Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses and to the minister for being here today.
Health care is always going to be a significant and important area for discussion for all Canadians, perhaps now more than ever, given that the system is in a significant state of flux and change of course.
Minister, if I might, I'll start with active pharmaceutical ingredients. These are the building blocks of medications, of course, and one of the concerns that I would appreciate your sharing with the committee today is that of remote inspections. Historically, there would be on-the-ground inspections for active pharmaceutical ingredients in producing nations. Of course, due to the pandemic, remote inspections have perhaps become more the norm.
That being said, we're looking at potential drug shortages given contamination, which we've seen historically in Canada, and certainly we know that at the current time there are significant shortages of every oral pediatric antibiotic.
Could you comment, sir, on the mitigation processes for those drug shortages that are likely to occur in the future?