Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning to everyone.
I'm the executive director of the Canadian Pharmacists Association, and I'm joined this morning by Denis Villeneuve. Denis is our board member from Quebec, and he's a community pharmacist practising in Quebec City.
I'd like to thank you for this opportunity to present to the standing committee today.
The Canadian Pharmacists Association was established in 1907. We celebrated our centennial last year. We're a voluntary membership association that represents the interests of Canada's 30,000 pharmacists. We do not represent pharmacies or the pharmaceutical industry.
As we know, pharmaceuticals play an increasingly important role in our health care system. For more than 10 years drugs have made up the second largest share of health spending, reaching $26.9 billion last year. But as more and more Canadians benefit from drug therapy, the number of concerns about safety and adverse drug reactions is increasing.
I'm going to hand this over now to my colleague Monsieur Villeneuve.