Health committee  Yes, having a plan is a good idea—not a shocker there. Yes, a pandemic plan would be delightful, no doubt about that. Also, you might want to beef up the science bit and the accountability to science and not suppress it. Use it as not just guidance but the anchor. That's my answer.

Health committee  It's raised the bar. We've been far too lax for far too long about data and health and what we expect from health prevention. Now is the time to up the bar and expect more and we're going to have to do that through science, both data generation and connectivity. That's what I think we need to do and I hope this will be a beginning step towards that in this bill.

Health committee  Again, I think a critical and root cause analysis would be part of whatever this group is going to do, and it's the look forward. This is the third time it's been said by two different people, that the look forward is far more important than, to your point, the blamey bits. A lot of what you mentioned will come up, and that's pandemic preparedness within our domestic group.

Health committee  Thanks for the question. If we're trying to build a situation of preparedness, obviously vaccines are a key and core part of that, particularly for illnesses of pandemic potential. When we currently are licensing very safe vaccines in Canada—which we know we do—the part that we often forget about is that we have great vaccines, but we can always expect to raise the bar and make them better.

Health committee  I'll be swift. I'm not a trust-building expert. However, I do think that very effective, directed, and transparent communications and decision-making are key. I think we've fallen a little bit into a situation where we often strategize too hard and worry too much about what we should or shouldn't say sometimes.

Health committee  I think there are already probably some mechanisms to do that within the organizations that exist. Should there be a review of what has happened from a comprehensive perspective that focuses on a go-forward plan as opposed to a blame game? I would love to see that happen. I think there have been many successes and many challenges along the way.

Health committee  That's not directly or exactly related to the bill, but I'm happy to take up the rhetoric and start with a response to the question that I think was there and address a little bit the leap of logic in the middle. There are just as many studies that suggest that in certain settings and during certain points in the pandemic, masks were valuable at community levels and, particularly, not just for children, but also for people in very vulnerable situations.

Health committee  Again, it's not specifically about the bill, but I could link it to the bill. I think that having pieces of misinformation and disinformation out there like that, particularly around vaccination, is part of the issue. If this bill can actually develop a process where science is promoted, as well as the dissemination of science in a trustful way, we could probably get rid of a lot of those statements.

Health committee  There are two pieces to that. If there's one thing we have reinforced for the general public, governments and medical practitioners, among other people, it's that the planet is very small and, unfortunately, very diverse in terms of resources. To your point, yes, we need to support countries that are still in a developing state with more resources to do effective and directed surveillance of what's happening in their countries.

Health committee  The mechanism for doing that is certainly beyond my scope of expertise. I think it is very important to say that it's absolutely needed, and to be deliberate about wording in a bill that makes us an excellent global partner. Understanding that those would be durable and practically implementable would be important.

Health committee  Is that question for me?

Health committee  I think this comes back to trust and understanding that we have to be respectful and mindful of both individual decision-making and population-based messaging. People are smart; we need to respect that. Where there's a need for education, combine that with science. That comes back to trust.

Health committee  I can start. Dr. Ross can chime in if she wants. On the part of the bill that would be most relevant to what you speak of in terms of early detection, clearly there's a need for early detection and clearly we weren't doing it well. Waste water is a technology that became more used, probably for the first time globally, through technological innovation and need.

Health committee  Good evening. Thank you, Chair and the committee, for the opportunity to speak this evening, and thank you to all of you for doing after-hours work. I recognize that it's not early there. I am an infectious diseases doctor, but I am also a clinician-researcher who does research in viral immunology, as well as the implementation of health systems related to infectious diseases.