Justice committee  Yes, I'm not an expert on karate myself, so I'm sorry if I can't comment any further on that.

Justice committee  We're also opposed to boxing. The CMA has a policy opposed to boxing, too. Given that there are also blows to the head in this sport, which are intentional, we have said that there aren't many studies saying exactly what the rate of severe head injuries is with mixed martial arts—

Justice committee  I'm sorry, but if you could restate that, because a concussion is a head injury, so—

Justice committee  Again, that is not the purpose of those sports.

Justice committee  Listen, our goal, my goal, is to prevent injury and promote health. I'm an emergency physician. Injury prevention and promoting health are the two main things that I'm interested in. As an emergency physician, I know that when people get struck in the head it can lead to concussion and also severe head injury.

Justice committee  You're talking about harm reduction right now, so—

Justice committee  Yes.

Justice committee  There will always continue to be street fights and brawls and fights. Whether it's sanctioned or unsanctioned, even if there are sanctioned fights there will still continue to be fights that are unsanctioned, I'm sure. There will still be people fighting for money through other avenues that are not sanctioned, and so we remain opposed to the whole concept of this kind of fighting.

Justice committee  Well, the difference there with those sports is that it is not the intent of the sport to create injury to the other person, whereas in mixed martial arts, or in the cage fighting, that is part of the intent of the sport.

Justice committee  Our big concern is in regard to blows to the head and brain injury. That is our big concern with respect to the sport.

Justice committee  The CMA is advocating on behalf of patients, and we're interested in the health of patients. The argument you're having is about big business. You're saying that big business is going to keep the spark going even if it's kept illegal and that it will keep going on unsanctioned.

Justice committee  Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to have this opportunity today to appear before the committee. Before proceeding, I'd like to remind the committee that I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an expert on mixed martial arts fighting. My expertise is not within the Criminal Code, nor in the particulars of sanctioned versus non-sanctioned fights.

Finance committee  I'm not familiar with that particular example of lean management and efficiency, but the lean management system has been used in health care in many jurisdictions across Canada. Actually, Saskatchewan has been a leader in that, and the government—actually, through Dan Florizone, the deputy minister—works very closely with the physicians of Saskatchewan.

Finance committee  I will, yes.

Finance committee  We know that 50% of health outcomes are determined by the socio-economic determinants of health, and we think that if we actually take a look at health policy through a health impact lens...when we look at it that way, it's best to start thinking about what might happen downstream to health outcomes if we get involved very early on in the policy development process, rather than trying to fix problems downstream later on.