We have no way of predicting which 18 year old, which 10 year old, which 30 year old who's previously healthy will end up on a ventilator. The only way we can actually prevent that is ultimately to be immunized.
If I may say so, if nothing else emerges from this debate and discussion, perhaps the fact that a greater number of Canadians might decide that it is time for them to take seriously the risks and for them to make the choice to be immunized is a positive outcome.
In listening to the debate and explanations from the minister and also in reading much of the discussion that has taken place over the last several weeks, I have no hesitation—
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Vancouver Quadra, who has been waiting patiently for me to utter these all important words, which I now do.
There seem to be three assumptions in place. The first one is that the second round, the so-called second wave of H1N1, would come somewhat later in the flu season than in fact it has.
The second assumption of policy seems to have been that one supplier would be best. I look across at my colleagues opposite who I would have thought ideologically might be a little uncomfortable with the notion that a single state-subsidized supplier is going to be the ultimate best solution for national planning.
The third assumption seems to have been that a low-key approach would be the best. The politest term that I think one can apply to the government's approach over the summer is that it was decidedly, from a public standpoint, low-key. The public was not widely informed about H1N1.
My colleague from Peterborough spoke earlier tonight and said he in fact had circulated a flyer throughout his riding. I congratulate him for that. I do not think there were 300 other members who did the same. Perhaps there were, I do not know, but the simple fact of the matter is that the public has not been particularly well informed on this matter, because the government decided for whatever reason that a low-key approach would be best.
There are these three assumptions, and we know one other fact, which is that from the time people get their shot, it takes 10 days for the immunization to take full effect. That is what we are told. That is what the experts tell us. That is what we read in the paper. So from the time people get their shot, they have 10 days in which they have a better chance of being protected from the spread of the virus than they would otherwise have.
These three assumptions have been widely shared. They might be called the conventional wisdom that has taken hold of the government. The government has relied on consensus and what it has heard from experts in saying this is the approach that it has decided is the best. There are at least three things that have followed from these assumptions. This is what we need to analyze, understand and recognize as posing a potential problem.
First, in terms of its impact and the severity of the illness, the second wave of H1N1 has started again without a vaccine being widely available, and in some cases, without a vaccine being ready at all. That is a fact. Members opposite might say, and many of them have, that I am politicizing and engaging in hyperbole. No. Actually, we are looking at the timeframes and saying, when one looks at when the wave started, the vaccine was not widely available. Perhaps the wave started sooner than was expected. We will need to know the answers to these questions.
Because of what we call a screw-up with respect to the production of the vaccine, there are people in vulnerable groups, including pregnant women, people under the age of 65 who have an underlying condition such as asthma or a heart condition or something else, and young people between the ages of 16 and 25, who are not getting the vaccine this week. They are not getting the vaccine this week because there is not enough vaccine available.
Again I stress that these are simple facts. They are not hyperbole. They are not exaggerations. They are not things that are being thrown around. They are facts. They are unfortunate facts, but they are a reality.
The second consequence from the decision to have a single supplier, and my colleague from Repentigny has referred to this, is that supplies are affected by bottlenecks and by changes in demand. In speaking today, the minister said that the reason they had a delay was because they decided that they needed to get the flu vaccine before the H1N1 vaccine, as if there is only one place to get the vaccine.
We do not live in a place where there is no competition. Other companies could have supplied the necessary vaccine, but the government decided that one single company would be responsible for supplying vaccine. I am telling my fellow members that we are all familiar with the problems associated with having a single source. Having a single source causes problems. That is the problem we have now.
The third consequence, the consequence of the low-key approach, is that the public is not quite as well informed as they need to be with respect to this question. A couple of comments have been made that I found interesting to listen to and important to analyze. The first is a comment by the minister and others. I think Dr. Butler-Jones may have said it, and I think it was the minister who said it. They said that they were not expecting the level of demand that was there. They were not expecting the responses from the public.
One can only ask, what exactly were they expecting? If a 13-year-old teenager, tragically, passes away, that is going to have an instant public reaction. That is going to cause a level of public concern. I know it is politically inevitable that there will be charges back and forth with respect to what is taking place.
We have asked tough questions. We have a responsibility to do that as the opposition. We have asked for a debate. We have a public debate, and that is a healthy thing. I think it is important that the public be informed, that they be aware of the public policy choices that have been made by the government, and that they be aware of some of the consequences of those choices.
If, in the course of events, the government decides to change course to become more active in its publicity and more engaged in its leadership role, and if the public can in fact be better informed as a result of the debate and the controversies and the comments that have been made, then I am one of those who thinks that is a good thing. That is a healthy outcome. It is important for Canadians to be well informed about this issue and it is important for us as Canadians to know the choices that we face.
