I can give you more written information on the methodology behind the data, but I take your point that there may be non-practising physicians counted.
In respect of the pipeline and who's in it, there has been a significant increase in the number of undergraduate medical seats. Over the period 2002 to 2008, there was an increase of 31%. That's a six-year period; that's not insignificant. These are undergraduate medical seats, people at the beginning of their training. It will be many years, as Dr. Fullerton said, until they're actually in practice. But there is progress.
On the issue of physicians leaving and returning to Canada, for the first time in the last couple years we've been in a slight net inflow position, so we no longer have more physicians leaving the country, Canadian-trained physicians, than we have coming back from practice or from studies in other jurisdictions. That's positive.
As for a national strategy, which I think is the core, what is the health human resource strategy? There is a pan-Canadian HHR planning framework, which I'd be happy to share with the clerk, that was approved by federal-provincial-territorial ministers in 2005. It acknowledges that provinces and territories retain responsibility for a whole range of measures that will actually affect health care delivery on the ground. But it makes shared commitments in particular areas: more rapid integration of internationally educated health professionals, as well as changes to both inter-professional education and inter-professional practice, which most experts acknowledge is an indirect way of dealing with the supply shortage. So there is a set of measures in the framework that's a combination of provincial-territorial activities and shared activities.
To go to your point, Dr. Bennett, about the federal role in this, in all of the areas I talked about—whether it's data, policy research, best practices—projects have been undertaken that are intended to support this national planning framework. I wouldn't call it a strategy, but a national HHR planning framework.
I don't know if I've missed any aspects of your question, but I've tried to answer all of them.