Experts say Canada could have fared better if it followed 'precautionary principle' early in the pandemic
In the years that followed the 2003 SARS outbreak that infected over 400 Canadians and killed 44, an independent inquiry was launched in Ontario to investigate the response to the outbreak and learn from the mistakes made.
Some of the experts involved in that inquiry say there was one key lesson learned at the time — which Canada failed to apply when the coronavirus pandemic hit.
At the helm of the 2007 SARS Commission was Justice Archie Campbell, a superior court judge with an "insatiable curiosity," who colleagues say was determined to ensure the lessons from the outbreak were never forgotten.
As Campbell met with advisers in the library of a federal building in downtown Toronto, he noted how decades of previous royal commission reports were there just collecting dust on the shelves.
"We would look around the room and he'd point out a royal commission and he'd say, 'As far as I know, that is as far as the recommendations of that royal commission got. They're sitting on the library shelf,'" remembers lawyer Doug Hunt, chief counsel for the commission. "And he said, 'I do not want ours to end up that way.'"