Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My understanding is that what we're trying to do with this study is to see how the federal government, through its foothold in health care.... We always assume that it's entirely a provincial matter, but in fact the federal government has an important role to play by virtue of its work and its jurisdiction over aboriginal communities, the military, and the penitentiary system. So we're trying to see how we can be the leaders in terms of breaking down barriers in the medical professions in such a way that someone could practise anywhere in the country really. That seems to be my understanding of what we're aiming for here.
I'm just wondering, for example, what the Department of National Defence is doing in the area of telehealth. Are you doing that in complete isolation, the digitization of health records, and so on, for easy access? Are there any bridges with, for example, Quebec? Are they looking at your example? Are you looking at what they're doing? Because I know they're quite active in the area of telehealth. Is there some synergy here? That's the one question.
The other is this. Do you find—maybe Ms. Gillis would want to answer this—that through the examples and the standards that your department is setting, provinces that might not have the same standards and necessarily all the occupations are bringing their standards up? For example, just by way of analogy, in terms of drinking water quality, the idea is to set federal standards so that provinces that maybe don't meet those standards then have something to aim for. Do you find that you're accomplishing that?
Also, we know that through the immigration system we're trying to make it easier for newcomers to Canada to integrate into the medical profession. Are you interfacing with Citizenship and Immigration on issues of certification?
Maybe we can start with Colonel MacKay.