I can tell you anecdotally, having been around this type of environment for most of my career and having talked to individuals who take it.
We used to have our camp staff take it every year, regardless of whether they needed it or not, just so that we knew everybody had been refreshed. It was part of the camp training.
We hear just that. Every time somebody takes it, their confidence level goes up.
It's funny, because the number one thing we would hear in training was that the instructors would always have to tell people to push harder when doing compression training on the dummies. Does anybody know what the response was from those people? “I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to break their rib.”
Well, they're dead. Their heart isn't pumping. You can't hurt them anymore. This is the element of confidence that we need to instill in people, that you're helping them by pushing harder. We've seen this a lot with defibrillator training, AED training.
Has anybody here taken AED training? I see that a couple of you have.
We've seen AEDs pop up all over the country. Scott Reid from the Conservatives has done a really good job of getting these out into his community. We've seen them pop up everywhere. The training associated with them has not grown. That's why this is included in this bill.
With regard to AEDs, we know that the rationale or the argument against the training is, “Well, they're self-explanatory. They actually tell you what to do when you open the box.”
If you don't know that, if you don't know that it tells you what to do, it's like handing a can opener to somebody who has never seen a can opener and saying, “Okay, go figure it out.”
This is a situation where seconds matter. People need to have the confidence to run to where the AED or the first aid kit is—and know where it is—and use it. I think that's the key. It's even knowing to call for help.