I started doing community volunteer work when I was about 12. I come from a small rural area, and I was the first youth who decided to organize my colleagues in the town to try to get some recreational facilities because we had nothing except for the corner store as a place to meet.
I've always continued to participate on a voluntary basis with communities. I think people have to take ownership of solutions, and I think most communities are quite good at doing that. My current work at Montfort Hospital is in the context of a member of the quality assurance committee. This is a new approach, that hospitals in Ontario have to have committees that provide advice to the board of directors and the management of the hospital on the initiatives they are undertaking to ensure the quality of their patients' care.
So yes, I get to see the functioning of an organization that is very different. Running a hospital is very different from running a federal department. But at the same time I'm seeing that a lot of the learnings I have gained in the public service are also beneficial to bring to the hospital environment. So there is always learning across organizations. You see things in a very different perspective when you sit around a different table.