Madam Chair, thank you for that question.
I've been working at the national level now, having come from a province, for the last 15 to 20 years. I've never seen the kind of collaboration that is taking place between the federal government and the jurisdictions as I've seen around this particular project. Make no mistake about it, the jurisdictions are very keen to modernize the health care system. There are problems in sustaining our health care system and funding it. This is clearly an area where it could not only save lives but could actually save money. So they really want to get on with the job.
It is a complex job. If it were an easy job, incidentally, it would have been taken care of a long time ago. And it hasn't been taken care of in most parts of the world.
There is a high level of collaboration. Never before has the country agreed to a blueprint, an architectural diagram, of how these systems should work. Never before have they agreed to a set of standards, with federal leadership coming into play, so that every single province is not developing its own standards. After all, we have portability as part of our Canada Health Act. They've agreed to a set of standards. Now implementing the standards is always a challenge, depending on what they're starting with.
Never before have they agreed to a role wherein Canada Health Infoway does not fund provinces on a per capita basis. We fund them on the basis of results, and we fund them as a strategic investor in terms of take-up rates. As Madam Fraser has talked about, the use is going to be really important. We hold back 50% of those funds. The provinces have played by those rules. They realize that to leverage federal dollars, they need to get their own money as well. They need to get commitment from the highest level.
The level of collaboration from the provinces, I have to tell you, has been quite outstanding. For the last three or four years, I can tell you, the health ministers have made this the number one priority in health care, as they've written to the federal health minister and to others. We enjoy a very high level of collaboration in what is typically a fractious environment.