Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
When one of the incarnations of this crisis arose, the then minister called it a life-and-death situation. There is also in this a question to you, Mr. Urbain, that the alternative tests available for certain types of cancer and certain types of heart conditions were of a poorer quality in that they exposed patients to higher levels of radiation and were often more expensive. All these things have been going on since. It feels like the medical community has been in a bit of a triage situation in trying to get to the most critical cases first, and you should be commended for that.
What I'm trying to establish today with the government's response is how much longer the system can go on before it hits that breaking point, before it starts to show up in all the communities that we represent and to Canadians broadly. I get the sense that we've been able to manage for six months and have reallocated resources as well as we can. It's cost us more and it's cost people more time in terms of getting their tests, but will it be six months out, or 12 months, or 18 months, when we hit a point at which the system can't actually absorb this any more, when we're just cancelling, and more and more patients are not getting those tests, and we're exposing people to the wrong types of tests?