Health committee  Thank you, Dr. Bennett. I think the public health infrastructure across this country is thin. It doesn't have a lot of depth. If a few key people leave or are ill, then there are big gaps that are hard to fill. We have made this point on numerous occasions, I think, to federal, provincial, and territorial minsters of health.

Health committee  Yes, I do. Thank you again. I think we've been focused very much on the health care sector with our local planning. What the communication strategies need to do, with leadership from the Public Health Agency and the federal government, is to liaise with organizations such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to tell them what is going on, to engage with them to determine what they think their critical communication leads are, and then to have your provincial and territorial counterparts liaise with....

Health committee  Thank you. It's another good question. Our Canadian pandemic plan has two primary goals. One is to reduce mortality and morbidity, particularly in the most vulnerable, and the other is to, if you like, maintain the infrastructures that go to creating a civic society and the critical infrastructure pieces.

Health committee  Thank you. That's a good question. We know that schools act as a culture ground for the spread of influenza viruses. When these viruses enter a community, they first affect younger people, because younger people are naive and have little resistance. In Australian day cares and schools, because of the close contact, we see the level of replication of the virus multiply in those communities before they move to families, before they then move into the adult population, and before they move into the community at large.

Health committee  Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate the committee fitting me in and arranging for me to speak to you today. I am the provincial health officer for British Columbia. Since 2005 I have been the provincial/territorial co-chair of the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network, which you will know was established by the ministers of health post SARS to knit Canada's public health systems together federally, provincially, and territorially.