I will draw a parallel with what was done in Quebec. The Ministry of Health granted tens of millions of dollars to the Climate Change Action Plan, or CCAP. If I remember correctly, the Institut national de santé publique received approximately $36 million for all of Quebec to regreen and counter urban heat islands that caused the most concern. Many projects were carried out throughout the province. We held our event Journée de l'Arbre de la santé at the same time as the National Tree Day. I was also happy to meet Mr. Royal Galipeau before coming here, because he was the MP who proposed having such a day.
In the last five years, we've been carrying out a major greening initiative in hospitals, health centres, residential and long-term care centres (CHSLD) and local community services centres (CLSC). We are currently working in the cities of Laval, Montreal, Quebec City and Trois-Rivières. The objective of this joint program with the Ministry of Health is to reduce climate aggressors for vulnerable individuals. This program focuses particularly on regreening areas where the poorest and oldest individuals live. This partnership is currently supporting joint activities between the health and environmental sectors. I believe that it's extremely important to have scientists from both of these fields working together.
What strikes me as a doctor, is that in the human body we can measure everything right down to the exact angstrom, picogram or nanometre. We have no problem measuring levels of HDL, LDL, glucose, blood pressure and so on, but we have no idea what's in the environment. This is quite strange given that the environment completely changes and influences our degree of risk.