Health committee  If it's an antibiotic, it's acting against the proliferation of bacteria. You have various mechanisms that are used to kill bacteria. If it affects bacteria in the livestock, it will affect other bacteria as well.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  From a research perspective, first of all, as you know, there are still a lot of questions regarding the passage of resistant genes from bacteria that infect animals and the bacteria that infect man, the relationship between the agricultural use and the medical use of antibiotics.

Health committee  There is no question that this is part of the problem. It is not the only thing, as you well know, but it's certainly part of the problem. I think over-prescription is another huge problem, not being able to rapidly diagnose at point of care whether it's a viral antimicrobial infection with the result that the doctor will protect himself and prescribe an antibiotic where really no antibiotic should be prescribed.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR for short, it is my pleasure to address this committee and apprise the committee of some of our recent activities that are helping drive innovations in health care. As I am sure you are aware, CIHR is the Government of Canada's agency responsible for supporting all sectors of health research, from biomedicine to social determinants of health.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can't really answer that. As I said earlier, the government took a slew of preventative measures, including improving access to mental health care, creating suicide prevention centres, and, even, erecting barriers along railways to stop people from throwing themselves in front of passing trains.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If I may add, scaling up is not easy. We are realizing it is a problem we are facing worldwide. The World Bank is coming to us to ask how to scale up projects in western Africa, and how to deal with different cultural backgrounds and the scale of a project. We're dealing with a science that is a new science, the science of scaling up.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It depends on the program, but I am thinking about one where there are—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The answer is no, not to the 600 communities. We are funding research, so our role is to demonstrate that an intervention is effective. Then our role is to work with our colleagues to ensure that the effective interventions are scaled up in a way that is appropriate for the various communities where they are being scaled up.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —12 communities in one program, the same number. There are relatively small numbers of communities where the research is carried out. Don't forget that, again, we support the research so we cannot support care, which often goes with implementation science to a very large scale.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Is that question for me?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is, absolutely—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The situation was alarming because the suicide rate was one of the highest in the world not that long ago. Today, that is still true in Canada, but for Inuit populations, as you know. Unfortunately, we still hold the sad distinction of having the world's highest suicide rate among young men.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I can give you some details on that. It's a program-based government approach that relies on structured prevention policies. As is always the case when it comes to research, we are in the situation your colleague referred to earlier. We want to find out which policies had an impact and to what extent the impact of those new policies was positive.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We are working collaboratively not only with FNIHB and Health Canada but also with the Public Health Agency of Canada on these various issues, absolutely. We're in the same portfolio.