Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Thank you.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Just to add to that, we can implement the Ontario piece everywhere else in Canada, but it's important to take into consideration, for example, the particular cultural and other types of factors that are important to each province and territory, because they won't necessarily be the same as Ontario's situation in every case.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  I think you make a really fantastic point, because we need to reach the general population. This is something we're really interested in, as well, because it's not just elite athletes who are going to be suffering concussions. It's going to be elite athletes you see suffering concussions in the media, but of course everybody else can suffer the same injury.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  That's a great question. In the sport context for health care practitioners there's something called the SCAT5 right now, which is the sport concussion assessment tool. There are a bunch of questions and things they can go through with the athletes to get that first impression of whether they have a concussion or not and whether they suspect an injury, and then go on from there.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  You're right. In this picture, there are people who don't want to report, so we don't see those concussions coming up in the stats. We can kind of guess at that, and typically male athletes are going to be the ones who are not reporting as much. At the same time, there are other factors too, as you were mentioning.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Exactly.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Exactly. People will feel invincible and feel they can do anything on the ice. However, you're also forgetting that the person's head is their head, and there's a brain inside that you need to protect. Sure, they're wearing all this equipment, but you can still give them a concussion.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  —and internationally, as well. So while we haven't experienced concussion personally, we've been able to engage with people who have. There's also the research we're doing.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  It's here, under “Management”.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Essentially, the core of that is to say that some education initiatives exist—and as we mentioned, there needs to be more work on these—but the literature shows that not a lot of them include explicit mention of the mental health effects of a concussion. People don't necessarily realize that this is something that can happen, and when it does happen, you have worse effects.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  No.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  We've also been lucky in the policy work that we've done previously to have had so many opportunities to talk to Canadians who have suffered from concussions, as well as their families, caregivers, health care practitioners and so on, across the country in many different provinces—

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  That was Bill C-566.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  It was in 2014.

Subcommittee on Sports-Related Concussions in Canada committee  Putting it out there is the first step, and that alone will show Canadians that the federal government cares about this issue and recognizes it as an issue of concern.