Yes, in every province and territory in Canada there is direct access to physiotherapists. You do not need a physician's referral. It comes down to a question of insurance coverage.
We recently conducted a study of access to extended health benefits. A couple of the things that we learned are that insurance companies use that doctor's note, the referral or the prescription for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and other services as a cost containment measure. It's simply to try to defer patients from seeking other treatment, but what it does in essence is double bill the system.
One of the reasons why we would be in support of the federal health partnerships program is to look at how to streamline the system for direct access under federal health programs, including Sun Life for coverage of public servants through their extended health benefits. There are a lot of things within the program that actually don't make sense because they are delaying the access to treatment and access to professionals who are within the scope of practice of the professionals.