I believe that the first balancing act is still very important.
To pick up on the discussion between Mr. Bains and Mr. French, I think one of the things that makes the current situation really difficult is that the end goal of ensuring public health, which is assisted by data collection, can only be met if the vast majority of the population is enrolled in some way. That makes individual consent and the opt‑in approach difficult. The balance is even more fragile when something like the opt‑in approach serves the public good.
Concerning partisanship, we live in a political system where elections are held every four years. I think it would be nearly impossible to prevent politicians from looking at the election calendar and measuring their actions in part on that basis.
I would say that they sometimes miscalculate. In prolonged emergency situations—and I consider two years to be prolonged—people expect politicians to rise above partisan politics. Sometimes, actions that can be perceived as savvy political moves have a tendency to alienate the public's trust. I don't know whether what I said was clear.