Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, unfortunately, we know that opioid deaths have gone up in Canada in every year of your government so far. Hopefully that's not the case this year, but it's been the case.
You mentioned that stigma is a significant reason for people not getting the treatment they need, and no doubt stigma is an issue that needs to be dealt with. However, the evidence that we've heard at this committee, whether it was through our opioid study or pharmacare or any other one, is that there is a profound lack of access in this country to timely, affordable, appropriate treatment.
We heard testimony just this week from an Ontario treatment centre that deals with children, 13-year-olds to 18-year-olds, that their wait-list is over 12 months. We heard this stark testimony that when someone is ready to get treatment, you must get them into treatment immediately. You can't even wait a day or you're risking a death sentence.
Now, you've mentioned $150 million, which I applaud the government for, but if you divide that by 13 provinces and territories, it works out to about $12 million per province or territory if you distribute it equally.
There seems to be a consensus among people in the addictions field that we need to rapidly expand and significantly increase new dollars for treatment if we're really going to start tackling this crisis.
Do you agree with that?