—on is that there are two different situations here. In responding to a health crisis, the government, over many years, has lived through different crises, whether it is H1N1,SARS or the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw that we were repeating recommendations to resolve issues of data- and information-sharing among the provinces, territories and the federal government to be better prepared, to take the time to invest in preparedness and to use fulsome data to make decisions. We saw some of those same concerns being repeated when we looked at avian flu.
It's very different when you look at accessibility in the public service, however. This is a journey that began once the accessibility act was in law in 2019. We saw some progress, but issues that you raised there, however, are about accommodation.
Many departments have not put a formalized structure around duty-to-accommodate requests. That's why we're seeing very varying outcomes there.
This is something as basic as removing a barrier to ensure that a public servant can participate fully and equally in the workplace. Waiting almost 300 days is way too long. I would expect that every department and agency will look at this report on accessibility, look at themselves and see if they need to make progress.
I can tell all of the committee members here that I put my own office through the same questions. We have areas that we can improve in, very much like the departments we audited. In some cases, we're doing better, but I think it's about every deputy head focusing in on what they can improve within their organization when it comes to accessibility.