That was one of three hats that I wore in the duties. You get a little grey in between, so I was replaced by three people when I retired.
As the chief veterinary officer, the primary duty is basically to advise the minister of agriculture and the government, and to enforce what was brought in while I was there, which was the new act to protect animals. It's a lot of being aware of what's going on.
When you get into the relationship like I had with avian influenza in 2014, a lot of what I was doing was simply being this spokesperson as the CVO. I was getting all of the information, but my duties within that were of a relationship, advice and that sort of thing. Most of what I was doing was running the lab and getting the diagnostic samples through and, at the same time, making sure we were delivering the same services to prevent all the diseases in all the areas. Then the other side of it was overseeing, to make sure the people who were working under me—because we had been through it before—were not burning out.