Thank you, Chair.
As we mention in our report, the Healthy Canadians report was generated by a first ministers agreement in 2000. This followed up then in 2003-04. Additional funding of some $21 billion was put into health care across the country.
All of the provinces and territories and the federal government agreed to work on developing a series of indicators for the health care system and to publish these reports every two years. A set of indicators--27, I think--was developed and was agreed to by all the jurisdictions. The federal government, of course, has its own responsibilities—for example, first nations health—so they would report on that.
The provinces and territories issued the first reports and the federal government issued the first reports in 2002. The reports were subject to audit assessment by their legislative auditors. We assess the federal report. These have continued.
The federal government was the only jurisdiction to actually publish its report in 2008, so we do give them credit for actually continuing to give this kind of information on indicators. We just wish the reports had perhaps gotten a little better over time, had improved over time, had given more information to help readers actually assess what the statistics mean.