Thank you, Madam Chair. On the question of backlogs in natural health products, we acknowledge that there have been some challenges with the timely issuance of licences for natural health products. Over the past couple of years, we've been implementing process improvements that have resulted in a threefold increase in productivity.
To list some of the things we've done, we've increased the number of monographs; we've redefined and revised our standard operating procedures; we've increased assessment resources; and we're revising and clarifying the information and evidence that companies have to submit with their applications. We acknowledge that we need to do better, and we're continuing to explore other ways to strengthen the timeliness and efficiency of the review process.