The Testing, Contact Tracing and Data Strategy Secretariat is part of the Health Canada COVID-19 Task Force.
History
On September 27, 2021, the secretariat and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) co-hosted a joint "knowledge exchange session" titled "Wastewater monitoring in Canada – Lessons Learnt," in which participants "covered lessons learnt from monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater collected at wastewater treatment plants or further upstream at facility level."[1]
Personnel
Current and former members of the secretariat are listed on [[GOC411]].[2]
| Name | Position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Les Linklater | Federal Lead for COVID-19 Testing, Contact Tracing and Data Management Strategies (July 2020-April 2021)[3] | Privy Council Office |
| Hannah Anstey | Executive Assistant | Enterprise Canada |
| Desiree Bilsky | Director of Operations and Logistics | - |
| Isabelle Castonguay | Acting Assistant Director | - |
| Grace Corona | Executive Assistant | Public Governance International (PGI), Natural Resources Canada |
| Elizabeth Dayler | Senior Advisor | Infrastructure Canada |
| Jacqueline Foster | - | - |
| Denis Giroux | Acting Manager, Policy Development | - |
| Sophie Hashem Lee | Senior Advisor | Natural Resources Canada |
| Jacinthe Lemire | Executive Assistant to the Executive Director | - |
| Shizrah Hasnain | Policy Analyst | National Research Council Canada (NRC), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) |
| Sihaam Hussein | Analyst | Employment and Social Development Canada |
| Anastasia Karvounis | Analyst | - |
| Timothy McLarty | Senior Advisor | - |
| Helene Picard | Executive Director | Department of National Defence |
| Zia Proulx | Executive Director | Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat |
| Rana Sioufi | Acting Assistant Director | - |
| Sara Urbina | Policy Analyst | TELUS, Social Capital Partners (SCP) |
| Ivan Yankey | Policy Analyst | Employment and Social Development Canada |
PHAC Wastewater Monitoring Program for COVID-19. (2025, January 26). National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases. https://nccid.ca/wastewater-surveillance-for-covid-19/ ↩︎
Testing, Contact Tracing and Data Strategy Secretariat. GOC411. Retrieved February 18, 2025, from https://www.goc411.ca/en/Employees/IndexByUnit/c%3Dca%2Co%3Dgc%2Cou%3Dhc-sc%2Cou%3Dcovidtf-gtcovid%2Cou%3Dtctdms-drcsgd%2Cou%3DTCTDSS-SDRCSD ↩︎
Les Linklater. LinkedIn. Retrieved February 18, 2025, from https://www.linkedin.com/in/les-linklater-973a8076/ ↩︎
