Health committee  Thank you. We can always use more money, but I think there are other things that can be done within the system to promote efficiencies, and specifically around health human resources. Yes, if we had all the money in the world, we would take it and use it, but there are things we can do.

Health committee  Thank you. The members of the Canadian Healthcare Association have not discussed aboriginal issues specifically, but I would support the comments made by my colleague that without the data, we can't do anything, regardless of which population it is. So I would certainly support increasing our data.

Health committee  I am an optimist by nature, and in this specific case, very much an optimist. And I thank you for the opportunity to remind the committee, and the others here, of the tremendous successes we have had. My concern lies in any sense of complacency, that we have done enough. To me, this speaks to the most basic values of Canadians.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to give my presentation in English rather than in French so that it is shorter. But I am always prepared to answer questions in French. Thank you very much for this opportunity, and congratulations to the committee for doing this review. We view the accord as one of the very fundamental pieces of the health system right now.

Industry committee  We'd be pleased to send that along.

Industry committee  There are a couple of solutions we need to look at, three that I'll put on the table now, and there may be some other information I can send forward. One is that we do need to look at maximizing scopes of all health professions. That's been touched on here but not in that language, so we need to make sure all health professionals are doing what they should be doing within their scopes and the full use of that scope.

Industry committee  I'm contemplating what I can say that would be useful in response to that question. My best response is yes and no. It segues a bit on the comments just made. I should be a politician--sorry. It's not just the European countries; it is around the world. The “yes” part is that we absolutely have to constantly be looking at the other models of health care, whether it's the educational aspect, treatment, insurance, or any of those pieces, but not just in Europe.

Industry committee  I would prefer to send you the information and have that at your disposal as you do your deliberations. At this point, I can reiterate the comment I made earlier that in my experience it is every health profession that is experiencing shortages. It does differ across the country, profession by profession, and there are some charts and tables we can send over.

Industry committee  I would like to make one comment. I speak not on behalf of any one provider group, as you know, but rather on the health care system as a whole. We haven't done a good job in this country of doing needs-based planning. We've done supply-based planning. So we have determined the number, the mix, and the distribution of health care providers based on how many we can supply, basically.

Industry committee  If I may, while I'm sure the chair won't allow us to have the full debate that we might enjoy on that--we understand that this is preliminary—we'd love to come back.

Industry committee  I always have something to say, but on that specific point I think I would broaden the discussion to mention the wait times. We all hear so much about those. Moving forward, again, the federal-provincial issue is so difficult, but this is an area where the federal government can have some influence.

Industry committee  Certainly you do hear a great deal about physician and nursing shortages. These are our largest health provider groups. Who among us would not want to have their physician or their nurse at a time of need? So that's a natural issue to hear about. From a Healthcare Association perspective, I'd like to support what you said.

Industry committee  Could you repeat that?

Industry committee  Could you please clarify your question? I am not sure that I have understood it.

Industry committee  We are opposed to recruiting professionals from other countries. That is a problem for me. Perhaps something in my presentation was not written properly or I did not express myself well. I am sorry. I spent the last nine years in Toronto and I have only been here one week. I need to practice my French.