Mr. Chairman, as I already noted, we looked into the regulation of medical devices in 2004 as well as the overall communications plan and strategy for warning consumers. In its report, the Medical Devices Review Committee noted that in the early years of this decade, the communications strategy left a lot to be desired. It was also noted that Health Canada had neither a communications plan nor a strategy in place to assess the situation. Of course, the department had various ways and means of communicating with consumers, but no way of verifying if these means were effective.
At the time, we conducted interviews in 19 hospitals and asked people to share with us their thoughts on Health Canada's communications strategies. We were told that with respect to issues of some concern, Health Canada was not people's main source of information, that HC warnings were often issued much too late to be of use.
I found your example of automobile recalls quite interesting. We also used it as an example of a process that could be put in place. Other possibilities are also mentioned in the report.