Thanks.
I'm a fan of the line of appreciative inquiry: begin with what you do well and build on that. I think there are a few things. An example would be Isis, a Toronto institute where they're doing excellent evaluation or pharmaco-vigilance work by choosing drugs or drug categories that seem to have a potential risk or a potential benefit that needs to be measured or better determined in the real world environment.
I think we have research centres that are doing excellent work of that nature. I think we are developing databases in Canada. British Columbia has some of the best in the world. I think other provinces are on board in expanding their ability to collect and link data that would be necessary for this kind of research. When Quebec and Ontario are fully developed in that area, it will create the world's largest database for monitoring the safety and effectiveness of medicines.
I also think we've done a lot of work about how to prioritize, how to consult, how to conceive of using our interprovincial network of centres and researchers and policy-makers to create, if you will, a laboratory in Canada. We have a very culturally diverse population, which means that we can actually do research on the effect of medicines on specific populations. We also have effectively 13 different schemes for what's reimbursed and what's not. That creates a natural laboratory to determine what works and what doesn't in terms of policy. It also helps to possibly determine which drugs are effective and which are not, based on differential availability in Canada.
So a few things are done well, as are many more, I'm sure. I think we're off to a good start. What we don't have is this coordinating mechanism and an infrastructure, if you will, to make sure this is done in a way that's deliberate, planned, and sustained, as is necessary to really inform regulatory practice as well as, frankly, a provincial reimbursement policy, which could well be informed by this kind of evidence.