Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. McCain and your colleagues, for coming. We appreciate your openness and your accountability. This must be very difficult. And we appreciate your concern for the families who are affected.
What I'm struggling with is the lack of coordination regarding the investigation. We should have been in a much better position to deal with the outbreak, as Canada had already been through SARS, and PHAC and public health units and other departmental agencies have spent the last several years planning for pandemic flu--a different disease, but still planning. And the basics of any plan are the same: who takes the lead, what is the reporting structure, and what is the cycle of communication with the media and the public?
The point is, lessons were learned from SARS and lessons have been learned throughout pandemic tabletop drills, and yet we see the same mistakes occurring in the investigation of the outbreak. It would seem as if our country is less prepared for an epidemic than in the past.
I'm wondering if you could comment on that.