If I may comment, only because of my involvement with CCSA and the RCDSO document on the education committee, and being an educator and member of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain, I think it was very well summed up by Mr. Barnes.
First of all, there are attempts right now at producing these guidelines. Regarding the documentation that will come forward in the CCSA, Mr. Barnes is working on the therapeutic end and I'm working on the education end. There are already excellent guidelines on opioid prescribing. The Canadian guidelines that were mentioned earlier came out of McMaster.
The committee that I'm on is hoping to produce a list of competencies that clinicians should have and that educational institutions, therefore, will be able to apply. The committee consists of representatives from all health care professions, plus lay people. These competencies are what clinicians, and thus students, should have. As well, other committees are producing guidelines for prescribing, dispensing, and in turn destroying opioids to get them out of the market. I think a lot of this is under way.
As I've already grabbed the microphone—and my colleagues know that I tend to talk too much—there is one further comment I would like to make. One of the areas I think this committee should consider and that has been mentioned is the area of pain. As soon as you consider opioids, you have to consider what they're used for, and that is pain management. One of the problems we have, which I see as a pain clinician, is the uneven availability of pain management across the country or across our own province, therefore leaving clinicians with only one option, the prescription of opioids. There are non-pharmacological or lesser pharmacological processes that should be made more available, which I think would help reduce the problem.