Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be splitting my time with Mr. Kelloway.
I'd also like to say thank you to our witnesses for joining us today and for sharing their perspectives and expertise on what I believe is an incredibly important topic.
Dr. Lavoie, I was a bit taken aback by the fact that only 10% of the population is aware of the Wellness Together website. When I see that 680,000 Canadians have already used the service, with close to 1.8 million separate web sessions, it really does give me an important scope and a scale of the crisis we're faced with, so I appreciate your bringing that forward. We need to find ways to make sure that more people are aware of that program.
I will be asking Dr. Sareen my question.
Dr. Sareen, since the beginning of the pandemic, it has become clear that COVID-19 impacts certain communities disproportionately and that race, gender and socio-economic status are some of the factors that can amplify these impacts. Based on your experience with first nations communities, could you please share with the committee some of the mental health effects and challenges that indigenous peoples are facing as a result of the pandemic?