Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, on behalf of Parkinson Society Canada and people living with Parkinson's, for the opportunity to present today. Parkinson Society Canada is a national, not-for-profit, volunteer-based organization with its 12 regional partners and o

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  That's a great question. One of the problems we have is that we won't know that until we have the numbers. With the document that was done by Health Canada several years ago, we know what the costs were roughly at that time, but we don't know what the future cost will be. The exp

Finance committee  The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, yes, and we provide—

Finance committee  Well, we would have liked to ask more for research. The Parkinson Society is the only organization in Canada that is singly focused on funding research. We fund ourselves about $1.2 million annually. We would like to see that increased. We have recently partnered with CIHR to lau

Finance committee  Yes, it is. This is epidemiological research that is really looking at gathering prevalence and incidence data around the state of Parkinson's in Canada and being able to project out, on economic models, what it will cost and what the savings can be and to develop strategies for

Finance committee  We're working with Dr. Wolfson, at McGill, who is an expert epidemiologist. We've begun to look at an initial framework and how it could be devised and what kinds of population strategies could be taken. We expect that report in December, and we'd be glad to share it with you. I

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  We are currently funding Dr. Wolfson to get the framework. We would also look at additional funding that could be matched to carry this forward. Parkinson's is a chronic disease, and chronic diseases are significantly not only underfunded but under-surveyed in terms of data, c

Finance committee  Thank you.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you on behalf of more than 100,000 Canadians who live with Parkinson's today, and their families, and on behalf of the thousands of volunteers and donors who support the work of Par

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  Absolutely.

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  As you know, Parkinson Society Canada has taken a lead, with the other neurological organizations. We had come to some common consensus on seven key areas that we would work on. I mentioned earlier that it's very easy for us to talk about our differences, but when we came togethe

Subcommittee on Neurological Disease committee  I would hope that we wouldn't wait the four years. There is information available now. The study that completes in 2013 will better inform our decisions and give us far more detail and data than we have now, but there's a lot of work to do. We need to do a lot of strategic thinki