Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Dr. Williams.
Dr. Williams, you hold a Canada research chair in mental health disparities. The purpose of this chair is to provide enhanced and more equitable mental health care to indigenous peoples. I'd like you to help us determine how to go about making a distinction between scientific and traditional medicine.
Your research chair's position is that it's not simply a matter of applying science, but also to use inclusive and patient-centred practices that are sensitive to culture. One example is traditional knowledge. I'm going to give you a concrete but tragic example of something that actually happened. In November 2014, an indigenous judge from the Ontario Court of Justice recognized the right of parents in the New Credit indigenous community to refuse chemotherapy treatment for their 11-year-old daughter's leukemia. She underwent treatment based on traditional knowledge in keeping with ancestral rights. It's not hard to guess the outcome. The young girl who, if she had received chemotherapy treatment, would have had a 75% chance of being cured, died two months after the decision.
Based on your experience, how can one decide between the use of traditional and scientific knowledge?