Thank you, Chair. Congratulations, and welcome to the health committee. It's good to know you have that background as well. My daughter is a pharmacist. It's funny and quite interesting that, when it comes to the discussions around health, we don't want to make it about politics.
Anyway, we are here today. To bring you up to speed a bit, Chair, and for the rest of the committee, at our last meeting we had witnesses from Canada Health Infoway, Health Canada and, of course, Telus Health.
In those discussions, the witnesses were giving conflicting information, if any information at all. It was quite a battle. Even the chair dived in with some of the witnesses, as far as having them answer the questions was concerned. One of the more concerning things that was brought out was the expenses. It was first reported in the media, basically, that $250 million was spent on PrescribeIT, but then we found out at committee that it was actually $300 million, and it's potentially ballooned up to $350 million.
With all of that and the remaining questions, I move:
That the committee: a) request that the Auditor General of Canada conduct an audit of PrescribeIT, including its costs, governance, termination, transition, and intellectual property arrangements;
b) invite the Minister of Health, officials from Health Canada, and the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada, to appear for at least two hours on PrescribeIT within two weeks of the adoption of this motion, or at the earliest opportunity.