Sure. Thank you very much.
Thank you to the committee for the work you did on this as well. This is a major public health issue and we have been raising more awareness of it, reaching out to the medical community. We recognize that prescription drug abuse is a growing problem in Canada. I am very concerned about it.
We are actively working with the provinces and territories as well to address this issue. We have worked with them. As you know, some of them have drug monitoring programs, others don't, but I know they are endeavouring to put that in place.
I'm also pleased to note that just recently in our budget we committed to extending our national anti-drug strategy to include the fight on prescription drug abuse, which I think is an important one. This includes educational measures; prevention and treatment services, particularly in aboriginal communities; and also improved surveillance. This will build on actions we've already taken to tighten licensing rules for pharmaceutical companies that will help to prevent drugs like oxycontin from being illegally distributed. This includes implementing strict controls in the public drug plan that's administered by Health Canada, including maximum monthly and daily drug limits, monitoring the usage of certain drugs to address potential misuse, and real-time warning messages to pharmacists at the point of sale.
One of the other things that was important that we did was to reach out to the medical community—