Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Not enough.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I could go on and on. We've also set up partners for engagement and knowledge exchange in the community to help us get the research evidence and the research results into the community to work more closely with them and to learn how to actually work more closely with the community.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have the numbers right now, but I can tell you, however, that in the area of aboriginal people's health—and I'm not talking only mental health, since as you know there is also a huge cross-correlation between other disorders and suicide—the number of people doing research on indigenous people's health in 2000 when CIHR was created was 37.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The number of indigenous researchers has also increased, but not by enough. One of the problems we are facing is, again, a problem of self-reliance, of support, of mentoring, of maintaining the cultural identity, and of maintaining the contact with elders, so that they have role models in the research community, but they also need to keep role models in their own community as well.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've developed a program to support that.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You have to start education early on. You have to decrease the dropout rates in high school. You have to bring them to university and once they're there, you have to build their self-reliance, their self-confidence....

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We're starting to get them in some projects while they're in high school.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. We are working at the community level. For instance, the ACCESS program, which is the major program on mental health in indigenous populations, which I talked about, has been working on the ground with communities. I mentioned the Eskasoni First Nation. That's also at the Sturgeon Lake First Nation, and Ulukhaktok in the Inuvialuit settlement region.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, they have. They're complex, but they all are part of the determinants of mental wellness.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We can send you some articles, absolutely.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are several documents, and we will be happy.... The report of the project, the outcome of the project during the two years of Canada's chairmanship is out, and we will certainly be happy to send this report to you. As I said, we are pursuing now.... It is great that under the chairmanship of the United States, they have decided to maintain the project and build on it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. It's been a major program launched in Quebec for preventing suicide. The results have been amazing, actually. As you know, Quebec had, among the provinces, the highest rate of suicide among youth. The effect of a systematic approach to prevention has massively decreased the rate of suicide among youth.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've been funding a number of communities. I can't pull open the exact number, because different projects will fund different numbers of communities. We've been funding particularly through major strategic initiatives and implementation science, as I said, which actually aims at integrating research and care.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First I would like to thank the committee as well for inviting me to discuss this critical issue of suicide prevention in first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities. As president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, I appreciate the opportunity to share with your committee the vital role that research is playing to address this tragedy.

Health committee  As you know, most of the research money, in fact all of the research money that we're disbursing, is disbursed on a competition basis. Obviously the provinces that have large infrastructure and can attract more researchers will get a larger share. It is a competition. It's best people, best ideas.