In Quebec, the surveillance of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a public health priority. Based on a conceptual framework, the "respiratory diseases" component of the Quebec Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System (Sismacq) is built using data derived from the linkage of medical and administrative records. The objective of this article is to present the eight stages of development for this component. These stages include: 1) ensuring data quality through feasibility studies; 2) defining the surveillance objective: communicating surveillance messages for public health action; 3) identifying target audiences: primarily decision-makers and surveillance stakeholders; 4) developing the first surveillance messages to be communicated regarding the prevalence and incidence of asthma and COPD; 5) disseminating these messages to target audiences, particularly via electronic channels; 6) establishing a user committee to promote the messages among target audiences; 7) implementation; and 8) evaluation of the system. All of these steps present several challenges for the coming years. (R.A.)