Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, to the witnesses who are here today, thank you so much for coming. I feel that you all presented articulate and well-informed presentations. This, to me, is an indication of how critical an issue this is—chronic care as it affects older Canadians. We expect the CIHR to have great research, and you always do, but for all the organizations that are here, your depth of knowledge about the issue is a good indication of how important it is for your members and those whom you serve.
I've been struck by the commonality of the priorities that people are focused on, not just at this meeting, but at previous meetings we've had as well, whether it's on prevention and health promotion, or whether it's on chronic disease and how we're not really tending to it, because there's been so much focus on acute care.
Ms. Eng, you're correct, the Romanow report did spell out, as the next big priority, the whole issue of home care, and the broader issue of long-term care as well. It dealt extensively with home care, whether it's through the formal system or through supporting families, and it also dealt with access to comprehensive primary care.
Hearing you today, I feel that we have this wealth of information, of research, of experience that's coming from all across the country, and yet we seem to be almost stalled as to where we're going. We've come from the 2004 health accord and we're now moving to the 2014 health accord. As you're addressing these issues for your members, the people whom you serve, when you talk about federal leadership that's required, what are three things that you want to see happen?
Some people have said that we need to have a first ministers conference just on health care that gets us working towards the negotiation of a new accord. But if we're to deal with this issue of chronic disease and we haven't made sufficient progress, despite all of this information, then I think we need to spell out what we mean by federal leadership. One thing might be a transfer involving home care, which is what Mr. Romanow recommended. We've talked a lot about the lack of affordability of drugs. We've talked about the need for comprehensive primary care. Maybe we need to be enhancing community health centres and the federal government should be taking the lead in that. There are any number of things. But I would like to hear you spell out the priorities for federal leadership to get us towards that 2014 accord.
I would ask this of any of the presenters.