Thank you, Chair.
Thanks to all of our witnesses for your participation in this study. It is, of course, one of the purposes of this study to examine barriers to effective teamwork and collaboration.
The challenge I want to throw out to each one of you is, when you hear those packages put together of collaborative interdisciplinary approaches, and the third-largest primary care provider in Canada—that would be chiropractors—is not included, there is a gap there. When you're talking about bringing in and training other people to fill gaps as medical technicians, it's past time for that to be remedied. You're going to find that there are tremendous opportunities for more cost-effective care.
Colonel and Dr. MacKay, it was 1985 when a medical champion—if you will—in Saskatoon, Dr. Kirkaldy-Willis, published the first study on spinal manipulation and low back pain along with a chiropractor. It was the first time a chiropractor's credentials were recognized in a Canadian medical journal. The evidence has been there for 30 years, so it's time that we find better ways of collaborating.
I put that on the table as a challenge to everyone at the table here, not just for chiropractors but for naturopaths, because there are more promising avenues and more effective opportunities there that are being missed.
Now back to Ms. Gillis.
You're talking about the north here. “Health Canada funds or directly provides public health, health promotion and disease prevention, addiction and mental health, and home and community care on all first nation communities, and primary care services in 85 remote and isolated communities.”
I wonder if you have heard of a program based in Alberta called Pure North S'Energy. Pure North S'Energy started with an oil company executive's own foundation treating his oil workers with EDTA chelation therapy to take the heavy metals they're exposed to in that environment out of their systems. They also provide vitamins and minerals. They have maybe 100 health professionals working with them: doctors, nurses, and naturopaths. They'll do an analysis to determine what nutrients they're short of, he will provide the nutrients to these people in that remote northern environment—he's working with Inuit communities—and they will send the nutrients to them for life as long as they agree to a blood test a couple of times a year to monitor their progress.
It's been going on for almost 10 years now and they're accumulating—last time I talked to them—17,000 people on the program with amazing results. One of their primary strategies is to get vitamin D levels up. They're not getting vitamin D in the north; they're clothed all the time. Naked at noon is the buzzword for vitamin D, 20 minutes when the sun's high in the sky. It's not happening for most Canadians, especially in the north. Anyway, stay tuned; we hope to have them here as witnesses in this committee.
There are opportunities, and one last one would be preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder; it's a huge issue in the north. There's compelling evidence now that trace amounts of methanol in alcohol is what crosses the placenta and does this devastation to the developing nervous system. A simple folic acid supplement—a penny a day for the average person at risk—would mitigate that risk. Isn't it time we looked at measures like those that could be implemented in the north? There are promising models out there, and that's a challenge for all of us to move ahead.