The uniqueness of Ontario is that we have 36 autonomous public health units. A medical officer of health such as Dr. David McKeown has the full legal authority to look after his own jurisdiction and has responsibilities and legal rights to carry that out. As a chief medical officer myself, I don't have my own separate staff who do inspections and carry that out; I work through the local medical officers.
The challenge we faced with this outbreak was that normally when there is an outbreak, it usually starts at a local level, where a health unit takes the lead, and we help and assist them. In this case, we had a province-wide outbreak with no local outbreaks. That's a new challenge and reality that we have to face in the days of advanced laboratory testing. It was a new paradigm shift for us.
Therefore, I suggested in my report the establishment of an Ontario outbreak coordinating committee, where the chief medical officer of health can meet with the other medical officers of health and key people to carry out a concerted coordinated activity. We can't afford to gather round and talk about consensus where we all agree to do something, when we need to move more expeditiously for the protection of the public. So we're looking at that type of forum that would work in these very unique situations that I think we'll face more of in the future.