Health committee  Absolutely. We have been working on implementing that observatory for about two years. We have consulted data-gathering organizations. Our minister also held discussions with provinces and territories in the fall. Everyone has agreed to move forward with the initiative, and our partnership has enabled us to have a good national overview of the opioid crisis.

Health committee  Each of the action plans is available online, and you can see what each province is doing individually. In fact, yes, some have allocated funds to treatment beds specifically. As I said, Saskatchewan in particular has allocated funds specifically to methamphetamine use, and we expect that others might do the same.

Health committee  There hasn't been a specific discussion around the issue of amphetamines with regard to the pharmaceutical industry paying for treatment or other services related to that. As you know, there have been a number of discussions happening in the area of opioids and ensuring that we are restricting the marketing ability of pharmaceutical companies associated with that.

Health committee  This is an area that we have been discussing with CIHR and with, as I said, this network that they fund across the country, which is called CRISM. There is one study under way. We expect that they'll be looking at these issues more broadly. The way the funding rolls out is that we have calls for proposals that come in, and we do expect that this is an area that we'll be able to shore up.

Health committee  I think that, when you look at the issue of substance use, you really need to have elements of all four of the pillars that we have set out at the federal level, which are prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement, all supported by evidence. Harm reduction is an important pillar to any approach to substance use in Canada, and there are different ways you can implement harm reduction across the country.

Health committee  Generally what we would find is that, where needle exchanges are available, there are in fact fewer needles scattered about those sites. In fact, those are being returned and exchanged, so there is less needle debris associated with those sites—needle exchanges, supervised consumption sites or others.

Health committee  The evidence is very clear that there is a decrease in blood-borne infections when needle exchange programs are present.

Health committee  It's certainly something that we're aware Manitoba has been pursuing. Anything we can do to help first-line responders to react immediately to overdoses, in whatever form they take, is helpful. It's absolutely something that we're looking into.

Health committee  Essentially they treat the symptoms that might be exhibited. If it looks as if someone is suffering from psychosis, they might be able to administer a medication specific to psychosis. But with treatment, as I said, there is no immediate ability to reverse an overdose from methamphetamine.

Health committee  Currently the way that we're developing that drug observatory is by taking the data that's being developed by all the various ministries and putting them together. That funding is happening from funding that we already have through the Canadian drugs and substance use strategy.

Health committee  If you're asking about the federal funds, I can explain that. The way that we provided the funding for that was by looking at the overall number of deaths within the jurisdiction as well as the overall number of hospitalizations. There is, indeed, an increased number of hospitalizations related to first nations communities, particularly in the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Health committee  The reality is that various organizations collect data, but we have never brought that data together in a coordinated and comprehensive way. My colleagues in the RCMP and at border services collect data. StatsCan and public health collect data. We collect data. Our ability to bring that all together allows us the opportunity to start to really look for the first time—as Ms.

Health committee  Absolutely. Our chief medical officer of health has been talking a lot about that model and exploring it and looking at other ways of bringing that to Canada. We understand that there are some communities in Canada that have already started to try to implement that model. We're following up with them.

Health committee  Essentially, the idea of the model is that you provide outlets for youth so that they're able to be involved in sports or other extracurricular activities early on. This diverts them from any possibility or any desire to move into illegal substances because they're very active and involved in their communities.

Health committee  That number varies widely. The statistics I was giving were from quite a number of years ago. We are doing some baseline surveys right now to figure out how many people are still waiting for treatment. The number of people in treatment varies considerably. It's increasing because of the recent funding provided.