Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to welcome you to the health committee. We're doing another study this morning on HHR.
This morning we're not going to have opening remarks. What we're going to do is go directly into the questions and answers.
We've been doing our study on HHR, health human resources. It is very important that we try to get as many people in our committee as we can. Some of you I see here again; you've been here before. We're trying to make sure that we encapsulate all the areas of health human resources.
Today with us, ladies and gentlemen, pursuant to standing order 108(2) on human health resources, we have Dr. Joshua Tepper, from the advisory committee on health delivery and human resources. You're the provincial co-chair. Welcome.
From the Department of Health we have Shelagh Jane Woods, director general of the primary health care and public health directorate, first nations and Inuit health branch. With her we have Debra Gillis, director of the first nations and Inuit health branch in the primary health care and public health directorate, and Abby Hoffman, associate deputy minister, strategic policy branch.
Welcome. We're very glad you're here from the Department of Health.
From Statistics Canada we welcome Jeff Latimer, director. Jeff, welcome. You're from the health statistics division. We're very happy to have you here. We also have Sylvain Tremblay, senior analyst and chief of the Canadian community health survey, health statistics division, and Gary Catlin, director general of the health, justice, and special surveys branch.
We feel very honoured to have you here as witnesses.
I must say at the onset, ladies and gentlemen, that at 10:30 we'll have to go into our business part, so this presentation will last until 10:30.
That said, we will begin straightaway with the questions and answers. Dr. Bennett will begin..