Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
I will start with a question for Dr. Moineau.
Dr. Moineau, you eloquently mentioned that 4.6 million Canadians are having difficulty accessing a doctor or local medical services right now. This brings us back to the need to have better planning and to have a better capacity to train doctors and send them to hospitals in the regions. Not surprisingly, there is the issue of funding.
This week, in committee, we heard from representatives of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec. They told us that, in order to improve the conditions under which doctors practise and to make them more available in the regions, there was an immediate and significant need to increase health transfers to the provinces. Previously, these transfers covered up to 35% of system costs, but this has been reduced to 22% and could well decrease to 18%.
Would this additional funding help the provinces to carry out better long‑term planning?