Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned in the opening comments, committee did put a lot of work into the report and working with the Minister and his staff, and I just, at this time, want to thank the Minister and his staff for all the hard work that has gone into getting to us to this point of the clause-by-clause review of the bill in Committee of the Whole and all the work that has been going into this. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all the stakeholders and all those that came and did written and oral presentations, and although we couldn’t get everything into the amendments, we did make a lot of, I won’t call them recommendations, but courses of actions, as we worded them in the report we read into the House earlier today. There were 18 of them, and I think a
lot of them really represented some of the views and concerns of the general public.
Other things to note with the bill in particular was the complexity and the focus to get a plain language document as well as the training for the health information custodians and the health care providers in terms of the awareness campaign and getting something out there to the public. You’ll hear it from some Members today that might want to speak to it, but the concern with regulations, and hopefully, committee can look at those regulations before this comes into effect. Not only us but some of the stakeholders and the general public and the circle of care, in terms of how this information can be provided to other professionals that are not in the health care system but do deal with clients in that circle of care and how do we perceive that.
More or less, it has been a lot work, and some Members have mentioned that it’s not only this government that has done a lot of work. There are governments in the past and other stakeholders that for the past 10 years have really put a lot of hard work and input and effort into getting this bill to where it is today, so I just want to thank everybody for their efforts. I’m glad to see it’s here and, hopefully, get it passed and go into third reading.