On December 5th 2017, Frédéric Bouchard gave the Plenary inaugural conference during the Journées annuelles de santé publiques (JASP), at the Centre des congrès de Québec.

Reacting to the ubiquity of fake news and recent poll numbers on the (lack of) confidence of citizens towards experts, Mr. Bouchard introduced participants to various philosophical theories of expertise. He then insisted on the importance of two key components of healthy scientific communities: their diversity and their use of peer review processes.

Mr. Bouchard concluded his conference by reaffirming that a major part of being an expert is the communication of one’s expertise. An expert must acknowledge that he or she does not know everything and that he or she might be wrong, and most importantly, an expert must state what he or she stands for in order for he or she to be trusted.

The day before the event, on December 4^th 2017, Mr. Bouchard, was interviewed on the Radio-Canada Première’s program Le 15-18. Mr. Bouchard took this opportunity to talk about the JASP and he also insisted on the critical role of scientific expertise, especially in health related topics.