Infectious diseases have been in the spotlight in Ontario as a result of newly announced government-led public reporting of hospital-based infectious diseases.  These include Clostridiumdifficile, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcusaureus.  The increased attention to hospital-based infectious diseases in Canada comes as a result of multiple factors, including the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Toronto, which disrupted the healthcare system and killed 44 people (Schull et al. 2007; Hwang et al. 2007); the revelation that hospital-based outbreaks of Clostridiumdifficile killed an estimated 117 patients in Quebec in 2003 (Loo et al. 2005); and ongoing concern over the possibility of an influenza pandemic (World Health Organization n.d.).