Health committee  If you don't mind, we've agreed that Daphne should start because of her role as chief human resources officer.

Health committee  Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Lavoie. I have already been introduced a few times. I am with the Emergency Management and National Security Branch of Public Safety Canada. I am accompanied by Serge Beaudoin, Director General of Preparedness and Recovery, which is part of my br

Health committee  I'll take it. There are two components to pandemic planning. There's the health component--

Health committee  So Public Health and Health Canada take care of the health component. That challenge was identified during the SARS period. Health Canada was solicited from all sides, and they had a hard time focusing on the health angle with the resources they had. Since then, the Public Health

Health committee  Deputy ministers are responsible for their own business continuity plans. Public Safety Canada and the Minister of Public Safety have the responsibility for providing guidance and helping departments prepare their own business plans. Each minister has the responsibility of identi

Health committee  Public Safety.

Health committee  The departments have the tools to assess their plans. They develop their plans, exercise them, and test them. They make whatever adjustments are needed. In my department we review them and see if they meet the standards that are in place.

Health committee  Most of them do.

Health committee  I don't have a number. There are more than 80 departments. We know that 79 departments have them, and about 150 organizations would be affected.

Health committee  I would say that most of them have. In the summer they were written to and told that they needed to review their business continuity plans and update their pandemic annexes.

Health committee  I missed the spring.

Health committee  In the spring when the first wave of H1N1 hit, there was not a big scramble in the Government of Canada because the government has a pandemic and avian influenza plan that we started developing in 2006 . At that time we asked each department to develop their own pandemic annexes.

Health committee  The short answer to your question is yes, there has been learning. People have updated their plans. We have a sense that about 90% of the departments--

Health committee  For what?

Health committee  The tough decisions for what?