Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I would just recommend that they follow the recommendations of the Naylor report and the Public Health Agency of Canada Act, which is that the Public Health Agency and the chief public health officers are the lead of any public health emergency. As far as I could tell during the listeria outbreak, the Ontario report stated that did not appear to be the case.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. Under the international health regulations, all countries are required to assess emergencies within their borders within 48 hours and then transfer that information to WHO within 24 hours of assessment. This requires, obviously, communication of information from the local source of the outbreak to the federal level.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. I think the ideal system would be to have the Public Health Agency act as an independent watchdog to help prevent these types of problems from emerging. That would involve the Public Health Agency being able to independently comment on the practices of another agency without fear of repercussions.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. I sent around my presentation beforehand. I hope everybody has a copy; largely, I'm going to read from it. My presentation will centre around two main points. I've been studying public health in Canada for about ten years now as a Canada research chair in public health policy.