I have two comments.
First of all, I'll point out that one thing the legislation we're discussing right now, Bill S-203, does is lay out some measures to be provided. It says, “The framework must identify measures to provide” and it has a list. It's different from the list that I said. I explained my list based on my experiences. One thing I like about it is that while they went through the Senate process, they moved amendments to add at the end, “anything else that the Minister considers appropriate in relation to autism spectrum disorder.” It's really important to do that.
On the stakeholder side, they added a similar clause about consultations that says, “anyone else that the Minister considers appropriate”. It's so important that this is organic and that we move forward, in a way. We've constantly learned over the decades and we're going to be continuing to learn how to have these conversations.
Jaden was two and a half years old when he started his autism program in 1998. In Alberta, one of the real strengths of the program—it's different from other places—is that it's family support for children with disabilities broadly. It's not an autism-specific program in Alberta.
In Alberta, Jaden went through a multidisciplinary team review. Back then, they determined what his needs were, set a budget for that and then we worked to find service providers who could meet his needs as assessed. It was a fantastic situation. You rightly point out that people move from across the country to Alberta to access that level of support.
I think a national strategy takes a look at the Alberta situation and every other jurisdiction in the country, the evidence about what works and doesn't work, and brings that knowledge base, that evidence.... There are things that other places do better than Alberta was doing. Other countries will do things better than we might be doing in any jurisdiction in Canada.
You want a strategy. You want a system that is gathering the very best evidence from around the world, bringing it to Canada and then sharing it with the autism community and the disability community across the country, so governments in their jurisdiction can make the very best decisions that they can based on the best evidence of the day as we're constantly learning.
The beautiful part about that is that as we do that and establish a world-class national autism strategy, we'll also be able to share with the world what we're learning in Canada as we move forward.
One point I'll make in closing this answer is that while we have a long way to go in Canada, we are a long way ahead of where many places in the world are, as well.