Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Professor Pelletier, for your remarks.
I note that in chapter 2 of your report, you spent a great deal of time on federal-provincial issues, and today you've also spoken about the fact that the population expects collaboration between the federal and provincial governments. Yesterday Professor Hogg testified before us, and he was reminding us that the federal government must establish its own regime. It cannot count on the provinces to step in. They may not. We have a constitutional duty, he said, to remember that it's from coast to coast to coast that we're doing this work.
He had a suggestion, and I would like your reaction to it. It was that we have a system in which the federal government—the cabinet, or the Minister of Health—might declare that provincial regimes, in the event that they pass muster, were substantially similar, like that of Quebec. He told us of two other federal examples in which that process had been used.
I'd like your reaction to that way of squaring the circle. I also would like to know whether you agree with his analysis that we must assume there may not be provincial legislation and must therefore go it alone, as it were.