Thank you very much.
And thanks to all of you. This is an issue of particular urgency for our committee, as we grapple with health human resources and the renewal of our health care system. Electronic health records have been seen as key to this whole area of renewal. The government made a commitment in the last budget to advance the agenda for that reason and other reasons. But this issue goes back to 2001, and progress, by all accounts, has been very, very slow.
Madam Auditor General, I know people are interpreting your report as a clean bill of health for Health Infoway, and on that basis they are urging us to urge the government to flow the $500 million. I'm not sure we're ready to do that yet. Beyond the straight accounting practices, I'm not sure whether this program has met its mandate. I'm wondering if you can help us figure out what questions to ask and where to take it.
For example, if they've already spent $1.6 billion and only covered 17% of the population, is that getting the job done? Is that a clean bill of health? Reports that go back to May, June, July, August, and September all show there are big concerns with the whole Infoway program. We had the health council before us in May, and they had big concerns.
There have been news reports suggesting that Health Infoway could be headed toward the same problems that eHealth in Ontario faced...without accountability, according to news reports—and I'm asking whether this is true or not—without oversight by federal watchdogs, without accountability with respect to contracts, with the use of outside consultants but no requirement to proactively disclose contracts, whether sole-source or otherwise.
I think we need some of those questions answered. Maybe it's not in the context of this report, but I would certainly like to hear your advice, Madam Fraser, so we'll know what advice to give to government.