I can definitely speak to my experience working as the deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs during that period of time. It was extremely intense. I've been in government since 2002, and I probably have never lived something as intense as I did during that time.
We needed to be responsive to the very real health and security issues the country was facing. We were definitely trying to respond in real time, and in my role as deputy minister of intergovernmental affairs what I took extremely seriously was the important communication flow between myself and my colleagues in provinces and territories.
For months on end, every single day we held calls. They were not easy calls at times, and they were filled with challenges. We had to be creative and solution-oriented and had to work within departments across the federal government but also with our provincial colleagues, who had the same realities across their provincial or territorial departments.
It was extremely intense. I think we went seven days a week for months. When the summer months started picking up, we did see a bit of fall in the case count; however, we then began negotiating the safe restart agreement with provinces and territories, which kind of created its own intense negotiations and work.
Now I would say at Indigenous Services Canada, the team is being responsive and nimble to respond to the cases we are seeing in first nations across this country and in Inuit communities as well. I would agree it was pretty unprecedented times, and it took a lot of dedication and hard work to get through very difficult issues.