I'd like to thank all of you for joining us here today, and I'd especially like to reach out and compliment the tens of thousands of nurses you represent. Whether they're nurses who are coming out through VON to tend to elderly parents in our homes, or the wonderful nurses who show nothing but exceptional compassion in a palliative care unit, your members really do make the difference day in and day out for Canadians across the country, so thank you. We very much value the service that is provided by your members.
The challenge that we face is that primarily a scope of practice is something that is set by the different provinces and territories. What we're hoping to do here as a committee is to offer some best practices guidance to the provinces on how we might be able to ameliorate health care through innovation.
For instance, recently, I was fortunate enough to provide a very large amount of money, about $6.5 million, to McMaster University for a collaborative care research project. This project has community volunteers going out into the community, working with individuals who are at risk of developing illness, and so on. The community members then come back in and report to nurses and physicians. This was funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Through the limited levers available to the federal government, we're trying to provide demonstration opportunities for best practices. We have every confidence that the $6.5 million should come forward and benefit not only the GTA area but also offer some type of guidance across the country.
Are you aware of any other projects like that? Perhaps you could speak to what the best practices might be that you are aware of, where we can go out and leverage the wonderful abilities of our nurses across the country.