Auditor General finds Canada’s public health agency wasn’t ready for pandemic despite warnings

A newly released report finds Ottawa could have been better prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Karen Hogan, Canada’s Auditor General, said despite decades of warnings the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) was not ready for the pandemic. Hogan said the agency did not plan, nor prepare for a nationwide quarantine of the scale seen in the past year. 

She said the report found that the PHAC underestimated the severity of the threat posed at the onset of the pandemic. 

The report also showed the way the Canada Border Services Agency and PHAC handled border restrictions impacted efforts to control the spread of the virus.