I think what Dr. Marshall just said is very important. I would like the House of Commons committee on health to put some teeth into what has been done to date. For example, I feel very strongly that every province should enact concussion laws, because that's one way to be sure we are all on the same page with concern about concussion. The concussion laws should apply to not only school-based sports, but also all the non-school based sports, for example, all of those that are organized by Hockey Canada, the Canadian Soccer Association, etc. All of those folks should be subject to the concussion laws.
What do the concussion laws say? They say that everybody should be educated about concussion. They should know how to recognize concussion. That goes for parents, coaches, teachers, players. Even the referees have to be clued in about concussion. We simply have to prevent people like Rowan Stringer from ending up dead.
We need accurate surveillance data. I've heard other speakers recommend that to your committee. We do have the machinery in Canada to make that happen. We have CIHI, PHAC, ICES, with all their methods of data management. We have to collect data about what is happening in every sport in the country. We simply don't have that information and we should. From the annual coroners' reports we should know how many people die. Those take three or four years to finish, but we should be compiling that data.
There was recently a death in P.E.I. of another rugby player. Who's adding up all those catastrophic injuries? That should be a national effort. We've heard about good resources that are available, for example, the one I held up, the “Canadian Guideline on Concussion in Sport”. This should be in the hands of every family, every coach, every referee. I would like to see your committee do something about the distribution of what is already available. I think Canadians have done a very good job of preparing a menu of opportunities for your committee to distribute and emphasize.
I would encourage you to use what's available, rather than—