We'll call our meeting to order. I welcome everybody to meeting 137 of the Standing Committee on Health.
I want to report to the members that we tabled our rare disease report today, and I know that a lot of people have already asked for it, so they're looking for our wise words. I want to congratulate the analysts and clerk for helping us put together a really good report.
Also, our travel to the west was approved today at liaison committee, but it still has to go through the House. We should be able to go ahead on that.
I want to welcome our guests today. This is our very first meeting on our LGBTQ2 health study. We're looking forward to it. I want you to know that it perhaps will be the most extensive study we've done. We plan on having a lot of meetings and hearing from a lot of witnesses. It's not the most expensive. The pharmacare study would be the most expensive. It was two years long.
We're all interested to hear your testimony and to hear where this going to go.
Today we have with us, on behalf of Rainbow Health Ontario, Devon MacFarlane, director; from the University of Toronto, Dr. Lori Ross, associate professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health; from Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, Richard Matern, director of research and policy; and from Toronto Pflag, Giselle Bloch.
Welcome.
Each of you has 10 minutes for an opening statement. I'll signal to you if you hit 10 minutes, but try to keep it within 10 minutes if you can, because I know everybody is anxious to ask questions.
We're going to start with Mr. MacFarlane.