Health committee  We do actually support a number of research projects to look at the harms and possible benefits of e-cigarettes. We're supporting work to study the chemical components, actually, that are released by vaping products. We're also supporting a large-scale clinical trial that started in September 2015, still ongoing, on really looking at the safety and effectiveness of the use of the e-cigarette for smoking cessation.

Health committee  As you know, this is a major initiative aimed at allowing the institutions—the universities, actually, or the academic health research centres—to propose the creation of a centre of excellence in one priority area that would make the centre a really unique centre of excellence in the world in that specific area.

Health committee  Yes, absolutely, and I must say that the injection of $30 million in additional recurrent funding to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research has been extremely welcome. As recommended, as per the budget language, this money will be entirely invested in projects that are initiated by investigators.

Health committee  The research evidence will inform the development of a national strategy on concussions. CIHR is investing heavily in research that aims at improving the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Canadians who suffer from traumatic brain injuries, including concussions. Since 2011, we've invested close to $20 million in research on traumatic brain injuries.

Health committee  Only that at CIHR we are investing in palliative care research and looking at a number of issues associated with palliative care. We have, in particular, with a number of partners, recently invested $16.5 million in an initiative called “palliative and end-of-life care initiative", to look exactly at these issues.

Health committee  The short answer is yes. Any proposal for a clinical trial that is scientifically sound and has clear objectives could be funded by CIHR. I can only repeat what the minister has said about the importance of getting more scientific evidence on both the negative and the therapeutic effects of marijuana, because as the member said, there are very few clinical trials out there.

Health committee  This is something CIHR is already helping with. We're funding some work in that area. As you may know, DSEN, the Drug Safety and Effectiveness Network, has looked at this issue of the proton pump inhibitor and the relationship to C. difficile. We funded a number of studies looking not only at probiotics but at other approaches to treating C. difficile in the hospital.

Health committee  In CIHR-funded trials it's very clear. The requirement for registration and reporting of adverse effects is mandatory. It's part of the contract that we sign with the investigator when we give out the grant. Should the terms of the contract not be respected, they would be in breach of the contract, actually.

Health committee  We'd cut them off—

Health committee  Our only tool for enforcement is not being able to fund them in the future, indeed.

Health committee  First of all, I thank you for this question and for your comments. You should know that some of these new regulations will be incorporated in the TCPS, which is the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. We're again tightening some of the screws in the policy, which as you know is really the guideline used universally in Canada for ethics regulating trials.

Health committee  Well, very briefly, you're right; these reforms—and by the way, Canada has recently been commended in a PNAS article for these reforms—mean that we're going for a set of grants from two competitions a year to one competition a year, and that explains the so-called gap that you're talking about.

Health committee  Very rapidly, the answer is yes, and we've started. I'm proud to report that when I was president of the Fonds de recherche en santé du Québec, before holding this current job, I called upon CIHR when there was the scare of C. difficile in Quebec—as you know, a few years back—to work with CIHR to develop a major program of research on ways to diagnose early and find new ways of treating C. difficile.

Health committee  Once again, I can only reiterate the importance of fully understanding the reasons for it and of seeing how we can help caregivers. Let me remind you that, next September, Canada and France will host one of the G8 summits, the one following the London summit. The summit will specifically examine the best ways to collaborate on an international scale with the industrialized world, the world of medical devices and information technology, so that we can find ways to better assist caregivers in particular.

Health committee  Well, I can only concur, Minister. You're talking about the issue of prevention and early recognition. We're funding a lot of things. For instance, what are the right biomarkers? What are the standards in terms of the early deterioration that you can see through, for instance, brain imagery?