Verna Higgins
My regrets that I was abroad and missed the opportunity of attending the workshops on "What we heard".
I appreciate that this working paper was simply an attempt to give an overview of the comments from the meetings and submissions. As such, however, it is very difficult to draft a response to this reiteration of a diversity of views including many redundancies between sections. Such redundancy was predictable as the four "issues" under review are so closely linked. I had expected that the working paper might reflect these links by one coherent document, rather than treat each separately.
The breadth of the views expressed in the submissions, many from persons and organizations which were often not fully informed on current practices, lead me to the recommendation that a science based approach is badly needed in the next step of this planning process. This implies that the next step must involve those individuals with the ability, time and open-minds to look at the science, including "best practices" from other areas (Canada and beyond).
Dr. Verna J. Higgins