The Public Health Agency has worked with the provinces quite extensively on pandemic preparedness over many years, and I think that in terms of the international assessments, like the Global Health Security Index, we are one of the top countries in preparedness.
However, this is an absolutely unprecedented global crisis, which I think all of us will have to learn from. One of the key learnings is actually about long-term care facilities and how seniors are or are not being supported in our country. That is a big societal issue, and I think it is something that not just public health care but society writ large must come out of this in having a much better system and approaches to look after our seniors. That would be coming out of the first wave and preventing more tragic consequences for seniors going forward.
I just have to emphasize, as our researchers have said, that this pandemic demonstrates the importance of public health and investment in public health, not just in the Public Health Agency, but in the public health system writ large in Canada, all the way from local to provincial to federal.
We are a relatively small segment of the health system. We are working very hard to prevent the negative impact on the health care system itself and on working with everybody in Canada to flatten that curve so that you didn't get the horrific impacts on the hospitals and health care systems that you did in New York or Italy.
The public health system must not be forgotten. I know that this crisis is massive, but I would like to think that in four or five years' time the investment we're seeing now in public health continues.