Thank you very much.
Through the chair, you're absolutely right. There are very few silver linings to COVID-19. Maybe that's just my perspective today.
One of the silver linings is that it really accelerated provinces' commitment to creating B-codes for virtual care and to empowering physicians across the country to use virtual care and be able to be compensated for providing virtual care. This a game-changer. It's a game-changer for places like Nova Scotia and my own home community or region of Thunder Bay—Superior North. I'm looking at Dr. Powlowski, who would have struggled to be able to provide care for patients in remote communities who maybe just wanted to talk to him to follow up. This is an ability, actually, for Canadians to get access to care. It obviously doesn't replace face-to-face care. I don't think anyone would expect it to, but it certainly can help get people access to primary care much more quickly.
Last May, we announced $240.5 million to support this work to enhance digital tools, such as secure messaging and digital video conferencing, for example, because confidentiality and privacy issues are very important in the context of health care.
We have signed seven bilateral agreements for virtual care with provinces and territories, including one with Nova Scotia. We have investments of over $98 million towards that.
Also, we immediately knew that this would create mental health stress for Canadians across the country, so we launched wellnesstogether.ca. This is a provision of a mental health service support for Canadians regardless of where they live that's available online through a variety of ways.
The neat thing is that Wellness Together is essentially reaching Canadians who, prior to this, maybe had a hard time reaching out for help, didn't have coverage for help or just hadn't thought about using mental health supports as a way to help with some dark moments in their life. I'm very thrilled to say that we'll be sustaining that investment over the next year.