In my opinion, it's important that an elected official be the one to do so. I may have misspoken when I said that it would have been the same thing whether the Prime Minister or the chief public health officer of Canada had done it. At the end of the day, decisions on issues as crucial and sensitive as data use should be entrusted to elected politicians. They are the ones who need to do this.
Across the country, there was a kind of confusion about what responsibility falls under public health and what falls under elected officials, particularly senior elected officials. I believe that it is the responsibility of political leaders, rather than of public health, to communicate with the general public.