Madam Fraser, Mr. Vaughn, thank you very much for attending today.
Madam Fraser, I want to thank you for your very thorough analysis. I paid particular attention to your matters of special importance and it was very concerning when you said:
Despite good intentions, there are examples of policies adopted, programs launched or changed, and commitments made without a full analysis of the risks involved, the resources needed, the potential impact on other players, and the steps required to achieve the desired results. We also see examples where there is no long-term vision or strategy to guide a department’s overall programming, and others where there is no ongoing evaluation of program effectiveness. The result can be a fragmented approach to programming in response to a problem of the day, creating other problems that were not anticipated.
These were all very concerning indeed.
I'm going to limit my questions to two chapters right now, starting with chapter 7 on emergency preparedness and public safety, and then I'm going to move on to selecting foreign workers if I have time. I hope to.
To get right into it, because time is limited, your report is very damning, so I'd like to know, in your opinion, did the federal government have a plan to cope with a national emergency such as this H1N1 pandemic?