Surveillance, as we said, is a mandate of the Public Health Agency of Canada. In November 2006 the Honourable Tony Clement, then Minister of Health, announced a package of initiatives that included a consultation process to inform the development of an autism surveillance program.
Consultation to inform this development was undertaken between 2007 and 2008, and in December 2008 the minister approved a contribution of $147,000 to Queen's University to expand their existing ASD surveillance system. To date there have been no announcements from the Minister of Health or PHAC on the status of the work, but we're trying to link and stay connected.
The federal government has the key responsibility for public health issues. Currently there are over 300,000 full-time employees at PHAC working for surveillance and public health assessment, which includes some of Canada's best epidemiologists. Some of this wealth we hope could be turned towards autism. PHAC has proven its commitment to being accountable for the methodology and results and making these results accessible to the public. For this essential data to be comprehensive and credible, it should be more than outsourced. It should reside in our Canadian system under public health.