I'm going to split my time with Madam Harder. I'll take ask question.
Dr. Juurlink, I think you hit the nail on the head about one of the real challenges, but you've said some controversial things. I'm going to be the contrarian, because normally we have different viewpoints on a panel, and I'm going to try to give you a hard time. I don't think you'll have a hard time with it.
You said that the crisis is created by physicians, that we basically have to stop prescribing these drugs because physicians are conditioned to help. I think that's a really good thing and there have been studies that actually show that. You mentioned the opioids on the market. When we were in government, we were heavily criticized by the former Liberal health minister in Ontario, Deb Matthews, and American governors, when we said we should take a federal approach to make all of these opioids tamper-resistant, because, if they are going to be prescribed, make it so that it's a very small population that should do that.
I believe she also said that in one of her first nation communities, 78% of the people were addicted to opioids. The comment that really scared the living daylights out of people was when the chief said that the drug pusher in his community wore a white coat.
What do you think about this whole issue if they're going to be prescribed, as Mr. LeBlanc said, for some conditions? I've had people come to my office to say, “Fentanyl kind of makes me be able to function in my day-to-day when it's prescribed appropriately”. We can argue about that. Should these drugs—the entire class—be made more difficult to access, both tamper-resistant and more restrictive for physicians to prescribe?