Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the motion put forward by the member for Wascana. The motion focuses on an area of great importance to the government, the protection of the health of Canadians and the role firefighters play in this.
Today I would like to use my time to speak to part (b) of Motion No. 388. Part (b) of the motion calls on the Government of Canada to recognize firefighters in their vital role as first responders, as an integral part of Canada's critical infrastructure. It calls on the government to recognize firefighters as health care workers under the Canada Influenza Pandemic Plan, entitled to priority access to vaccines and other drugs in cases of pandemics and other public health emergencies.
Before I begin, I also want to thank the Standing Committee on Health for having adopted a motion to undertake a study that will enable Canadians to better understand how various jurisdictions deal with their vaccine priority lists during pandemics. The study is taking place this week, and I understand the committee has heard from several witnesses, including representatives from the provinces and territories as well as from firefighters.
Clearly, our government recognizes the crucial role firefighters play in protecting Canadians. Firefighters serve our communities and our country with incredible dedication. They put their lives at risk to protect Canadians.
This government and I are supportive and appreciative of all that firefighters do for our society on a daily basis. As a trauma surgeon myself, I have been on site with these individuals when they have done their heroic tasks, and I have quite frequently, unfortunately, been the recipient of the patients they have brought to the emergency room.
People like Wayne McKean from the town of Blue Mountain or Bob McKean, the deputy in Clearview, Michael McWilliam, our chief in Wasaga Beach or Trent Elyea and Carrie and Terry Weatherup, both from Everett, serve as volunteer firefighters. These individuals benefit from the volunteer firefighter tax credit this government has put forward.
From a public health perspective, every one of us plays a role in working together to protect the health and safety of Canadians. Infectious diseases, for example, do not recognize borders, religions, culture, politics or jurisdictions. They impact every one of us, whether we are infected or not, and our responses to these emergencies must have the same broad scope. Whether we are part of a community, a business, a school or a hospital, whether we are a first responder like a firefighter, a policeman or an emergency medical service individual like me, or whether we are government officials, we all have a role to play.
The federal government's role is one of leadership. We work closely with other jurisdictions to develop national guidelines to help inform provinces', territories' and community responses. It is the first responders, the hospitals, nurses and physicians and the communities that deal first with public health emergencies. Our national guidelines must provide them with sufficient flexibility to allow for a tailored response that takes into account a community's specific circumstances as well as the characteristics of the emergency. I can tell the House first-hand that this flexibility is extremely important.
Local authorities prepare and respond to emergencies using the resources they have available at that moment, and appropriately so. When an emergency exceeds local capacity or it becomes too large in scope, provinces and territories as well as the federal government assist in response efforts.
In a pandemic, an important role for the federal government is to provide advice and guidance to provinces and territories, to provide pan-Canadian frameworks for preparedness and response. Provinces and territories develop and implement their own plans based on their priorities and the needs at the moment.
For example, the Government of Canada provides guidance to assist provinces and territories in determining priority access to antivirals or vaccines in influenza pandemic situations. Our recommendations are then used by the provinces and territories to make decisions on priority access. All of this is done on a local and unique basis in pandemic circumstances.
We believe that the country's ability to come together in the face of dire circumstances is exceptionally strong. We have done it before. We saw this particularly in our successful response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, during which all sectors of our country pulled together. Working in a hospital myself at that time, I can tell members that the work everyone did was truly amazing, coming together.
Put simply, a one-size-fits-all approach to something as multifaceted and complex as a pandemic simply would not work. At that point in time I was working in two different centres. We had different responses at the two centres. We had to be flexible. We had to accommodate local needs. Only people in the province, territory and those local areas can make those decisions.
In short, during H1N1 it was all about working in tandem, hand-in-hand with local authorities, provinces and all other partners to manage this global public health crisis, recognizing our connections and shared roles, and we succeeded. We had learned from the SARS outbreak in 2003.
The Government of Canada now knows that we have some of those right tools in place. We needed to quickly produce and distribute vaccines and have ventilators and a stockpile of antivirals at the ready to support the provinces, territories and municipalities responsible for those first responders, like firefighters and police officers, so those on the ground can make the decisions they need to make at the moment. We knew we needed to keep building on that plan, to keep it in place, adapting in a real-time way.
Like much of the reality firefighters face in their day-to-day work, each day during H1N1 jurisdictions had to respond quickly to emerging situations. Having a plan and the relationships in place allowed us to collectively focus and address these issues.
Comparing 2003 and 2009, the difference in the response was overwhelming. It was co-ordinated in 2009. In 2003, some of us on the ground were pretty scared about how that would be addressed.
We are very fortunate to have a solid network that links all of these players with provincial, territorial and federal governments and stakeholders.
As part of our public health structure in Canada, the public health network provides a tool, unique in the world, for improving collaboration across jurisdictions, for keeping us on the same page and working toward the same ends, integrating policy with practice. It is a means of helping us navigate the various jurisdictional waters by bringing together all jurisdictions to the same table on the same public health issues for consistent messaging to Canadians, something that was essential for our response in 2009.
A big part of the network's success is that its structure embraces the basic notion that public health is about the power of the collective. As I have said, we have all had a role to play when responding to emergency public health events.
The Public Health Network has enabled planning and collaboration between federal, provincial and territorial governments. It has supported our collaborative decision-making processes in all aspects of pandemic preparedness and response, from investing in vaccines and antiviral stockpiles, to surge capacity, to prevention and early warnings, to research and critical science.
H1N1 was an important test for our response capacities on all levels, and our country responded effectively. From the beginning of the outbreak, the government committed to an inclusive national pandemic response to mitigate the risks to Canadians.
This government, provincial and territorial governments, national aboriginal organizations, health professional associations, non-governmental associations, members of Canada's influenza academic research community and private sector representatives all pulled together.
We can be proud that Canada's H1N1 immunization rate is among the highest in the world, a sign of our collective ability to encourage all Canadians to be protected against the influenza virus.
As I noted today, the involvement of all governments and stakeholders is critical to the successful mitigation of the effects of any pandemic, which knows no borders and can spread quickly.
The Canadian pandemic influenza plan for the health sector, developed in collaboration with provinces and territories, outlines the roles and responsibilities of all levels of government during a pandemic.
Canada's response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic was guided by this plan. The implementation of any recommendations on priority access would fall within the jurisdictions of the provinces and the territories. This is very clearly outlined, and I have to say from personal experience, it is extremely important that the provinces, the territories and local communities make these decisions. This needs to be carefully considered in the context of the motion.
Furthermore, recommendations on priority access to vaccines and antivirals have to be based on sound principles. The immediate priority is to target those who are at the greatest risk and those who could benefit the most from the vaccine and antivirals. In some cases, it may be seniors, young children or pregnant women. In other cases it may be health care workers or other first-line responders. These recommendations cannot be determined out of context. They have to be made at the time when one is standing with the patient.
While the response of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic was an overall success, our government is committed to maintaining and improving our ability to prepare and respond to these emergencies. Lessons learned from H1N1 are important considerations.
A number of reviews have been conducted. These reviews are reflective of the high priority this government has placed on our preparedness. That is why the Minister of Health asked the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology to undertake a review on pandemic preparedness.
In closing, I would like to reiterate that this government appreciates the important role firefighters play in protecting Canadians. They are an integral part of Canada's critical infrastructure and are respected for the job they do every single day.
I would also like to stress that the federal government provides advice to the provinces and territories. It is the local implementation and the decisions that have to be made on the ground at the moment of the crisis that are the most important. Those need to be made by the provinces, territories and communities. Every jurisdiction is different and we need to respect those jurisdictions.