Certainly, opioid use and opioid addiction are quite prevalent within the construction trades. I think the two trades with the highest incidence are transportation—with folks working hard and doing lots of driving across the country to keep our supply chain going—and construction.
Given the nature of work in construction, there are a few conditions that have created this situation. I think one is the kind of macho culture. I think the other is the nature of the work. It's hard, physically demanding work and when you're a construction worker it's not like you're—with respect—a public service worker. If you don't go to work, you don't get paid. If you get injured, have a slight injury and take some time off for rehabilitation, you're not getting paid. Often you'll come back to work sooner, and in order to deal with that pain you'll be prescribed an opioid and then that sometimes leads to a downward spiral, as a result of which many of our workers experience addiction.
It's been particularly hard on our workforce during the pandemic as well. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, within our ranks there have been a few suicides related to opioid addiction. This is an issue. We've had some conversations with Health Canada. We did some information sharing about 18 months ago. We're in further discussions and we're trying to move away from education through typical forms of printed materials and are looking at apps we can use to push notifications and alert folks to the dangers of opioid use and to get them to try to find different ways to deal with their pain more holistically.