Page - 100 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE100 This was hardly the Auditor General’s first warning: her 2008 report complains that “fundamental weaknesses noted in our 1999 and 2002 reports remain.”22 With over 7,000 Canadians dead at the time of this writing and no ceiling in sight, COVID-19 bears out the consequences of these ignored warnings, and the unalloyed failure of voluntary agreements with the provinces. On any given day, a comparison of the total num- ber of cases in Canada known to PHAC with PHAC’s available epide- miological “microdata” (containing details of sex, age, hospitalization or intensive care status, means of infection, deaths, and so forth) dem- onstrates that PHAC lacks particulars on half of the cases that exist. Such a giant omission essentially makes accurate epidemiological modelling and forecasting—basically scientific planning to manage the pandemic—entirely impossible. Indeed, Canada is so primitive that the provinces and PHAC often exchange COVID-19 epidemiological data by fax machine! Fax rules because a federal-provincial project to establish modern “national surveillance and reporting systems” through the Canada Health Infoway never bore fruit.23 So too with two failed intergovernmental agreements since SARS. The first, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for public health emergencies, is so jejune as to be self-parodying: This MOU is an expression of intent by the parties to explore, review, and undertake the measures set out in this MOU with a view to making appropriate administrative, policy and legislative changes considered advisable by each party to give effect to the intentions expressed in this MOU.24 Although the federal, provincial, and territorial health ministers all agreed in principle to this MOU in 2008, only in the case of Ontario is 22. Ibid. 23. Canada Health Infoway, “Public Health Surveillance: Developing a Pan- Canadian Solution to Protect Canadians” (last visited 26 May 2020), online: Canada  Health  Infoway <https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/en/174-what-we-do/ digital-health-and-you/stories/clinician-stories/380-public-health-surveillance- developing-a-pan-canadian-solution-to-protect-canadians>. 24. Pan-Canadian Public Health Network, “Federal/Provincial/Territorial Memo- randum of Understanding (MOU) on the Sharing of Information During a Pub- lic Health Emergency” (last modified 9 July 2012), online: Pan-Canadian Public Health Network <http://www.phn-rsp.ca/pubs/mou-is-pe-pr/index-eng.php>.