Thank you.
I am speaking next to our colleague from the CMA. It certainly is an issue with pharmacists, and within the communities we are seeing some huge changes in pharmacy practice at the primary care level. We have pharmacists who are graduating and practising, and probably one of the biggest concerns is that their expertise is not being utilized. Certainly with the challenges in drug therapy that we have now, whether in costs or safety or effectiveness, we're looking at the need for greater collaborative practice and interprofessional work.
To do that, we also have to look at what pharmacists are doing day to day. One of those things will be actually looking at the role that pharmacy technicians are playing. They're not regulated, but they could be taking on a lot of the technical aspects of pharmacy practice that pharmacists are spending too much time on now; it scopes a practice for a number of professionals, then, as well as the assistants who help us.