Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for testifying before the committee.
I am not a regular member of this committee, but I'm a person who has suffered from a concussion. I want to tell you this little story because I think it's people like me who are the problem. I had my concussion falling off a bike while riding to work. I used to think a lot of these professional athletes were exaggerating—“Gee, they got hit. That's just a problem”—until I fell off my bike. It wasn't a huge thing. I wasn't being pounded against the wall. I just fell off my bike and hit my chin on the ground. I couldn't read for a week. I just couldn't focus. It was tough. It was terrible.
I realized, aside from a lot of humility, that it's people like me who are the problem, people who don't recognize that this is a serious concern.
Mr. Fisher and Mr. Richards also pointed out that, quite often, coaches or even athletes themselves might not recognize it, or might take steps to always try to downplay the severity of what's happening. And we know now this is a brain injury.
You recommended that we work with the provinces and try to work with schools. It seems that we even have to go a bit further and get to the general population, to have them appreciate that not all injuries are things you can see. There are things that obviously you can't see but that have grave physical and mental affects.
How do we break through that ice? What's your recommendation to try to get that general knowledge out there?