Good morning.
I don't know about you all, but I'm really happy to be meeting with the minister and the department and, for the first time in three years, not talking a lot about COVID, which is tremendous. Things are getting better, but as Don pointed out, as things get better, I think it's incumbent upon us to think of the future and the possibility of something like COVID reoccurring. Certainly as part of the process—and I think all levels of government have to look at what happened with COVID to see how we could do better next time—at the global level, we have to review what we can do in order to be able to more quickly detect outbreaks of these diseases and respond to them.
With that in mind, I will ask you this, Minister Duclos. You and I were at a meeting of stakeholders the other day to talk to various experts to inform Canada's position in the ongoing negotiations of a new treaty on infectious disease that the WHO is carrying out. Maybe you could talk a little about that treaty, the importance of that treaty and how your department is engaging the public, as was the case with that meeting, in terms of helping to inform our position in the negotiations.
Last, I know you've hired quite a number of people, including global experts like Steven Hoffman, who's an acknowledged leader globally in global health law, to be part of our team in negotiating the treaty. Could you talk a bit about some of those new hires, perhaps?
Thanks.
You're welcome to use any of your department officials in responding.