Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to discuss supplementary estimates (B) for the health portfolio.
I'd also like to congratulate you, Mr. Chair. I know you have taken over this position recently. Thank you for that. I wanted to say a big thank you to Joy Smith, who I know chaired this committee with great success for quite a long time. I know you'll be working hard to build on her strong record.
I have with me some members of a couple of departments. Of course, we have the deputy minister of Health Canada, George Da Pont; our associate deputy minister from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Krista Outhwaite; and Dr. Bruce Archibald from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Thérèse Roy is here as well, the CFO from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, on behalf of Dr. Alain Beaudet.
I've also brought with me today, for interest's sake, something we just announced recently. I'll allow the clerk to pass it out. It's our new healthy and safe food for Canadians framework. This is the culmination of a lot of work, bringing CFIA under the health portfolio, as you know.
I understand also that the committee is undertaking a very important study on the growing problem of prescription drug abuse. I'd like to thank you for this work and say to you that after the meetings I've had with provinces and territories, this is not only an emerging issue, I think it's a pressing issue. I very much look forward to reviewing the report.
Do you need me to say I'm tabling this?