Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today.
Dr. Ouellette, I want to begin with you. In the 2015 spring report of the Auditor General of Canada, the organisms of greatest concern for antimicrobial resistance were identified. Six of the seven identified are common in Canada and those are E. coli, klebsiella pneumoniae, staphylococcus aureus, streptococcus pneumoniae, non-typhoidal salmonella, neisseria gonorrhoeae, and shigella organisms. Pardon my pronunciation. It reported resistance rates from Canada ranging from 0% to 31% for the first six organisms.
I'm wondering if you could help situate the problem here, because in that same report, it said that, according to data from the Public Health Agency of Canada, the number of drug-resistant infections in Canada was increasing.
Can you give us a bit of a flavour for how serious the problem is that we're facing and how urgent the need is to take action?