Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here. Your taking the time is greatly appreciated.
I come from rural Canada, in the southeast corner of Saskatchewan. I appreciate the fact that both of you talked about rural Canada, because it's a very important aspect. When we look at palliative care in rural Canada, we have big challenges there, and home care is being utilized quite extensively to try to bridge that gap.
We see a lot of funding going to urban centres, but not so much to rural Canada. There are a number of primary health care practitioners we're short of: medical doctors, specialists in palliative care, etc. I like hearing what you had to say about having primary health care practitioners involved in this aspect of things.
One of the things I'd like to hear a comment on is EMS. I get it that in big centres EMS is mainly acute care, but in rural Canada, the EMS services are out there, and the reality is that, in certain rural areas, they might be able to provide those services. My understanding is that they've even looked at offering those opportunities. I would like to hear some comments on those thoughts from both of you.