That's a great question.
When we met the premiers at the Council of the Federation in July, our theme was access to care at all ages. Nurse practitioners were right in the middle. They were presenting with doctors on primary health care. If everyone could have access to health care through a family doctor or a nurse practitioner, we would reduce ER hours. We would make our society healthier, and we would learn to take care of ourselves. Nurse practitioners are there in a holistic way.
I had a nurse practitioner in Ottawa. They asked me, “What's the difference?” I said, “She took 45 minutes to see me compared to the poor family doctor who was trying to do everything in five minutes.” It is a different approach. What we need to do is increase the numbers. Ontario is the largest province and has the largest number; it has close to 7,000 nurses. The rest of the country has only 8,000 nurse practitioners. We have a lot of work to do, but it's a big potential.