Thank you very much.
I want to ask you a question about the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, a widely respected tool. In fact, as we know, it is used in a very significant way by the World Health Organization when it comes to the monitoring of pandemic data and threats to international public health more generally, beyond pandemics. You know this much better than I do; I'm just saying it for context.
There was an audit carried out recently, and this matter has come up here tonight, but I want to ask you specifically about it and get your response. I'm quoting here from a Canadian Press report that itself quotes the audit, so I'll put it on record.
It says:
The interim report concluded that the news monitoring system did identify the outbreak of the pneumonia that would [become] COVID-19 on the night of Dec. 30, 2019—
This is the point you referred to earlier, Mr. Stewart. It continues:
—and included this information from Wuhan, China, in a special report to Canadian public health officials the next day.
But the report noted that without [sending up] a formal alert, international partners relying on Canada's information were left to rely on other sources.
I'll also quote here, as the piece does, directly from the audit:
“That [the system] identified early open-source signals of what would become COVID-19 and promptly alerted senior management does not mean that the system is operating as smoothly or as clearly as it could and should,” the report concluded.
I just want to put that question to you to get your response as the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada. I think it's a relevant question, because this is something that Canadians are asking right now, and I think it deserves an answer.