Yes, it is a first step—thank you for pointing that out—but it was something that had to happen, because we have no idea if another pandemic will hit us tomorrow, and we don't want to be scrambling around once again. We want to be able to have some protocols and clear guidelines in place, and accountability. Right now, with the national guidelines we have for provinces, those guidelines are voluntary. As the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition said, nothing was done; no one was charged; no one was held responsible for what went on during COVID-19 in long-term care centres.
This is something that will be a first step, in the meantime, helping people to be accountable. The Canadian Standards Association recently set new guidelines. If we have that kind of body naming guidelines and we know what those guidelines are, if people fail to meet those guidelines and if the provinces don't want to do anything about it, the federal government can hold them responsible in the interim. Hopefully the next step will be to work with provinces to find a way to build in ways of getting provinces to have clear guidelines and enforce those guidelines themselves locally.