The pandemic actually landed on everyone's head like a ton of bricks. I think you could put it that way. We had to make an enormous number of adjustments and adapt to the situation. We've talked about leadership, exchanging approaches and sharing topics of concern. That's Canada's strength, and we have to remember that.
Earlier I talked about Ontario, but, in Quebec, we immediately recommended that children go back to school, knowing that COVID‑19 wasn't a serious threat to them. It was a calculated risk. We knew that, since the pandemic seemed to be dragging on, and is still with us today, the impacts on children's health would be drastically greater if we decided to limit school attendance, the social safety net, financial and food support and measures designed to limit family violence.
We had numerous discussions with our Ontario colleagues, who were concerned that children weren't going back to school. We had discussions with the Canadian Paediatric Society. The approaches were different, first of all because fears varied considerably from coast to coast and province to province. Populations and health systems reacted differently. However, we communicated with everyone and gathered assets and ideas from everywhere. It was a great way to work.
So approaches were different, but we've managed to improve how we work together. I'm thinking, in particular, of the long-term residential care centres, the CHSLDs. We drew on certain models in Quebec because we felt that things weren't going well in that area. The situation was much better in British Columbia, for example. Even though approaches were different, it was this variety of methods and pooling of approaches that enabled us to move all the provinces forward.