Thank you, Chairs, and thank you to all our witnesses.
I want to talk about palliative care. As a result of the special committee that studied the Carter decision and their recommendation that in the absence of good quality palliative care, you actually don't have a choice, I brought forward Bill C-277 to create a palliative care framework, which I am very proud of.
The government pledged $6 billion over 10 years in the 2018 budget for palliative care. Sadly, what's happened is that they've spent only $200,000 of that, and it was bucketed together with MAID, which was never the intent. The World Health Organization has been clear that palliative care does not hasten death; that's a totally different thing from MAID.
My first question is easy and for each of you. We know that the framework was also looking at addressing the 60,000 missing resources in terms of palliative care doctors, nurses and other providers. Would you agree that the government should meet its commitment of $6 billion over 10 years for palliative care and address the gap of missing resources?
Dr. Buchman, I'll start with you.