Health committee  We have our plan.

Health committee  I think in order to find out what we've done, you're going to have to have somebody who has power come to our community, because we feel--and I think any other community is going to feel the same way--that they're not going to know that any of this was any good. We had no idea that what we were doing in our community was any different from what other people were or were not doing.

Health committee  Yes and no. We really haven't had the opportunity to present the information or the tools that we've developed to anyone, although we did manage to show one of the pandemic planners at Health Canada our magnet. She was so excited about that, she took our magnet and said, “Can we reproduce it and send it across Canada?”

Health committee  Although we did appreciate the supplies and the different things, it was just....

Health committee  We weren't really approached by any one individual. We were told there was a pandemic planning template that was produced by Health Canada. We pretty much just thought we needed to get ready and we just went with it--with or without the resources or assistance from anyone.

Health committee  No, no one really knows what we've done. No one knows that we've produced this or this or whatever we've done to get ready. We were lucky that you visited our community, and now a lot more people know what we've done.

Health committee  No, we worked with a pandemic planner at Health Canada. We did attend a pandemic planning session for Ontario funded by Health Canada and held in February 2009. We were told that we were getting a list of pandemic supplies sent to our community--which we did get. We have gloves and so on.

Health committee  The supplies were sent in bulk, in boxes. They just arrived. They were just there. We thought, “Okay. So what do we do with these?” We had to sort through the boxes, find out what was in them, unpack everything, and find space to put things in our already overloaded, packed wellness centre.

Health committee  I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Can you rephrase the question?

Health committee  No, it hasn't occurred that way at all, ever, from any pandemic information we've received. It's just been, “You need to get ready, and here is the template. Go for it.” We're saying, “Okay....” We were fortunate because we went for it, but we know that other communities in our area didn't, and they're not ready.

Health committee  We also developed an emergency preparedness guide. There's a section in here on the pandemic. We talk about what we do before an emergency, during an emergency, and after an emergency. This was delivered to every house in our community as well. We also purchased this book, Do I Need to See a Doctor?.

Health committee  Should I start over or just carry on?

Health committee  Okay. We represent, really, the grassroots, because we are the first response in the community. Our community has a membership of approximately 2,000 people. We are located outside the city of Sault Ste. Marie, in Ontario. We first began our pandemic planning in 2005, post-SARS.

Health committee  If we can't do something, just let us know. The first thing we did was develop this kit, which we called “My flu kit”. We thought it would be a good idea if we hand-delivered it to every single person, every household in our community. There's a thermometer in it, there's a fridge magnet, there's information on flu, there's handwashing gel--different things that you can use to get people thinking about the flu.

Health committee  Okay. The flu magnets that we developed are in the kits, and we thought people could just stick those on their fridges so it would be a really quick reminder of what they could do if they were experiencing flu symptoms. We always put information in our community newsletter. We're fortunate enough that we have a newsletter.