A number of things have been in place. The lessons from SARS put Canada in a position of needing to do something, and people around this table were part of that debate and discussion that created the formation of the agency. The investments, the focus, and the planning in 2006 have really brought that focus in a way that few other countries really have, to the point where having the public health network, having the ongoing collaboration at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels, having plans in place, being the first country to actually have a pandemic plan nationally and then working on it regionally and locally, having a contract for vaccine supply, having a stockpile of antivirals, when you put that all together, has made us quite unique—if not totally unique, then very rare in the world. We're fortunate, but it's for a lot of wiser people than me, I think.
On August 12th, 2009. See this statement in context.